This is from a REALLY long time ago, but I finally had some time to post it after writing it a month and a half ago.
The Ciudad Perdida hike is a 5 day-4 night hike through the northern Colombian jungle/mountains. Glenn and I scheduled our tour with Magic Tours, and wound up getting one of the best hiking groups I have ever been a part of. Jordan and Jono (who we met in San Gil) are an American and a Kiwi that went to grad school together in Boston, Dave, Tristen, Megan (Burra), and John (Pequena J) who were together in language school in Cartagena, and Rumer (Boom), a Dutch guy traveling South America. All of the people on the hike were awesome, and it made the experience so much better. (Side note: we started the group with one more guy, but he decided that he wanted to pretty much run the entire hike and left us after the first morning. I saw in the hostel later after we had all finished the hike and he said that he wasn't all about the "not having electricity." Really? You are out in the middle of the jungle, what do you expect?)
Some general thoughts from the trip:
1. I couldn't believe how luxurious the accomodations were. Real, clean toilets and showers and mosquito nets. Awesome!
2. They only allow 2 groups to set out hiking each day, which keeps the number of people on the trail at one time pretty low. Most of the time, you feel like you are out there all alone. Really cool!
3. The food was awesome. Each meal was a comida tipica prepared by the cook that hiked along with us. Our particular cook made some mean lentils and beans and had the most loyal little dog that I have ever met. He was always within 5 feet of the guy!
4. The mosquitos were not as bad as I had thought they were going to be. I tried to control the bites by wearing high socks for hiking. It worked pretty well, and I wound up only getting maybe 10-20 bites the whole time.
5. Temperatures were not as hot as I thought they would be. By 4 or 5 each afternoon, I was in a long sleeve underarmor shirt and long pants to help keep mosquito bites to a minimum. I had thought I would be way too hot in that, but I was perfect.
6. Our guides, Mauricio and Luis were incredible. They had out best interest at heart and wanted to make us the happiest that they could. 2 of the best guides that youd could ask for. If anyone goes there, head to Santa Marta and search out Mauricio. He works out of a travel agency in Hotel Miramar. 100% highly recommended.
Here is some day-by-day breakdown:
Day 1: Right along with Colombian time schedule, magic tours was 45 minutes late in picking us up from our hostel in Taganga. They finally came and shuttled us in to meet up with all of the other kids in the group in Santa Marta. We were all piled into a big old jeep (literally piled) for the 2 and a half hour ride to where we would start hiking. The jeep driver out there was pretty much awesome. He may have been a little bit drunk by the way he was crazily laughing at everything (we are not sure), but he got us there safe and sound. It was interesting to see that there were really no gas stations along the way, but there are stops along the side of the road where men come out with a big jug of gas and siphon it into the tank. Talk about throwback! The last hour of the ride was along an unpaved, washed-out road. It was a pretty rough ride, but pretty fun in the old jeep. We got to the village, which was literally out in the middle of nowhere. I was astounded about how they actually got building materials there to construct the buidlings with how bad the road was. We ate a small lunch and then set out on the trek at around 1:30 or 2. After about an hour of walking, we hit our first uphill of the hike - and probably the hardest uphill of them all. It took us about an hour to reach the top. We were all sweating like pigs at that point because of the humidity, but I didn't think it was overly difficult. Unfortunately, before we made it to camp for the night, it began to downpour, making it slippery going on the downhills where the path was clay. When we made it to the first camp, I was really impressed with how luxurious it was! We had running water, electricity, hammocks with mosquito nets, showers, and toilets. I hadn't expected to have all of this out in the jungle, but it was a nice surprise! We hung out that night and taught people in the group who didn't know how to play asshole, which became the go-to game throughout the hike. We hit the sack pretty early to get ready for hiking the next day.
Day 2: We woke up fairly late and sety out to start hiking at about 9. This day was only about 3.5 hours of hiking, so we took it easy for the most part. The worst part about the day was the morning where we had to put on our wet clothes and hikers from the day before. The landscape that we hiked though was impressive, crossing little rivers and streams along the way. The second camp was right along the major river that we followed the whole time. Because we made it there pretty early, we had some time to swim in the river and hang out on the rocks. I think that day was when our guide realized that putting us in a swimming whole made everyone really really happy. From there on out, anytime we got a chance to swim we took it. Instead of having hammocks, the second camp actually had mattresses and bunk beds to sleep in. This night was one of the best nights of sleep that I had on my entire trip. The temperature was perfect and the sound of the river was something right out of what you would hear on one of those soothing sound CDs people play to sleep to.
Day 3: An early wake up call. We got up at around 5, ate breakfast, and set out for out longest day of hiking. Mauricio gave us the optilon of making it to the ruins on day 3 instead of 4 so that he could show us a really special waterfall that is not really on the tour and not many people get to go to. With our love for water, we didn't have a 2nd thought about doing that, so we trekked to the ruins in the afternoon. To get to them, we hiked up hundreds of steps for about 30 minutes. The ruins themselves are not as incredible as some others I have seen, but the setting is spectacular. When we reached the highest tier of the 1,500 year old ruins, you could see jungle-covered mountains all around us. Pretty amazing scenery! On the way back to the camp from the ruins, we used a river route, which entailed a lot of wading through fast moving water - great times! After the ruins, Mauricio sat down with us and explained some of the history of the hike and of Colombia. Really interesting stuff to learn about how, as late as 1991, murders, disapperances, and car bombs were the norm throughout the country. He also told us about the kidnappings that happened at the ruins in 2003 when the ELN came to the ruins and kidnapped 9 tourists for up to 3 months for negotiations with the Colombian government. Mauricio also told me that as little as 4 months ago, the first camp that we stayed out still had a demonstration of how to make cocaine due to its importance in the history of the country. Getting all of this information is another reason why going with Mauricio was a blessing. It really enriched the experience of the hike.
Day 4: We woke up early again for another day of long hiking. We had about 6 and a half hours of walking to make it back to the first camp where the waterfall was. Luckily, we got great weather for the day and had no problems making it back in time to get to the waterfall. Getting to see the waterfall was amazing - one of the highlights of my whole trip. It was about a 20 meter waterfall cascading over ribbed rocks. We actually got to climb down the side of it, and once we got to the bottom we cimbed under the water and let it pound our backs. One of the best massages of my life!! The water was so strong that you actually had to cover your head with your hands so that it didn't hurt. After playing in the waterfall for a while, we climed back up to a another smaller waterfall with a big pool where we could jump and dive off of the rocks. Luckily, Jordan had out her good camera and took a bunch of pictures of us. I'll be getting those in an email soon I hope! Like I said, this was one of the best parts of the trip and something special because it is a hidden gem.
Day 5: A quick hiking day to end the trip. I was really sad to have to say goodbye to the lungle and the people on the trek. It was suck a great 5 days that I didn't want it to end. But, alas, all good things come to an end I guess. The transport back was a little bit rough for me in the back of the jeep. I felt like I was going to hurl a couple of times because of the hotness and rough road, but I made it back to Santa Marta alright and had one of the best showers I have had. I had been wearing the same set of hiking clothes for the whole hike, so it felt good to get out of them and into something a little bit more clean. Everything still smells really, really bad...but that is a minor byproduct of trekking through the jungle for 5 days.
As any good tour group would do, we decided that we needed to take our guides out for a dinner and drinks to celebrate making it to the city and back. It wound up being a great night of drinking, dancing, laughing, and me translating spanish to english. An appropriate end to what was one of the best 5 days of my trip!
"Jungle love, is drivin' me mad, is makin' me crazy."
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