29. November
Day 3:13 km, 7 hours hiking, altitude 1200 m asl
By the beam of a flashlight and the wake-up calls of our guides, we are jerked out of bed again at 05:00 a.m. Quickly, we are back in our wet pants and at the breakfast table. Today is our big day! It is time to find the “holy place” Teyuna. To get there, we first have to cross the roaring waters of the Buritaca River, which we master with a cool cable car. This was installed in the middle of the jungle after a deadly accident happened, while walking through the middle of the river. For us now, this is safe and at the same time a lot of fun. Before we start climbing the stairs to the city, Andres and Jhon ask us to collect a stone or piece of wood and carry it with us along the way to the city. While walking the stairs we shall channel all bad thoughts and negative energies into this object. Especially those that may come to us on the way up. Then the ascent starts. In front of us are 1,200, more than a thousand-year-old very small, crooked and slippery stone steps. Fortunately, we find a stone in our hands halfway through the way and suddenly we understand the myths of the bad energy. Climbing is incredibly exhausting. We are highly focussed, every step has to be precise. Just don't turn around and look down. After about half an hour, we reach the first of the old stone rings. Each of these stone rings used to have a house on top, where a whole family lived with all generations. Since our team of nine people is super punctual, motivated and also quite fast, we are actually the first on site again and thus all alone in the Ciudad Perdida. Before we explore the first level of the city extensively, everyone in our group enters a small stone circle. This is the spiritual place where the Kogui regularly hold a purification ceremony in order to free the Ciudad Perdida from bad energies and thoughts. We follow this ceremony by laying our with bad energy and cursing from the way up "charged" stone in the centre of the circle. This will then be circumnavigated once and in spirit we are grateful for entering the holy place.
Pure goosebumps feeling.
To get to the next higher terrace of the city, a gigantic stone staircase awaits us, again. However, this is much more pleasant to climb than its predecessor. And so we are getting higher and higher up into the city. And then the time has come. We did it. We look down on an almost deserted Lost City. We found it and on the incredible way to this place here we also found somehow a new piece of ourselves. We are already super proud of ourselves and enjoy the view of this very special place. Our way takes us through other very beautiful areas and the inhabited part of the city. We even briefly meet the Mamo, the spiritual leader of the Kogui. He and his wife are also depicted on the 50,000 pesos billet. From one of his (many) daughters, we buy a bracelet whose coloured stones symbolise various things. Sanni receives purity (white), sun (yellow) and masculinity (orange). Gerriet also has three black ones. Of course, he has forgotten already what they stand for ...
After a some three hours, it's time to start the descent. Descent? Of course, we hadn't even thought about that in the morning, while being super euphoric to arrive. It goes back the same, breakneck path. As a focus point, we have the opportunity to step into the stone circle again before leaving Teyuana. Here, we are once again refuelling a lot of positive energy.
While the way uphill was really exhausting, it is downhill, especially for Sanni, sometimes a real strain. With every step down the steep stone steps, the knees seem to hurt more and from shoe size 38, it gets damn tight on the stairs. We breath a sigh of relief, when we finally arrive at the banks of the river again and get on our cool ferry. Once on the other side, a very special surprise awaits us. Our fellow hiker Anna discovers a snake on a rock, hidden behind a leaf. Eagle's eye. Totally cool. Of course Sanni must see its beauty in a closeup. It's just a very small one. And look, she has the sweet black tongue". Sweet here, however, is the completely wrong description, as Jhon explains later. The discovered specimen is a baby lance otter or a bushmaster he suspects. Both are amongst the most toxic snakes in South America. Especially the young ones as they cannot yet properly control their poison during a bite. Silence.
After lunch, we hike again loaded with full luggage the approx. 10 kilometres back towards Camp 2, where we will spend our last night. Not too long after our departure, the time has come. A tropical rain, which now also deserves this name in the eyes of our guides, breaks loose. Cheers to our garbage bags. It pours with an unbridled power and within a few minutes our hiking trails turn into streams. We continue to trudge bravely through mud and floods. Well, there is no other alternative, than walking through the rain and sometimes it's even kind of funny. The rain doesn't stop. Even when we arrived at the camp, it still rains for hours. How lucky we are, that this only happens on the penultimate day. Because now our shoes are also soaking wet.
To be continued....
*The English version of this blog is supported by automated translation*