Cogi Family

An indigenous family living in the mountains near La Ciudad Perdida. This family were Cogi (the ancestors of the Lost City inhabitants).

One of the highlights of the trek was talking to the local indigenous family at one of the camps, who were Wewu (seperate from the Cogi). They spoke good Spanish as well as their native language, and they had learnt a little English.

The father of the family, who was probably our age (and whose name I could neither pronouce nor spell) showed us all his crops (plantain, potato, coca) and told us about his family. We taught him some English words and he taught us some words in Wewu. The family was pretty well off (they had two horses and owned the land that we were staying on), but they were still very isolated. He had a notebook with drawings but didn't actually have a pen, so I gave him mine. Their house was made of mud and stone and they wore simple, white sack dresses or toga-like gaments, but they all carried these intricately woven coloured bags and the girls and women wore beautiful beaded necklaces. They were one of the few Wewu familes around as the two local village clusters were both Cogi familes, and they were almost entirely self-sufficient.

Nicola