Some people were curious, why are you making Colombia your first destination from Paraguay? Lets face it, Colombia doesn´t have the best reputation (although I felt perfectly safe there). One of my friends who lived there for five years lured me to visit with her with the idea of hiking up to Ciudad Perdida (the lost city). A quick search for some pictures convinced me that I could get into this 6 day hike and that the view at the end would be entirely worth it.
Ciudad Perdida is located high up on land that is controlled by the Kogi, one of Colombia´s four main indegenous groups. They strongly believe in protecting the environment and being stewards for their region (living a simple, quiet mostly agricultural life). Access to the area is limited and you can only go up through oneof the five tour companies that operates trips.
We lucked out with our chosen Turcol tour - only six people hiking, four from our group and one other couple. Add in the guide and a cook and we had a total of eight. The trip up was to take three days, and while some days really did require a lot of up, I don´t think we ever hiked more than five hours in one day. Making the whole trip a pretty pleasant experience, especially for a multi-day hike. The three days down went a bit faster, even if it was harder on my joints.
The challenge comes the third day when, after eight river crossings, you leave the river bed and begin climbing up the ancient stone steps laid into the mountain side. They claim its just 1200 of these up to the terraces. What they fail to mention is that those will only take you to the first lower terrace, and there is at least another 500 ahead of you to get to the main terraces. But it is worth it when you step up and see the main terrace ahead of you with a chain of about four more cut into the mountain side beyound. If you can ignore the presence of the military (there to protect the tourists) is seems magical. Calling you to explore and experience a small piece of this ancient communmity that laid stone pathways throughout the Sierra Nevadas. The site is a beautiful location set in the mountains where the mists roll in every evening to enclose you in a smaller world. But no matter what you might get distracted by you will always turn back to the terraces as if to assure yourself they are real and not something you imagined. Even as we started down, wandering past what they think was the quarry and additional smaller terraces, I know that I´ll leave here feeling as if I´ve had contact with a previous civilization. While I might enjoy being back down by the river and the peacefulness there, there is no doubt that the sight of the terraces on the mountaintop will be a lasting one in my memories.
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