We all have so much to say about our recent 6 day trek to The Lost City in Tayrona National Park. For starters the trek was supposed to be 5 days long, but we'll get to that in just a second. Since the 4 of us will obviously have 4 different point of views from the trek, we're going to break this post up into 4 separate paragraphs and let everyone voice there opinions, we'll include pictures and some great video at the end.
Big Cat:
Initially I was very pumped for the hike. We had heard a lot of great things about it and apparently the scenery and trail rivals that of Macchu Picchu. On the jeep ride up the mountain (12 km of winding awful roads) I was feeling a bit feverish, it was a feeling I would have for the first two days of the hike, it was miserable. I will say that the trail and scenery were definitely incredible, but I felt sick as a dog and I was hiking 6-8 miles a day uphill then downhill then through rivers and forrest. Luckily I was able to kick the sickness by the 3rd day... Just in time to get to the base camp at the bottom of the Lost City.
The camps were all very cool and our group/guides were incredible, I want to give a shout-out to our Aussie friends Greg and Liron ("Legs"). They made the trip even more enjoyable and we look forward to meeting up with them again in Cuzco in a week or so. Also a shout-out to our friends Bec, Simon, Andres, Ben & Brent, Alaska, Mel Gibson (our UK friend), "P," Mae, and Owens. I don't think I would have wanted to share a one room school house floor with any other people in the world. And last but certainly not least shout-out to our guides Eduardo, Javier, and the Cogi Indians you saved our lives when we were stuck in between two raging rivers as the sun went down and we were being pummeled by a tropical storm (video at the end of the post).
The Lost City itself was very cool, extremely old, older than the Incan, Mayan, and Aztec civilizations. Very green and we had to climb 1200+ steps to get up there, I believe that is more than the Sears Tower.
The ride back down was a bit chaotic. We left the mountain in some jeeps just as it started to downpour. We were driving through raging rivers in the middle of the road and landslides were happening frequently, I was scared shitless. Also we had to get out of the jeep a few times when it got stuck so we could get it out of the mud. We finally got to a small oasis at the top of the mountain where there was a small school house and two other tiny buildings where a family lived. Needless to say we made the decision to stop there for the night after a landslide happened in front of the school and the jeeps could go no further. This was on the 5th day when we had been getting rained on for the previous 3 days before that. Every inch of our bodies and clothes were soaking wet and there was nowhere to sleep but the floor of the school. We huddled together on the floor of the school house with a few blankets and tarps that were provided by the family... God bless Colombians and their incredible hospitality. We woke up at around 4 am and walked the remaining 10 km in the rain to the bottom of the mountain and VICTORY!!!
This trek definitely goes down in the top 3 craziest things in my life and the adventure and story is completely worth the suffering we went through during the trip. All in all I am a better person for having done it and I would definitely recommend it to anyone else... Although I doubt any of you will take me up on that after you see the videos Haha!
Big Cat Out
Chaz:
Alright, I know your "daily shot with Chaz" has lately been more like your occasional glass of wine with mother during dinner, and for that I apologize, but as you can see we've been pretty busy with hikes, meeting people and just taking it day by day. So now that I've got some time and some internet, sit back, relax and let me drop some knowledge on you...
First of all, if anyone ever asks you to join them on a trip to the jungle DO IT! no questions asked. It's honestly one of those once in a lifetime kind of thing that you'll never regret assuming you don't catch Malaria or get attacked by an anaconda or something. Although I didn't see any snakes, the wildlife was surreal. I mean I may as well have been recording for Planet Earth in some cases. Crazy ant colonies, all different colors and sorts of caterpillars, bats and the most incredible spectacle of mating fireflies I've ever seen in my life. We stayed in four different locations during the hike all of which were on indigenous Cogi land. Here are some pics we took of the trip.
That's just a little taste of the more scenic ones we took (especially of Colombian Owens rocking the purple spandex) so if you want to see more just let me know, hopefully my mom won't be the only one taking me up on that offer. Anyways, I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. We're definitely looking forward to NYE and Machu Piccu coming up soon so there will be lots to check out from us in the next week or so. Until then.
Starting to binge again,
-Chaz
Shockhound:
We stared death in the face and beat it back with a stick... twice.
Shockhound doing what shockhound does,
-Shockhound
Shockhound:
We stared death in the face and beat it back with a stick... twice.
Shockhound doing what shockhound does,
-Shockhound
No comments:
Post a Comment