Ciudad Perdida

Moving east along the Caribbean coast of Colombia is Santa Marta. This city is very hot but sits at the base of a triangular mountain range that reaches heights sufficent for year-round snow at the top.

This is the small bay of Santa Marta. The oil rig is momentarily there for maintenance.

In the mountains are the ancient ruins of Ciudad Perdida (Lost City)- built by the Tairona civilization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Perdida).

It was a 6 day guided excursion to visit. We loaded our gear and ourselves into a jeep and spent 3 hrs climbing up a dirt road to the trailhead.

This is our group, 13 backpackers, at the trailhead. It consisted of people from Australia, Scotland, Israel, Sweden, United States, Trinidad & Tobago.

And this is the guide and his helpers getting the food and other group gear onto the back of a mule. Those are Kogi children alongside.

The hike was relatively easy but the first day was very hot. This is me soaked in sweat.

The views were, of course, pleasant. A lot of effort has gone to preserving the forests in these mountains as a watershed.

We slept in hammocks covered by mosquito netting (a recurring theme on jungle treks and travels.)

This is where we spent the first night. Campesinos (aka Mountain People) live in the lower parts of the mountains while the Kogi live in the upper parts with a much lower impact on the land (for better or for worse?)


Campesino kids...
Kuna kids...
The second day we were higher in the mountains so it was cooler. However we had to cross a river several times so we were well soaked... again.

At the end of the river crossings the original stairway to the ruins begins - it consists of more than 1000 steps (yes, I got the number of zeros correct.) This us heading to the start of the stairs (center of pic.)

This is a picture I took going down the stairs to the river.

As we began climbing the stairs, the clouds moved in and a downpour commenced. We reached the top of the stairs absolutely SOAKED.

We spent the third and fourth nights at the ruins.


The ruins are heavily protected by the Colombian army and a contingent was dispatched with our group as our guide showed us the ruins.

A major wooden house or ceremonial center sat on each of these round platforms. This was an area of worship.

Underneath the houses the bodies of past community leaders were buried after being fitted into large clay pots (these are small people) along with gold artifacts. It was quite easy for pillagers to find the gold and what little remains is due to a jungle tree that was impervious to their axes and grew where the houses had once stood. There is gold under this tree. (and that is an Israeli I became good friends with.)

A lot of the gold artifacts are contained in museums throughout Colombia.