Ciudad Perdida, part 1

THE TRAIL:
The Sierra Nevada mountain range are the highest coastal mountains in the world and is the home of the indigenous Tairona people who built the city consisting of stone terraces and complex paths and stairs during the 11th century. This is now known as the Lost City or Ciudad Perdida. The Sierra Nevada Park opened the Ciudad Perdida site to the public in 1981. The trek there and back is about 48 kilometers and the trail starts at the mountain town of el Mamey, also known as Machete Pelao. This is at about 250m elevation and a three hour drive from Santa Marta.
We arrive at noon and are served lunch at the town. They pack up the burrows with our supplies, but we carry our own packs. We have clothes and towels and toiletries for the five days we will spend in the rain forest.

The trail starts off rather easy, following a mountain river. We cross the river and start the climb up the first mountain. It is a steep climb and we realize how little cardio exercise we get on the boat. The first day is the toughest, but the trail is wide and the views are fantastic.We get to the first camp at about 5:30 pm, a little sweaty and exhausted. The last of our group arrived two hours later. Tonight we sleep in hammocks. After a brisk cold shower, we enjoy a cold beer and a hot dinner. It's the first time we have slept in hammocks so it takes a little while to get comfortable. It is also a communal style of living which the young backpackers are accustomed to, but it is a new experience for us.
We have 15 in our group ranging in age from 21 to 54. I am the oldest. We are a pretty diverse group. Most of the others are on extended trips, staying in hostels and traveling around Central and South America. Quite a few also speak Spanish. We have a couple of guys from Paraguay, a couple from Germany and two guys from Colombia (one of which is American but has just moved to Colombia). Then there is a girl from Belgium, a girl from Sweden, a girl from Holland, a girl from Canada, a guy from France, a guy from Israel and a guy from Germany all traveling alone. I am really impressed by these young people who head out to explore the world often traveling on their own.

As we head out on the second day the guys who arrived late to camp took an hour head start. The trail leads us through beautiful mountain pastures, past cows grazing, Kogi dwellings, banana plantations and across numerous streams and waterfalls. The Kogi are the indigenous people living in this part of the Sierra Nevada. There are about 70 families living in this area. We meet them along the trail and they often show up at our camps to visit. The guides know them all and they offer them bread and sweets, often exchanging it for bananas or other fruit. You cannot take to take photos of them without permission. They are very short, probably no more than four feet tall. They all have long black hair, men and women, and wear traditional clothes. The women are barefoot while the men wear rubber boots.

This is an old photo of the Tayrona people taken at the Gold Museum in Santa Marta.

Continued in next installment...