I had a delightful time touring the north coast of Colombia with my old pals Josh and Iain. There’s not too much to report – no one needs to hear the details of our multiple delicious meals and hours spent chilling on beaches or in giant hammocks so I’ll limit myself to some pictures.
The only thing I will write about is the four day trek to the Lost City (billed as the Colombian Machu Picchu) that Iain and I did while Josh got his scuba diving qualification. It was another reminder that I love nothing more than extended marches, preferably in adverse weather conditions. Rain fell like you wouldn’t believe. We were at one with water.
The city was built in around the year 500 and abandoned when the Spanish conquest came, because even though the spaniards never found it, they brought diseases that spread and felled almost all of the inhabitants. Since then it hasn’t been used permanently by the indigenous tribes but is still used annually for special celebrations like weddings.
The land in this area was used from the 60s to grow marijuana and then from the 70s to grow coca leaves, all to export to America. It was more or less unpoliced. (Any police there were part of the process). The harvesters kept finding stone relics and then dug them up and found gold and treasures beneath so alongside the drug industry grew a graverobbing industry. Eventually the government cottoned up that this was happening and started controlling the area better, opening it up to tourists in the 80s. No one seems to really know the history and it’s fairly certain there are many more relics that the indigenous people aren’t sharing but it was amazing to see this huge city, incredibly well preserved (the stone structures in any case. The wood and mud huts did not stand the test of time) and to bathe under the waterfall where they baptized their babies.
emmaschlee 