La Ciudad Perdida, part two

(continued...) Arrived at the lost city, La Ciudad Perdida, via stone steps climbing straight out of the river - hundreds of steps up to the terraces of the city. La Ciudad Perdida was the holy city of the Tyrona people. It was built in the 800s AD and was in existence until the arrival of the conquistadors in the 1500s. The conquistators actually never made it to La Ciudad Perdida, but they conquered the Tyrona people who were living at the coast and, by way of infectious disease, managed to spread their foreign germs to the Tyrona people futher in the jungle and wipe them out. The jungle took over the city and was only discovered in the 1970s. 3 days from the nearest non-indiginous village it certainly is remote. There are 50 military stationed there, who seemed to be having a grand time. Actually they really were excited to see people. This one guy ran up to me while I was walking ahead to take some pictures. I was sure I had done something wrong and was going to get yelled at. No, he just wanted to chat me up! Sarah, Brooke, Muz and I had fun with our military photo session, as you can see.








Spent the night at the lost city and then started our trek back down. Here is us at the end... whew.










So, I said I´d get back to the Kogui people. They are the indiginous people living near the lost city and claim to be the direct descendents of the Tyrona. We kept interacting with them both on the trail and in our camps - the trail intersected their village and homes. Until La Ciudad Perdida became a tourist destination they had little interaction with the non-indiginous community. To this day the Kogui people who live above La Ciudad Perdida do not speak any Spanish and have not interacted with the ´outside world¨. I only have a picture of Kogui from afar. I really felt self-conscious taking photos of them up close. They seemed so shy and cautious around us, that's for sure. Our guide, Beto, filled us in on the lives of the Kogui. Well, it is a hard life, for the women anyway. As soon as they have their first period, they get married and start having children. They have one baby every year after that until - they have a birth complication, or a child with problems, or they can no longer get pregnant. They also grow and harvest all the crops, prepare meals and care for all of their children. The children, by the way, start having to pull their weight pretty early on. We came across 2 children - one about 4 or 5 who was minding his 2-ish year old sibling - just cruising around the jungle by themselves. By 40 the women are old, old. The men have it pretty easy by comparison. They take care of chopping down the big trees and, as far as we could tell, spend most of the day twirling their poporos, gourds with little sticks mashing the coca leaves up with snail shell which extracts the coca. We learned about 3 ´sacrifices´ which the Kogui still perform. The first is that if a child is born with a deformity or medical problem, they are suffocated by the chief. The second is that if twins are born, the weaker of the twins is also suffocated (the theme here is that the woman are pretty busy with their annual newborn, the rest of the children and all the other work they have to do, they certainly can't have 2 babies at once or a baby with problems!) And the last sacrifice is that when they get too old to travel to the village (crossing the river, etc, etc) they are given the ´special tea´ - which kills them. For the women this means late 40s, early 50s! The men seem to live a lot longer, or at least Beto told us about a chief who was 90 and had a new 15 year old wife. Oh yeah, once a woman can't have children anymore the husband can take a new wife, of course. Well I, for one, am pretty glad I wasn't born a Kogui woman!

La Ciudad Perdida, part one

La Ciudad Perdida. Lonely Planet describes this trek as an 'Indiana Jones style adventure', and they are not just kidding. I had heard from several traveler friends that this 6-day trek was a highlight of their travels, not to be missed. So, my friend, Sarah, and I decided that was all we needed to hear and, despite knowing few details, signed up enthusiastically. The group headed out on November 4th - election day - and I left thinking that I wouldn't find out the new president-elect of my country for 6 more days. Our group of 8 set out with our quiet guide, Beto, and his assistant and cook, Ismael. Right off, we were told that the road that the trek usually takes by Jeep prior to starting the actual trekking was washed out with all the rain - which would add 2 hours to our trekking time that day (from 5 to 7 hours.) Oh - did I mention that October and November are the rainy season in this part of Colombia? Travelers are recommended to do this trek anytime but the rainy season. Hmm. Anyway - we started off. 2 hours up we stopped at the village for lunch - no problems at all. The hike started to get steep, and long. Peter, one of the Swedes didn't feel so well and hopped on a mule (Peter and Lars flew straight from Stockholm to Bogota and bussed it directly up to start this trek. More on them later.) We continued along. Then it started raining. Downpouring, actually. The trail, which was already pretty crappy - torn up by mules and muddy as can be - got quite a bit worse. It was useless trying to avoid the muddy parts at this point and we had to start slogging through. Lars was wearing Tevas and, sick of them getting stuck - just decided to go barefoot through the mud slosh. Then it got dark. This proved to be even more interesting. At this point we had no hope of seeing the trail and were really slogging through the mud - up to our knees! We finally arrived at the 'hostel', essentially someone's home with a space for hammocks strung up for us. Here is what we looked like when we arrived. Wet and muddy!
That night, Lars started having the both ends disease and was in pretty rough shape. Uh oh. Oh yeah, and I whacked my head on a cross beam while coming back from the outhouse in the dark - and had some concussive symptoms. Great! (what is it with me and head injuries?) Slept, or at least lay down horizontally, in our hammocks. My first adventure with hammock sleeping, not as easy as I thought it would be.
Up the next morning and went through the routine: put on same wet clothes from the day before (we each had one day/wet set and one night/dry set), still wet of course, slathered ourselves in Deet and/or this stuff they sell there called 'No Pickex', a soap you don't rinse off (pretty sure it would be too toxic to be sold in the states,) then slathered the sun screen, treated the water for the day and after a lovely breakfast made by Ismael - we were off!
Oh, wait, what do you know? The family had a TV! That first morning I got to find out that Obama won. Yay!!! Glad to not have to wait for 6 days to find out. But no details. All they said was 'El negro gano!' (the black man won.) Was thinking of all of you celebrating at home, and feeling very far away - in the middle of the jungle. Here is where I saw the news!
The second day was not as difficult. Only 4 hours - and we walked through the villages of the indigenous people in the area, the Kogui. (More on the Kogui later.) This time we made it to the cabin before the rain started. And we even got to stay in real beds that night! Lars and Peter had made it this far, but travelled the second day on mules and were both feeling pretty sick and weak. Mules weren't possible on the last day and they had to head back without getting to the lost city, which was a bummer.
The third day, and trek up to the lost city, was in a lot of ways the most challenging. Maybe not physically, but somehow emotionally. Definitely the most technically challenging. In the beginning we had to traverse, essentially bouldering, across a rock face with a straight, steep drop down to the river below. Oh, and the rock was wet - of course! Then we crossed the river using this pulley device that the indigenous people made. High above the rapids. You know how I love the heights! I didn't look down. Here is Maarten going across. Then the trail proceeded up the river - and we crossed it 8 more times on foot. The rapids were crazy strong. Here is Maarten again demonstrating one of the crossings. There is NO way I would have made it across without either a rope or the guide holding onto my hand. I felt the current pulling me down every time I crossed. One time the river was up to my chest.
Finally we arrived at the entrance to La Ciudad Perdida, the lost city. No wonder this place wasn't discovered until the 1970s. The stone steps rise right out of the river, and climb and climb.... (continued in part two.)

Ahh... Colombia

Beautiful Colombia. What is it about Colombia? As soon as you cross the border - something is different. Is it the lush green mountains? The coffee farms? The salsa? No - I think it is the people. So friendly, chatty, and welcoming. So happy and full of the joie de vivre. They really want to get to know you. I think this is the reason so many people fall in love with this country. I sure did. It does seem a contrast for a country that has been through so much! Such resilience. Or maybe it is living through the trauma of the narcotics war that has made people have more of a life zest?

And there are still signs of the narcotics war everywhere. I have never seen so many men with guns in my life. They are EVERYWHERE. The highway, the grocery store, tourist attractions. Police. Military. Military Police. I guess it's supposed to make us feel safer? And, by the way, I think the average age is about 19. We decided that the military must have a good dental plan because 3/4 of them have braces! Teenagers with braces and big guns. It's quite the picture.
Despite this, I have to say that at first the sight of them was a bit disconcerting. We arrived in southern Colombia from Ecuador and in our second stop, Popayan, there happened to be a protest going on. Down the street from our hostel there was a line of police ready with their big 'riot shields'. Yikes. It was actually a protest on the government / president Uribe by the indiginous people and farmers for more rights. Seemed to be under control, but was still going on in Cali - where we had planned to head the next day. All info we gathered made it seem like we shouldn't have any problems. Headed out to the bus station with a guy we met in the hostel. Boarded the bus in Popayan and, about an hour on our way, we were stopped by the highway police. This had happened to us before and wasn't concerning at first. They usually just searched bags and seemed to pay more attention to the locals than the tourists. But this time was different. They only targeted the four of us. Asked us to get off the bus and took our passports. Double yikes. They searched our bags thoroughly. Oh, and our bus continued on without us. Barely even gave us time to get our stuff off the bus! We were in the middle of nowhere. They asked us a million annoying questions. What I did for a living, how much money I made, etc. Really started pissing me off and I don't hide that well (got to work on that, police don't like you to show them attitude.) They even wanted to see our cameras. What do you know, I had just taken a few photos of police from afar on my taxi ride to the Popayan bus station. I quickly deleted them as I was walking over to hand him my camera. Whew. After what seemed like an eternity (actually about 2 1/2 hours) they let us go. Drove us back to the bus station. When we got there different police again interrogated us. Thankfully, they didn't keep us for long. Of course we had to buy new bus tickets! The word was that they were looking for a couple of tourists who were trafficking. Hmmm. Anyway - after this incident we really didn't have any other problems. I hate to say it but I actually got so used to seeing the military and the police everywhere that I stopped even noticing their presence. Crazy.

And to go with these very random blog thoughts, I've included this random picture of dyed chicks. Yeah. I'm not sure either. They were in the baggage compartment on our bus across the border. Despite asking the owner of the chicks, and several other people, I never really got a good answer. They came in blue and green as well. Something like - it's a kitch quirky thing to sell?? was about the best answer I got.