Lost in the lost city

One of most talked about places to visit in South America is the Machu Pichu ruins in Peru, but of a city of the same scale with only a fraction of the visitors (and it is believed to have been founded about 800 A.D., some 650 years earlier than Machu Picchu) exists just a 3 day trek into the Siera Nevada jungle in northern Colombia. Rather inventively named Cuidad Perdida - the lost city as it was only discovered in 1972 when a gang of local treasure looters stumbled across the steps.
The hike itself involves some pretty hard climbs up mountainous valleys, but the views on the way and the thought of jumping into the river at the end of each day keep you going.

Luckily we had good weather unlike other groups who were up to their knees in mud and sliding back down the hills as fast as they were climbing them.
After about 5 hours of walking a day you arrive at the surprisingly developed refuge (where someone had actually carried a pool table 2 days into the jungle) to hang your hammock before trying to work out how to sleep in it without waking up with your feet around your ears in the morning.

After a few days though you eventually get the hang of it, or are just so tired you pass out anyway.

WARNING: PARENTS AND FUTURE EMPLOYERS MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ THE NEXT BIT
One of the optional extras you can do no the way to the lost city is to visit a ´cocaine factory´; obviously not the real thing as they are on a much larger scale, but blatant enough for them to have to of been paying off the right people in order to get away with it.
Walking deeper into the jungle past some none too subtle coca plantations

you arrive at the lab, which is little more than a few plastic containers of differing sizes.

What you see next is enough to put off even the most street hardened crack-head, as starting from a handful of coca leaves he adds Jamie Oliver style quantities of petrol, sulphuric acid, caustic soda and nail polish remover and with a bit of filtering and sedimentation in the middle ends up with something that pretty much resembles what Colombia is so famous for.

From a purely scientific perspective the process is beautifully refined, having gone from an everyday herb that the indigenous people used to chew to offset altitude sickness and fatigue 1000´s of years ago, to being crafted into the modern version of cocaine in a secret CIA laboratory (if you believe the conspiracy theories) by some obviously quite skilled people, then for it to be transformed out of the lab into the middle of the jungle using readily available household chemicals, so as demonstrated anyone can make cocaine.

OK YOU CAN START READING AGAIN NOW
The last day of the hike up to the lost city itself was the hardest, having to ford the river 7 times with a full pack as the mules weren´t joining us for this bit,

before climbing the 1000+ steps to the top of the mountain

where the city opens above you as if it had just been built yesterday despite being 2500 years old (well the foundations anyway, as the housing was just temporary structures made out of wood).

Getting up early in the morning after a rather cozy nights sleep with 35 people in the hut designed for 20, to walk around the site alone presented some stunning views we hadn´t seen the evening before,

and an opportunity to chat with the young soldiers stationed there for a month apiece

and have a play with their slightly scary guns. (or maybe it is just the person holiding the gun that is scarey)

The journey back down the valley was even more fun, as we stopped in to some secluded indigeonous settlements where the people pretty much stay for their whole lives, only making trips to ´civilisation´ to barter for goods

where the most beautiful but feral children I have ever seen live that still seem supprised at the sight of westerners.

as the rains had eventually come, so the rivers had risen considerably by this point meaning anyone trying to cross them on foot would be swept away, prompting some Indian Jones style river crossing

and some rather drenched but happy campers that were that point too tired to care.