10th Nov - Lost City Day 4

Tour at the Lost City (L-R) Crosbie, Aditya, Maurice, Soph, Patti, Me, Ilana, Sumit

Up for sunrise. Breakfast and then it was time for the final little bit. Well, final little bit was to climb the 1,000 steps up to the Lost City! There were about 1,000 cities in this area of which about 200 have been re-discovered to date. The one known as the Lost City was the biggest of these and the capital where the King lived and where the major ceremonies were held. I know this because I spent the first 4 hours of today translating! Didn't mind at all today though cos it was actually really interesting. There are many natives still living in the mountains around here who have never met non-natives and never will.

We climbed the steps anyway, and the Lost City really was superb. The native Kogui people built all their houses with natural plants and materials so none of the actual dwellings survive from hundreds of years ago. But the city looks amazing anyway. Plus beautiful views all around.

I'd been to Machu Picchu and while it was indeed magnificent, it was obviously very busy. Up to 3,000 people per day are admitted. What I loved about the Lost City was that there would be a total of 16 people visiting here today. Incredible!

Up the steps with the dog who came with us all week!

This looks like a simple rock. But it's not. It's a map of the trails of the native people in Northern Colombia. It dates back hundreds of years and it's incredible that they could have had such a map!

Sitting on the King's throne!

Our tour group having a chillax!

So we walked around it for about 90 mins and the guide explained the story of when the spanish came over a few yrs after Columbus had discovered America. Most of the first crew that landed got killed but they came back a couple of years later psyched up for killing. The natives were too clever around the mountains so the Spanish had to think of different ways to do the killing. Amazingly they used chemical warfare! They brought over loads of clothes from Europe which had yellow fever on them and traded with the locals. Locals had no ability to fight it so died in high numbers. Local chiefs then banned all trading with Europeans. So what could Spanish do now? Well they brought over anyone they could find in Spain who had yellow fever. Then they captured any locals they could get their hands on and threw them in makeshift prisons. Where the prison guards were the Spanish people with yellow fever! They kept them for a week or so and sent them back to their clans with infections! Genius!

Traditional hut

We sat in one of the huts (as the city is still used for formal occasions today, there are still existing huts) and the guide told us about them. The men had one hut and the women and children had another. When the men died, their hut was abandoned and it would collapse within a year or two. The women always had a husband, so someone else would step up to the plate to be her new husband. But the new husband would build his houses on a different bit of land. The Kogui people seemed to always have had the aim to breed and they become pregnant as much as possible until they can’t any more. That continues today.

Bizarrely, the Kogui are outside the law in Colombia. They could if they wanted murder any of the tour guides or indeed any of the visitors on the tours and the Government of Colombia will do nothing about it. The guides are obviously incredibly respectful as a result! Each month, the Kogui’s chiefs meet and discuss if anyone has broken their own laws. If they have, they are sentenced to time in the box. The box is set up outdoors. You’re put in there with no clothes, food, water, coca leaves (hallucinogenic which they’re chewing all the time). Murder would come with a penalty of 30 days in there and considering that the heat is always in the mid-30s and that there are always ants and other bugs around, lads would rarely survive that. So far, there have been no problems between the natives and the Colombians or the foreigners.

Soon enough, it was unfortunately time to go. On the way back to the top of the 1,000 steps, I was walking along with the guide when he suddenly stopped, whipped out his machete and attacked a snake which was on the path in front of us. The snake was young and small enough - a mature adult grows to 2.5 metres long. But would've killed a human within 24 hours if they couldn't get to a hospital so he was a dangerous enough little fella.

Here's the guide killing him! Topped off with a comedy "Siiiii" by me at the end!



So, now I said that i wanted to get a photo with him. Nice.

Passing the dead snake around so I can get a photo with it

I killed him! Honest! What a man!

Just after this photo was taken, he started hissing again! The little fukker was alive! Guide then killed him properly in the video below but fukk me, I could easily have been bitten! Got an awful shock!



Walked back to last night's camp, quick bite to eat, then we'd a long walk all the way back to night 2 camp. Got there just as darkness fell - long long day. Claimed our beds as usual but out here in the jungle, the sheets don't get washed much so we're sleeping on beds that haven't been changed for a while and have seen many tour groups passing through. There were rumours of a rat being around a couple of nights ago and this was confirmed when one of the lads found rat shit on a bed. Who knows how long that was there!
Anyway, that was so disgusting I actually had a shower - first all week! That's pretty common but shows how dirty the sheets are as everyone is walking all day in the 30 degree heat and not showering!

Had dinner and went to bed. All in all, a great day!