LOST CITY

Into the Colombian rainforest

By Rod Loboz

August 18^th, 2014

“Do you think I’ll live?” I asked the guide after letting her know I wanted to do the three day hike instead of the more traditional and less demanding four day option. We did roughly 50km of rainforest trail through Tairona country in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, all the way up to the archeological site of “Ciudad Perdida”. The trail took us trough lush rainforest scenery, climbing up and down the steep banks of the Buritaka river, going through native villages and at one point opening up to a spectacular view of Colombia’s highest mountains - Pico Cristóbal Colón and Pico Simón Bolívar, towering at 5,700 meters each. At night we slept in camps in the rainforest, hearing it come alive with the high-pitched sounds of thousands of insects. During the day we hiked under the humid heat of the rainforest, our clothes quickly becoming damp with sweat.

On the trail

The koguis

Along the trail we come across Kogui people, the men wearing knee-high black rubber boots and patiently drawing a stick across their “poporo”, a container for the powered lime they use to chew with coca-leaves, and go through their villages of round huts, where children clad in sooty white garments await the return of their parents. Kogui is translated as “jaguar” in their native language and they trace back their ancestry to the Tairona, the ancient dwellers of Sierra Nevada who built the “Lost City”. Their civilization and traditions have continued since Pre-Colombian times.

A constant presence along the trail

Teyuna

There’s a cable running across the Buritaka river just outside the last camp site — during rain season the river can rise well above the waistline. On the other side there are the 1,200 steps that take you up to the archeological site of “Ciudad Perdida” (Spanish for “Lost City”). The natives call it Teyuna, an ancient city part of a network that stretched all the way from the depths of Sierra Nevada to the Caribbean coast. It was never conquered by Spain and had long been forgotten until in 1972 a group of local treasure looters found the site.