Excuse the lack of updates but I was in the jungle. I got back from my trip to Ciudad Perdida (Lost City, now found) about three days ago and since then I have been up to my ears in seawater. I started my PADI Diving course here in Taganga as soon as I got back and tomorrow will be my third day of diving (For those of you who know their shit, I´m doing the PADI Open Water and Advanced Open Water courses here).
So, I had a frickin´ ball on the trip to the Lost City. It took three days of (relatively easy-going) walking to get there, we spent two nights there and then it took two days (slightly less easy-going) walking to get back. I was lucky with the group as well: two Aussie guys, an English girl, a Scottish girl and a French guy... all cool people.
We took a jeep from Santa Marta at the coast until the road stopped and then hiked from there through to the Lost City through the most amazing landscape. We crossed rivers wading, over crazy-assed bridges and by hanging cage. We visited an untouched indigenous village and battled with all kinds of livestock for our right of way. We cooked over campfires, drank water from the streams and rivers, slept in hammocks and cleaned ourselves in the rivers and under waterfalls. It was fucking idyllic.
This part of the country is controlled by the paramilitaries (i.e. not the government) but they were friendly and let us pass without problems (they get paid off by the guide). They even explained their raison d´etre and ideology to us, gave us fruit and cigarettes when we passed and even let us take pictures of them (and us with their guns - see thephotos). See links below for more info about Colombia´s civil war:
We walked early every morning so that we could avoid (most of) the afternoon rain... remember that its rainy season here and that although the mornings are glorious, the heavens open at some stage in the afternoon and it doesn´t let up until the next morning. On the fourth day, we had to walk for nine hours so we got caught in a serious downpour but it only serves to cool you off after all the walking (although it does make it more likely that you will fall on your snot). The evenings were spent playing cards and other relaxing social activities.
The Lost city itself is an impressive array of foundation sites for mud/wood huts used by the Tayrona Indians about fifteen hundred years ago. It has stairs and irrigation systems everywhere and is spread across a ridge between two mountains with spectacular surroundings.
Anyway, check out the pics and I will update soon with some diving pics hopefully. Am doing wreck dive and night dive on Monday and today I saw a trillion fish and lobsters and moray eels etc. Smellya later people.
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