Trekking to Ciudad Perdida... With the Help of Some Medicine and a Mule

It was a rather inauspicious beginning to the Ciudad Perdida trek. The group that left a minute ahead of us encountered an injured bull that panicked and charged them, hitting the guide and one of the trekkers. The first in our group saw the bull crashing into the jungle off the left bank, and we walked up to find the trekker sitting dazed on the side while her group members tended to her bloody lip and leg. The guide, who was having trouble breathing, and her ended up turning around.

This was just about 15 minutes into the four-day trek.

The rest of the day was happily uneventful as we hiked through lush green hills, in an area where cocoa was once farmed for the drug trade, but has been turned into a national park.

Picking our way through the mud

Other than the bull encounter, the most excitement happened when a girl in our group surfed down a treacherously muddy section. 

The Ciudad Perdida trek was made famous when a group of trekkers were taken hostage by the FARC in 2003. Discovered in 1975 in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta mountains, 60% of these ancient ruins are estimated yet to be unearthed. Constructed between 500 and 700 AD, the Lost City was the residential and ceremonial center of the Tayrona culture. 

The Tayrona people no longer exist, but their descendants, the Wiwa and Kogui people, still live in the same mountains. 

Day Two of the trek had a similarly inauspicious beginning. I woke up before our wake up call of 5 a.m. and had to scramble to avoid vomiting in the bed itself. Note to self, when you're feeling nauseous and there is a chance that you might have to lean over the foot of the bed to throw up, don't leave your shoes there. (And to the German girl who bunked on top of me and who also left her flip flops at the foot of our bunk bed, I apologize, thanks for not being squeamish, and I hope my rinsing your flip flops off was enough!) The guide gave me a pill to take that stops vomiting that I chased with an indigenous remedy of guava bark tea (cut up from the tree, never down I was told) to settle my stomach. And then we started hiking. My shoes, freshly washed, were very squishy and wet. 

No appetite and exhausted, I soldiered through a morning of hiking. This was one of the more miserable days of hiking I've done, topped only by the altitude sick hiking I did the first time I hiked Mt. Whitney. By the time lunch came around, I threw myself into a hammock and immediately fell asleep. Over lunch, I began feeling lightheaded, which is when our guide Juan Diego gave me a choice. He told me that the afternoon was going to be harder than the morning and I seemed weaker than I had been in the morning. So I could stay at the camp, which is where the group would return the next day, or I could rent a mule to carry me most of the afternoon. I've hiked enough to know my limits, and I knew I didn't have the energy to hike a whole afternoon in the heat, humidity, and up a big hill. It killed me to take the mule, but the alternative was to stop. And then I'd have to come back? Everyone stared as I got on the mule. I think I was particularly sensitive because of all of the 60 some trekkers, I was the only Asian girl or Asian person there. That's the part of being in the minority-- you always feel like you're representing. It didn't help either when I overheard a German guy in a different group say to a companion as I was on the mule, "I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror if I took a mule." 

I still ended up hiking a couple of parts that the mule couldn't do, including the last part in the pouring rain. Jungle rain is like the sky tearing apart and having buckets of water dumped on you. It was so refreshing, but I would not be dry again for the rest of the trip. Either from sweat in the intense humidity or rainstorms-- wet would become our new state of being. 

That night I could barely eat a few tablespoons of rice. It is so rare for me to lose my appetite that it always causes me serious concern when I do. My stomach grumbled in protest of every grain. I knew I needed energy, but I just couldn't eat much. 

I went to sleep hoping that by morning, when we were supposed to be heading to Ciudad Perdida, that I would be better. Or at least good enough. 

Day Three, our "summit day," began inauspiciously as well, as I ended up having to pop an Immodium to stop up the other end.

But the good news was that my appetite was back! I was so happy that I felt good enough to finish the hike to Ciudad Perdida. I could tell I was more energetic because I was talking again, taking photos, and noticing little things. 

Crossing the Buritaca River to get to the Ciudad Perdida

The actual area of Ciudad Perdida that us trekkers are allowed to wander is quite small, and reminded me a little of a very nice miniature golf course, with grassy terraces on top of each other. Of course, one huge difference is that it's in the jungle and surrounded by stunning mountains. 

Ciudad Perdida

I'll have to look up re-imaginations of what Ciudad Perdida might have once looked like at its height. Visiting ruins is an exercise in ghosts and imagination. 

Exploring Ciudad Perdida

We passed many industrious leaf cutter ants

It rained at the same time in the afternoon on this day, and by then we had all learned that it was futile to try to dry our things. 

Like the day before, it was so humid that nothing was even one bit drier the next morning. We were all joined in solidarity in our combined miserable wetness. One of the German girls on our trek was so sweet that after I mentioned that I had no more dry underwear, she offered me one of her own! Putting on the wet, cold, clammy, and by that point, mildewing clothes and socks then next morning was so very uncomfortable. 

Even so, I enjoyed the hike back down more than I had the way up. More than anything, I was happy just to be on my own two feet walking.