Mule Train
We decided to take on one of the top 10 things to do in Columbia and that is hike to the Lost City. It is not overly high, just 1200m, but it is mix of up, down, grueling thick mud, ambling through jungle, 1200 steps, wading through rivers and everything in-between and rated hard plus. We opted to do it in 4 days, as we wanted to be back at the marina for Christmas. 5 of us set off from the marina so it was nice to have some familiar company. It was also nice to have some people near our age, as most of the others of the group were much younger. We started out the first day to the camp with mostly uphill, some of it grueling. Given that we were fresh and hyped up, it didn’t seem so bad but I was mindful that we would encounter the steep uphills as steep down hills when we would be tired on the last day. We set off with a guide, interpreter and cook. The guide, Juan Carlos was excellent. He had a very colorful past from being a coca plant grower, cocaine processor, and grave robber of ancient graves. He even had a necklace for sale from his days of grave robbing. He had certainly lived through some of the tumultuous days of this area when the drug kings ran it. He now was a guide and was very passionate about now preserving what was left of the past of this area. He knew many of the local Indians in the area and was able to give an insight as to how these local Kogui have survived the colorful past of this area in an effort to preserve their culture. Many still live in villages within the Sierra Nevada Mountains shunning most of the conveniences of modern day. We made camp 1 and enjoyed the first of the wonderful meals our cook had managed to make on typical backcountry stoves. We were just thankful that the locals Indians manage mule trains to carry up our food supplies. We slept in reasonable beds with mosquito netting, an essential in the jungle.