8th Nov - Lost City Day 2

Up at 6 or so, breakfast, then it was time to head to the cocaine factory. Thankfully there was another group with us, so I didn't have to do all the translating and could actually sit and enjoy the show! Young lad there showed us the process - involved something like 9 different filtrations and burnings and passing through sieves etc etc. V v complicated! Eye-opening experience, the farmers really make zero from the whole thing, so many leaves needed for each ounce of coke. At the same time, they need the money and have no other source of income.

Dealer

We left by 8, pretty refreshed at this stage! Excellent morning walk then despite the usual 45 min rain shower where it absolutely dumped down!

A nice waterfall. And me

I don't tan great

This local Kogui family thought I was great. I think

Reached our place to stop for the night by around 1! So the afternoon was our own. Offered opportunity to go swimming, but they advised us it was a bit dangerous. I stayed well away from it as swimming and myself wouldn't be the best of friends. I ended up joining in a game of cards with the other group who were staying in the same cabin. Mighty craic and there was a mother and daughter pair from Bogota who were playing. Natalia insisted on good-naturedly shouting "MAMI!!!" whenever the mother made a mistake. Soon we were all calling her Mami! Dead sound pair.

Mami and Natalia

Me and Mami!

Mami's glasses were quite strong

The mighty craic was interrupted suddenly when the guide who was playing took off like lightning. Uh oh. Aditya and Maurice had gone swimming and now only Aditya had come back. Scary situation, Maurice had swum to a place that was dangerous and last thing Aditya saw was Maurice under the water being swept away! All the guides went searching in the river and after about ten mins he was found alive and well!

He was very lucky though. He was out of control, tried to grab onto a few rocks, but slipped off. With pretty much his last chance to grab a rock before he went down a pretty rocky and steep drop, he somehow held on and survived. He was v v lucky.

In this video, it doesn't look that steep a drop. But the water was travelling v quickly right here, Maurice was underwater, out of control and heading downstream headfirst so was quite disoriented. This drop was surely curtains:

This was just around the corner. Thankfully, Maurice held on just upstream

Kind of dampened the mood at the cards table too! Later on, we had this ridiculously large dinner. Then came my punishment.

As the only person on the tour with any Spanish, I'm expected to do all the translating. I don't mind usually - but tonight was rough. The guide wanted to give a history lesson and after about 25 mins of translating about the history of Colombia and what some druglord did in the late 60s, I was very rattled. The topic held no interest for me, I was tired and cranky, and couldn't understand half what I was supposed to be translating. Nightmare.

By sheer luck, another group was also staying at the camp and one of them took pity on me. Fierce nice girl from Madrid who lived in Dublin for about 5 yrs so had perfect English. She took over and mercifully it was all over soon!

Thank the Lord for this legend!

Bed. More walking tomorrow!