Return from Lost City

We woke up in the Ciudad Perdida, one of the last groups to do that because they have apparently closed the accommodation in the city for environmental reasons. After breakfast, Castro took us on a tour around some of the site. It's too big to cover all of it in a day, he told us, and since we only had a morning we had to begin quite early. First he took us to a reconstruction of the houses that they built on the platforms, but it wasn't in very good condition. Castro said that when they were in use, the people would be burning fires inside all the time, and the smoke that permeated through the palm frond roofs kept the plant material dry and protected it and the walls from rotting, but because the reconstruction was not being used it would only last about two years rather than the 30 years they would have lasted back in the day.

Reconstructed buiding

Tayrona hand mill

Different mills for different substances

He showed us various small stone hand mills, each size and shape of stone used to grind a different substance, including sea shells, the trade in which was the only reason they needed to keep contact with civilisations at sea level. The powdered shell was kept in a gourd and used to mix with the coca leaves they chewed, acting as a catalyst and releasing the alkaloids faster, very much like the stuff the driver in Bolivia gave me on the Salt Flats tour. Even to this day – and we saw this, despite not be descendents according to Castro, all of the men carry a gourd full of some alkaline substance, into which they dip a stick to get a small amount to put in their mouth, then scrape off the saliva in the gourd neck, so the powder doesn't get wet. This constant addition of saliva to the gourd causes the neck to get fatter over time, so you can tell how long someone has been using a gourd by how fat the neck is. From when the boys are very young, they carry a little bag (you will see them in previous photos), whereas girls all have a necklace. The bag is for carrying coca leaves and their custom when they meet, is not to shake hands, but for both men to take leaves from their bag and put them into the other man's bag. The gourd is something that you only receive from the father of the girl you are going to marry, when that time comes. I'm sure Castro told us all this about the Tayrona culture, then later referred to it among the Kogui who he says are not their descendents. So why do they continue the same millennium-old cultural traditions, exactly?

Brick in the process of being cut

As of to prove what he said about how they felled trees, he showed us a piece of rock, which has a brick-shaped scar on it. This, he claimed, is an acid mark, which is also how they made all of the bricks the platforms were built from: bit by bit burned grooves with acid form plants, then when deep enough, they simply prised the brick off the rock. Seems like it would take a mind-boggling amount of time to build something tiny that way, but who knows? If you have loads of them going at once, all at different places, maybe it could work. There are plenty of fruit trees round the city, which Castro says have been there since the Tayrona people planted them, but one of the other crops they domesticated early was tobacco. And, of course, coca.

Tobacco is beautiful. Who knew?

Butterfly pretending to be an owl, I assume

Gemma's "keep warm dance" looks a lot like Morecambe and Wise

For a while he sat in the Mama's chair, where he used to overlook the ceremonies when people from all over the area came to what at the time was called the Gold City. There was a tool booth, where outsiders were required to pay in gold in order to attend the ceremony. This gold, in turn, was used to plate yet more of the city, or make the pure gold face masks worn by the Mamas. We were re-joined by a dog that had followed us most of the way up, disappearing occasionally, that the information at the entrance had explained about. This dog apparently chooses groups and spends all of its time just going up and down the trail, but nobody owns it or knows where it came from.

Castro in charge

I wouldn't trust her with a machete

Ceremonial platform

Dog followed us the whole way up and down

Castro showed us a couple of rocks with lines carved into them. One was supposedly a map of the Ciudad Perdida and another one a map of the entire Tayrona kingdom. I wasn't convinced. He showed us a hole in the ground which he said was a jail, with scrapes on the floor marking the passing of years, which was more believable. And then it was the descent.

A map of the Ciudad Perdida. Supposedly.

A map of the region. Hmm.

Jail

Counting off the years

We passed more Koguis on the way down, so I took more photos. We had all been scorning the tourist who bring sweeties up and give them to the kids, since they don't have toothpaste, but the father of one group came around asking if anyone had a cigarette for him and something sweet for his kids. So what can you do if the parents are asking for it? The father, though, looked like he was about fourteen despite having children who must have been about two and four. They age well those Koguis!

Cute Kogui kids

Their dad!

Kogui family

Alex throws the Frisbee

And they don't have toothbrushes...

It was really all the same in reverse: beautiful jungle, lovely swimming, lots of nice stodgy food, and Ali getting carried. I think she got a mule in the end.

My kind of jungle trek

More green

Greenest of all greens

We had discovered that the Americans were all planning to take six days, more out of thrift than anything else: they could get an extra night's accommodation and an extra day's food if they took six days. Everyone else, though, had had enough or had somewhere they needed to be. I needed to get back to Cartgena to organise my passage to Panama, if Joanne hadn't already done it. I didn't know because I'd had no mobile reception. Last I knew, the flight home from Panama was going to cost more than we expected and she had made enquiries about possible boats. After a bit of pleading for the rest of us to stay the extra day, Castro had to make arrangements to split his group in two. This meant us joining another group, while the Americans would be getting up later on our last day, to hang around for a bit, presumably also with another group, because Castro was having to get up earlier than everyone to run ahead and tell the next night's place that it would be only the four Americans, then continue on to the bottom to tell them that the rest of us would be wanting lunch soon.

See I was there

They fed us a lot

We started off quite a bit later than we were meant to, but I ran most of the way, passing everyone else, including Jamie who'd had a head start and was also going pretty fast. Finally I remembered to stop and take some photos of the leaf cutter ants which had been all over the path on the way up, but seemed a bit sparser on the way down. Amazing creatures! They still didn't catch me.

Leaf cutter ants

Right across the path

Loads of them

Busy ants

When I finally got to the last swimming spot, I dived in and was overtaken by Jamie and the fastest girl from the group we had joined. Even ten minutes in the ice-cold river didn't cool me down enough from the run, so I was still a bit sweaty by the time I arrived at the entrance restaurant; definitely not as fresh as the people who had been there when we started. I'm still convinced there must be a shower for customers in the back or something. Anyway, the beer tasted good, the food was great, and Jamie said that he thought the three young Americans had been really funny with all their chat, and made the trip for him, but he wasn't going to take it if he heard Jungle Boogie one more time.

Last swim

It is actually quite deep in places

Castro had been such a great guide that we all chipped in a tip for him, then I think he had to run back up to pick the Americans up again! And for us it was another bumpy jeep ride back to Santa Marta.

written by

The Happy Couple on January 12, 2010 from Ciudad Perdida, Colombia

from the travel blog: Michael's Lonely post-Honeymoon

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