Finding our way to La Ciudad Perdida

Clinging to a rickety, brightly-coloured jeep as it blindly hurtles around a dusty mountain road with a group of Irish, two Danes and two Colombians could only mean one thing: we were off to get “lost” in the Colombian jungle.

Team photo, day 1

Colombia's recent civil war makes the mere utterance of the country's name evoke images of kidnappings, drug lords, left wing guerrillas, and right wing paramilitary death squads.

And so what we were about to do - trek through dense jungle notorious for guerrilla, paramilitary activity and cocaine production - might be enough to send some people flailing in the other direction. Us, well we had it as our “must do” for South America!

Camp day 1, surrounded by flowers

Colombia's Ciudad Perdida (Lost City) would be mentioned in the same breath as Machu Picchu if it wasn't so hard to reach, with the added fear factor. Teyuna is the indigenous name of the city, built by the Tayrona Indians in the Sierra Nevada around 800AD.

The overgrown city, which was re-discovered 1976, lies inland of the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where the jungle is swamped with the sticky humidity rising from the coast. For years it was hidden from the world under the thickest canopy of trees and only the descendants of the Tayrona Indians even knew it existed.

Hammocks

Part of the appeal of this mysteriously remote city of thousands is its inaccessibility: steep climbs, slippery mud, waist-high river crossings and venomous creepy crawlies lie in wait.

And so we set off with our guide, Omar, who called all the girls “mi amor” (my love) or “mi novia” (my girlfriend), Luis, our wise and grinning chef, and Antonio, our assistant guide and music maestro (with the tunes played through his battered phone).

Our first day of walking, from the village of Machete through the humid jungle, brought us to our first camp - full of huge, tropical flowers of luminous orange, crimson and hot pink.

Roommates

The camp was equipped with a sheltered area for our hammocks and mosquito nets, and beautiful butterflies, and then later sparkling fireflies.

After a refreshing swim (and bath!) in a nearby swimming hole, where we jumped off rocks into the deep cool pool below, we drank a hot cup of Colombian “tinto” (strong, black coffee) and the Irish cracked open one of the five litres of rum they had in the backpacks.

That night, I perfected the art of diagonal hammock sleeping and slept better than everyone. It’s all in the angle.

Indigenous Tayrona children

On the second day, between sweating out rivers of perspiration and plunging into streams to wash off, we visited an indigenous village. The Kogi people, direct descendants of the builders of Ciudad Perdida, the Tayrona, have only recently begun to come around to tourists visiting their communities and most sacred site.

Us tourists are merely tolerated, in exchange for money (they receive $80,000 each year from tourists) and food. Although, if you’re from Spain, you have to keep on walking. They still do not tolerate the Spanish.

Omar and Antonio, our guides

The settlements consisted of a few wooden huts with chickens running in the cleared spaces between the crops. The Kogis were courteous but unfussy; only their children seemed excited as they ran about in what once must have been white outfits - the cloth is now closer to the orange colour of the soil.

Omar greeted one of the villagers, who proudly sported wellington boots and a man bag, which seem to demonstrate his importance. He looked sullenly away from us as the children who ran up for bread beamed.

Bath time!

The evenings on the trek were passed in sideless wooden shelters, with space to hang our sweat and deet soaked clothes and unspoilt views of the afternoon monsoon and, later, the impenetrable darkness.

Five days in total, the trek was arduous, climbing a muddy trail to the top of one mountain after another, only to have to descend on the other side each time.

The heat and humidity was overpowering at times and all the water we could drink did not keep us hydrated. Add to this the fact that I got food poisoning and I had myself quite a personal challenge on my hands. But I was determined to make it to this mythical city.

Despite being reassured it is “seguro” (safe) now, we couldn’t escape the tale of the 2003 kidnapping and chatter about what we would do if we were kidnapped.

Tayrona Tarzan (Med)!

A guerrilla group known as the ELN kidnapped eight foreigners, who were hiking to Ciudad Perdida with the tour company we were using. They held them for three months, forcing them to walk through the mountainous jungle with little food and water.

The foreigners were eventually freed after weeks of negotiations with governments. It wasn't until 2005 that the military was sent in, allowing treks to the Lost City to resume safely, but there was still that spine-tingling element of fear for me.

When it rained, it poured

On the fourth day, we set out early to La Ciudad. But first, we had to wade through the now waist-high, fast-flowing river, heaving after yesterday’s storm.

We made it, and so did the tiny black dog who insisted on following us, despite being nearly dragged down the raging river. South American dogs will do anything for a tickle behind the ears and a few food scraps.

So, after a brief scramble to the river and a near drowning of our canine friend, we clambered up the 1,200 steep, wet steps to the city.

Kogi village

While I was vomiting in a jungle toilet two nights before, I met the man whose father discovered the Ciudad Perdida. Hero, I thought. Golddigger, it turned out .It was three golddiggers who re-discovered the jungle-choked city in 1973 and started to dig for their fortunes.

The existence of the city was only revealed to the rest of Colombia when the golddiggers got greedy and one murdered the other during a gravedigging outing.

Despite excavations since that time, the jungle still swarms over the stone terraces where the Kogi Indians once lived and farmed on the carved terraces and raised circular plazas. And so we only got to see a small part of the Ciudad Perdida.

The morning's clouds had lifted themselves up over the mountains, to reveal a breathtaking canopy of primeval forest tumbling down into the canyon carved by the Buritaca river.

Only the wildest of imaginations could believe that Caribbean beaches lie less than 50km to the north; in this world there is only jungle.

Carved out on the top of this mountainous jungle, around eighty, circular raised stone platforms are scattered over a 4km radius. Each stone once supported the wooden huts that were the homes, meeting places and dormitories of the villagers.

River crossing - scary at times!

A larger central plateau was where harvested crops were brought and meetings were held. Men and women were kept very separate, with the men putting on a hunting show for entertainment while the women kept to their own square.

We sat on the chief’s throne, and walked the ceremonial staircase. It was here couples to be wed walked down to the river to signify to the rest of the tribe that they were to marry.

La Ciudad Perdida

This was also the escape route for the woman if she did not want to marry the man, but she had to be able to outrun her suitor and make the journey all the way around the valley to re-enter the settlement from the other side. Today, we have the likes of Jeremy Kyle for this kind of thing.

Today, only the army run around the city, camping out on the small exposed area of the ruins and posing for photos with brave tourists. Like everywhere in South America, they were heavily armed with guns and explosives.

We walked around the beautifully mysterious site, imagining the life people led here amidst the trees, butterflies and thousands of mosquitoes.

The chief's throne

It would be possible to spend years hacking into the parts of the city that remain tangled in roots and earth, but I think that the jungle will win in the end, keeping some secrets lost forever within it.

Some secrets did unravel a few days later, however, when we discovered that $150,000 Colombian pesos (about £51) is payment to the Los Paramilitares who still stalk the area.

La Ciudad Perdida

Criss-crossing fireflies were not the only things present in the forest’s eerie darkness; we were walking shoulder to shoulder with them, hiking into the remote Colombian jungle.