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

La Ciudad Perdida (Trek to the Lost City)

We've just spent six days in the jungle on a trek to La Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City) in Colombia. This has been my first chance to use the internet - as well as have a shower, do laundry, put on clean clothes and do lots of other things I usually do every day back home.

We signed up for the Lost City Trek on our first day in Santa Marta. The entire trek worked out at about NZ$50 per day and included two guides, entrance to the Lost City, six days of accomodation, food, water and mules to carry our food. It was amazing. I have never been more sweaty, dirty or fatigued than I have been over the last six days. Luckily the group we were in was a really cool group and everyone got along really well. There were 12 of us in total - four Kiwis, four Americans and four Brits.

We took the trek pretty slow, only doing a few hours each day, but with the sun and rain beating down and carrying all our stuff on our backs it was pretty hard. Not hard for our guide Miguel, who was pretty much cartwheeling up the hills while carrying an entire supermarket on his back. We slept in hammocks each night and our guides cooked us delicious food that was totally unsuitable for hiking, like empanadas and deep fried dough balls. We drank water straight from the river (so far so good). We also washed in the river.

The distance to the Lost City was 45km there and back, but it was a rough road and we had to cross the river about 107,546 times. At one point I asked Miguel whether the river was dangerous to cross (as it rained heavily at 3pm every dayand the water had risen to our shoulders).

"For sure, it's dangerous" he said confidentally, "but it's not a problem".

There was once when Miguel decided the river was in fact too high to cross, so he whipped out his machete and hacked a path through the jungle for us. It was the most hazardous path I have ever been on. I actually feared for my life. After that I was almost bounding across the rivers and never asked him again.

The actual Lost City was 'Lost' until 1975, when some explorers (read: gold robbers) came across it and plundered everything. Since then, local guides have been taking tourist treks to the city, and groups were even able to camp in the ruins until four months ago (Some people were taken hostage by the paramilitary and tourists were ruining it anyway). There were 1200 (extremely slippery and hazardous) steps to get up to the city and it was an amazing sight. Only the foundations of the city remain but a couple of replica houses have been constructed, which are actually the same as the houses the local indigenous people live in now.

The city itself was swarming with mosquitos. We were absolutely eaten alive by them (but it was worth it). I lost my repellent so I used someone else's, but I am still able to count 102 bites on just one leg.

Nicola