Finding What Was Lost...Kinda

Sweating in your sleep, waking up at dawn, walking all day in tropical heat, loosing a pint of blood per hour to the mosquitoes and sand flies, fighting through foot deep mud, avoiding the torrential downpours every afternoon, fighting strong currents as you ford a chest-deep river, passing heavily armed dudes there to ‘protect’ you from dangerous guerillas and narco-traffickers…why would anyone do these things? The answer is of course to put a bit of Indiana Jones style adventure in your mundane life. Ok, my life isn’t so mundane at the moment, but I am a big fan of types of adventure that form some sort of resemblance to self-flagellation.

I am, in the above paragraph, of course referring to the five day trek to the Cuidad Perdida (Lost City). The most famous archaeological ruins of the Tayrona people is located deep in the Sierra Nevadas de Santa Marta, a rugged tropical mountain range that falls into the Caribbean sea and hosts the two largest peaks in Colombia (5775 meters). Overall, the trek isn’t all that difficult, but one does have to conduct a fierce battle with the heat and mosquitoes and one is forced to confront the fact that not so long ago this region of the Sierra Nevadas was home to FARC as well as resembling a huge garden of either coca plants or marijuana, depending on the decade in question.


Of course the city isn’t ‘lost’ anymore…our group rediscovered it. Actually, it was found by grave robbers (there were many gold artifacts in burials) in the 70’s and is now controlled by the government but still hard as hell to get to unless you have a helicopter.

After getting my adventure and archaeological fix I’ve realized that it is time to high tail it out of Colombia…reckon I’ve overstayed my welcome. Also, I find myself traveling alone once again, comfort in solitude. So, since the border region between Panama and Colombia is one of the most dangerous places on Earth (Darien Gap: dense tropical mountains, no roads, very dangerous snakes/frogs, lots of Malaria, Guerillas with a bad attitude…etc) and a land crossing is virtually impossible I will instead go back to Cartagena and catch a sail boat to Panama via the idyllic San Blas Islands.

Now the question is only to find the right boat…i.e. find a captain that is not gonna blow the food budget on coke or booze and a boat that is hopefully seaworthy.