The Lost City - Part I (including synopsis)

A quick synopsis captured well by another explorer and adapted by my personal experience: "Uphill, downhill, mud, more mud, lots of mud, slipping in the mud, falling in the mud, getting stuck in the mud, sweating, sweating profusely, getting bitten by mosquitoes, getting bitten by ticks, getting bitten by bedbugs, wading through the river, wading through the river again, slipping on rocks while wading through the river for the 10th time, climbing up and down a twelve hundred teeny tiny steep steps, sleeping in hammocks, sleeping on old mattresses reeking of jungle pong, feeling sick, being sick, chundering everywhar."

The lead up to our trek was all of a day and a night - in hindsight this was no good thing. I had the brilliant idea of getting our hair braided (which did actually make the trek slightly more enjoyable). Little did I know this would take up a whole day and leave us a few hours to run around Santa Marta to find the various bits of treking clothing we would need. Apparently Santa Marta doesn't do trek gear!?!? So we had to buy what we could from some beach hut by our hostel in taganga at 9pm and got severly ripped off despite some rather brilliant bargaining from the three of us. So we solemly walked out of this beach hut with a pair of swim shorts each and some Indiany looking gringo pants for £60000!!! ok not quite, but I really can't tell you how much they cost all I can say is all the stuff we bought probably amounted to half we spent on going in the trip!!


Exhausted we made it back to a meal cooked for us by out new English friends, who we had travelled all of Colombia with, our farewell meal. It was sad to say good-bye but we are sure to bump into them again soon.
And off to bed for an early night.

I had nightmares of the trip mum sent me on (without consent - a favourite of hers) when I was 13.  A trip to Snowdonia which had involved some walking, which I thoroughly hated. I had an epiphony - 6 days of trekking probably wasn't really my thang! Luckily thinking of Father Christmas soon sent me off into dreams... Plus there was nothing I could do now - deposit and gringo pants paid for - I was trekking whether I liked it or not.

An early start of 7am. Big bags packed to be locked away and just our little packs with our set of dry clothes, underwear, mozzie spray and toilet roll. Little did we know how important DRY clothes would be...

Our guide John picked us up from the hostel and we met Frank from Ireland who was also in our group. Then we made our way to Tahona Park in which the Lost City is located. A couple hours drive on normal roads and then a whole hour of what I can only describe as level 5 off-roading, where Alice would keep getting INSIDE the car. We did have to remind her we weren't actually rafting, but we may as well have been. There was a time when the car nearly tipped on it's side and I simply thought that wouldn't be a good start! Luckily we made it alive to the village where we were stopping to have lunch. Here we met the other group we would be trekking with. Alarmingly they were ALL wearing tshirts that were bragging about various other hardcore treks they had done - oh shit! This was a thought that rarely left my head the whole 5 days).

As we eat our lunch we wave our driver off and the three of us dwell on what we think is to come. Lunch over and time to go. From the corner of my eye I see flo having what can only be described as a mild panic attack... She had left her trekking shoes in the car -- by which point was half way back down the rapid. GOOD START! Our fellow Trekkers didn't seem to find the funny side so we had to start whilst John, our guide, stole someones moped to rapid it back down to the car to pick them up.

So off we went flo in her DRY shoes which were dry for all of five mins!
Apparently crossing rivers a million times a day is all part of jungle trekking?!

Five mins in we had lost all possible friendships with our honesty about lack of fitness, this being out first trek and us all hating walking. All said with a smile on our face and through our rather loud panting, which had started a bit too early or my liking. In fact id just like to say we were a lot more positive than I thought we would be - I was certainly putting a brave face on it, as on the outside I may have been laughing - but on the inside there were definate tears. Half an hour in, still panting but laughing - shit got serious. This was no walk in the park, even though it may have looked like one. All I could see ahead of me was a red rocky never ending vertical slope - and I was right about it being never ending. WHAT AM I DOING went through my mind constantly for the next hour.

I honestly feel it would be rude to fellow lost city trekkers all over the globe to try and recapture in words how hard the beginning of this trek was. No-one wanted to admit out loud that they were seriously regretting the decision to do this, but believe me we were all thinking it (It all came out at the end!)

Anyway after what I could call level 5 trekking for an hour or two we had a break with watermelon, how thoughtful. I would have rathered a lift home, but hey watermelon was great too. Then another hour and a half trek and we would arrive at base camp 1. It was a tough old slog and it reassurred me that our fellow hardcore trekkers were as red and panty as I was by the end of it. What a relief to arrive at camp and to discover we were sleeping in hammocks, which I was rather excited about.

SIDENOTE: Since I've been travelling I've fallen in love with hammocks, and Krissie and I decided if either of us ever became PM everyone will be given one for free.

Anyway our guide told us that we could go for a swim to cool off. He took us to a rocky cliff next to a waterfall which we jumped off into a natural pool. Bit nerve racking and reminded me of my near death experience in Spain, but jumped in all the same and it was extremely refreshing. Then dried off, sprayed a can of mozzi spray on my body and into my DRY clothes and hung up the wet ones to dry...

6am the next morning having learnt that I hate hammocks, the blanket theyd given us smelt like a gorrilas armpit, 3hrs sleep and intense jungle pong didn't make me a happy bunny- you can imagine my relief when I discovered that wet clothes don't dry in humidity!!!!! You what?? No. I am not getting into wet clothes at 6am!! Oh, apparently I am and I'm meant to do it smiling? I hate the jungle already - and to be honest I don't want to find the lost city now anyway...

To be Continued....