Realising you're hardcore...priceless

It’s pretty amazing really. Despite years of strenuous resistance to any form of exercise, despite approximately 9 months (ok, let’s be honest, 20 years) of regular beer therapy, it seems that I am, in fact, rather fit (not at all meant in the pommy sense of the word by the way).

After chatting to a few travellers who had hiked to the Ciudad Perdida, I was pretty apprehensive. Most had found it challenging, a few hellish, and all of them had railed against the number of flesh eating insects who were seemingly determined to keep anyone from “finding” the Lost City of the Tayrona.

As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. Although there were a few tough stretches (nasty 40 minute uphill sections loom large in my memory here), for the most part it was fairly relaxed walking. Unbelievably, the fastest walkers were all Australian, even though we had a couple of Swiss (renowned obsessive hiking-types) and Dutch (loooooong legged advantage) in the group.

The hike takes you through the dense jungly foliage of the Sierra Nevada mountain range- the overwhelming impression is of cloying humidity, pulsating heat and more shades of green than a Derwent pencil box. Fortunately every day of hiking was punctuated by swims in the crystal clear mountain streams along the way, and most nights we camped next to a river.

Most people will tell you that the journey is more impressive than the destination, however the ruins themselves are pretty spectacular. Like Machu Picchu, the setting is really what takes your breath away.

The Sierra Nevada region used to be home to most of Colombia’s illegal coca cultivation. For years the trek to the Lost City was closed due to problems with paramilitary groups, drug production, kidnappings and conflict. Thanks to the heavy Colombian army presence and obsessive US foreign policy the area is now deemed safe for tourists, though frequent helicopter flyovers and a permanent army base at Ciudad Perdida are a constant reminder of days gone by.  

Only a year ago, trekking companies were taking groups for tours of jungle cocaine labs, complete with a “sample” at the end. In an attempt to stamp out demand for cocaine, the US concentrated their efforts at the source- fumigation of crops which led to widespread poisoning of the regions indigenous communities; manual eradication techniques which were thwarted by landmines. While the Sierra Nevada today is largely free of large scale coca production, demand for cocaine has by no means slowed, and production has merely shifted to other regions of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

While it would have been interesting to see what a line of marching powder would have done to group morale, we were forced to go for the more acceptable forms of energy such as oranges and bananas.

Although the campsites sold beers, we toughed it out and waited until the last day to crack open a cold one and celebrate finishing the trek in style. I think it’s fair to say that a few people in our group were somewhat impressed by our ability to storm up hills and sink cans with equal enthusiasm.