Colombia is one of the most intriguing & memorable countries I have visited.

I heard many horror stories — but my experience there was wonderful. Friendly people. Great towns & cities. Wonderful people.

I travelled to Colombia from Venezuela.

Colombia? Why go to Colombia?

Colombia is the number 2 coffee producer in the World. Café con leche was available everywhere for about C$.10 — that is reason enough!

In Venezuela, I had heard of an amazing hike to a lost jungle city just across the border in Santa Marta, Colombia. But it was almost impossible to get there by land from Venezuela. The border rife with smugglers, kidnappers, paramilitary, banditos & crooked cops.

Colombia is poor, Venezuela rich — hence the tension.

Somehow I managed to cross a 50k no-mans-land on a series of buses and taxis. I would have been detained at at least one of a dozen check stops except that a businessman took me under his protection.

I was vastly relieved to reach a fortress of a hotel on the Colombian side of the border.

Santa Marta, the oldest city in Colombia (1525), is pretty & undeveloped. Backpackers love this place. Cobble-stoned houses, overhanging balconies, churches and military fortresses. Kids, dogs, pool halls, power failures and loud music.

It is the jumping off point for the Lost City trek.

I was psyched.

Six-day return treks to the ruins of La Ciudad Perdida are only allowed through a government agency. Guides arrange transport, food and accommodation — essential because the area is a significant marijuana and coca-growing region.

I, like the other backpackers in Santa Marta, was nervous about making the trip.

A selling point, however, was that hikers of all nationalities were allowed to trek except Americans — they make too attractive kidnap victims.

Our guide was most famous and experienced having made the trip over 500 times since the Lost City had been rediscovered in 1976.

I carried my tent on the trek, much to the consternation of my old guide. He insisted we sleep in hammocks in the South American tradition.

We visited a number of traditional villages en route. The guide was welcomed warmly everywhere we went.

A log bridge provides a crossing when the water is higher. As a gymnast I volunteered to walk across as if it were a balance beam.

OK. Not quite like a balance beam.

The Lost City is remote & difficult to access.

I was disappointed to see a sign showing the route. 🙂

Finally, atop the steepest coastal mountain range in the world, we reached The Lost City.

It is very Indiana Jones. Mysterious & enigmatic.

The site is pre-Hispanic. In fact some artifacts there date from 500 B.C.

It’s less a city, than an entangled net of tiled roads, terraces and small circular plazas supported by walls on the sharper mountains.

The site begs the question; why here?

Access to the coast is near impossible.

Theory is that the native inhabitants had a variety of climates, ranging from the hot to cold temperatures. Consequently, they had access to a great variety of game & wild fruit.

Rediscovered by grave robbers, the hundreds of overgrown stone terraces which once held a city have been restored.

Huts like these have been restored only in a few places.

On a king’s throne in the Lost City.

Colombia is strongly Catholic. I found these trees evocative.

On the return, in a native village, we were shown trees growing a date rape drug — borrachero, I believe it is called — a soporific often used too, in South America, on hapless tourists.

Oropendulas (related to blackbirds and orioles) are communal nesters. Each male builds its own hanging nest, which are then grouped together in a favorite tree. The same tree may be used for many generations. Their name comes from the gold (= “oro” in Spanish) color on their tails, and the pendulum-like nest..

A couple of days walk from the highway, a vendor had set up shop for our handful of hikers — the only gringos on the moutain.

On the trip up the mountain we were cautious & nervous — worried about narco-trafficers, slick trails, moss, suckers & vines, toads & snakes, thunder & lightening, mud & dark.

We removed our shoes at every creek crossing.

On the way down we were confident & relaxed, shirtless, splashing in every waterway to cool off. One of the hikers was savvy enough to bring a snorkel!

The Lost City was a terrific hike. We loved it.

The danger and adrenaline added to the allure.

At one point on the track, I stopped to watch a wasp paralyze a much larger spider, then lay her eggs on the spider’s back.

Just like National Geographic.

Survivors. Lost City trek, Colombia, 1997.

In 2003 a group of 8 hikers like ours was kidnapped. One escaped almost immediately, but others were held for over 100 days.

Colombia should be one of the world’s most exciting destinations. Unfortunately, guerrilla war, cocaine cartels & kidnapping scare most tourists away.

It was unsafe in 1997. But Colombia worsened in 2002 when the government cut off peace negotiations with the Marxist rebel organization FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).

Colombia is charmingly undeveloped & non-Western. Many women in South America want to be voluptuous. They sashay sexy.

I was impressed with the confident swagger of the women. They need not turn down their eyes from every man who checks them out.

My hiking guide — who had finally convinced me of the advantages of a hammock over my tent — took me to the market to purchase an authentic, quality Colombian double hammock.

I still use it, even sleeping outside in minus 40 degrees Celsius Canada.

Hammock quality varies widely. Cheaper ones fall apart quickly.

From Santa Marta, I travelled down the coast to Cartagena, every tourist’s favourite spot.

You might be in Europe. Overhanging balconies are much photographed.

Cartagena is an old city with a big colonial fortress. The main tourist attraction is the clear sea.

I saw the movie The English Patient in a huge, beautiful theatre here. The locale added to the romance of the film.

Colonial architecture, churches & plazas are lovely.

San Felipe castle, Caragena, Colombia.

To connect to a flight out of the country, I travelled to the capital for a couple of days.

Bogotá is a city of modern architecture, a vibrant and diverse cultural and intellectual life, splendid colonial churches and brilliant museums. It is also a city of Dickensian waifs, beggars, shantytowns, drug dealers and traffic jams. This amazing mixture of prosperity and poverty, Maseratis and mules, makes it one of the world’s most chaotic, fascinating and aggressive metropolises.

I was totally impressed by the Museo del Oro (Museum of Gold) which contains many relics of pre-Colombian history.

Colombia should be one of the prize backpacker destinations in the world. The people are terrific. The coast dramatically beautiful. The rainforests, mountains and beaches wonderful.

But drug kingpins and corrupt politicians have made it almost impossible. In 2003, more than 3000 people were abducted.

I would love to return some day. When it is safer.

Departing South America I was stung by crooked airport officials for about US$10.:-(

Adios.

Lost overnight in the Andes, rafting an unknown river & fishing for piranha, Venezuela was memorable.

I’d heard of Angel Falls, the world’s highest. And heard of strange flat-topped mountains.

I had originally planned to fly to Peru to hike — but two Swedish dope smokers in Trinidad convinced me that Venezuela was an even better hiking destination and was only a few kms away. I could almost SWIM!

Caracus was not recommended. And it was the wrong time of year for Angel Falls. So I connected directly to Merida in the Andes. A good decision.

Venezuela and surrounds are famous for beautiful women. (Tourist bumpf emphasizes this.)

On my flight to Venezuela was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. An auspicious start.

Merida is rightly acclaimed as one of the best mountain destinations in the world. The small town sits at the foot of the highest mountain in Venezuela.

Unhurried and bohemian, backpackers love Merida.

They all stay near a small park with a magic view of the mountains. I felt fate had brought me here when I saw gymnastics equipment outdoors down the street from my hostel. Local strong men and a few tourists work out there with Andean inspiration.

Not much of a photographer, I did snap this with a disposable camera, one of my favourite travel shots, in a Merida graveyard.

South America was still strongly Catholic when I was there in 1997.

The main attraction, Merida boasts the world’s highest (4765m) and longest (12.5km) cable car. Unfortunately, in the 1980s a car on the top crashed killing an undisclosed number of tourists. The last section of the ride up was never repaired.

Still, I could ride to 4000m and hike from there. Overnight camping is technically illegal so almost no one knew where I was going as I headed up the mountain.

Merida sits on a flat messeta, a high terrace between 2 parallel rivers. Stunning. The short airport runway is right in the centre of town.

The Virgin of the Snows, a statue of Mary high atop a mountain in Venezuela. I would not visit Mary — instead camping away from this, the usual tourist route.

The vegetation and scenery is amazing — so different than any other alpine area I had seen.

Tourists examining the fallen cables, untouched since wind blew them down in the 1980s.

Excited, I planned to tent solo for 1 night in the Andes. My dinner would have a Spanish theme: crusty bread, cheese, anchovies and a bottle of rough red wine.

I climbed a ridge. The vista was magic with clouds blowing in and out. I dropped my pack at the first possible tent site & continued up looking for a better spot. The terrain was steep, exposed & rugged. Not many options for a tent.

I knew that at the top of the mountain was The Virgin of the Snows, a statue of the Virgin Mary. She led me on.

On a whim I decided to kiss the Virgin — once the day hiking tourists had departed for the day.

I was careful to note landmarks on my way up so I could return to the pack. Unfortunately they all disappeared in the clouds.

Blast.

Lost in the Andes above 4000m. I vainly searched for the ridge back down to my tent, pack and sleeping bag. Finally, as night fell, I resolved to take refuge in a grotto beneath an overhanging rock. I had water but no food.

For 10 hours I huddled shivering, calculating the probability of death from hypothermia in just a t-shirt and fleece pants. I’d like to tell you I learned something from this experience — but I didn’t. It was a drag.

At first light I tried another long route down. What a relief when, four hours later, I bumped into an elderly Swiss couple on the trail! They gave me a cookie & directions. I had been hopelessly lost.

To add insult to injury, officials on the cable car wanted to arrest me for camping illegally.

Lesson learned? Never leave your pack.

My legs were ruined from sprinting around the mountain.

What to do? I signed up for a 5-day rafting tour thinking it would give my legs time to heal up.

On the drive to the start our group stopped for lunch at a lovely ranch with stone buildings.

We played with the pet monkey.

I felt sorry for the lonely monkey. For company he hung out with the farm pigs.

Our crazy Dutch guide was the highlight of the trip. He married a Venezuelan woman but complained that she did nothing but watch Spanish soap operas on TV.

We came upon a dead sting ray in the river. The guide cut some flesh from the huge creature and had us fish for Pirayna — we caught them instantly in only 3 inches of water. The river is teeming with them!

The tiny fish are all teeth. But we still roasted them over an open fire as an appetizer.

Our guide convinced us to try rafting a NEW river. It was nice to be certain we would not see any other tourists on the trip.

We had 3 Germans, 1 Israeli, 2 Brits, 2 Canucks — typical of eco-adventure tour groups. This was a good one. Very relaxing.

Los Llanos (the plains), is Venezuela’s greatest repository of wildlife surpassing even the biomass of Amazonia. Imagine Alberta suddenly close to the equator.

I was there at the best time, the end of the dry season. Wildlife is forced to the major rivers where gringo tourists float.

It’s lovely country but prone to malaria. We saw farmers spraying DDT from backpack tanks to keep mosquitos down. DDT is not banned in Venezuela.

Trying to get to the river from the dirt road was an adventure. We had to carry raft overhead through a plantation.

Something was eerie on the river, though. It took me a couple of days before I realized there are no water birds in Venezuela. There’s a lurker at every river bend ready to take any bird that alights.

We swam with the piranha and other beasts of the rivers many times a day without a second thought.

Our guide had never floated this river. Each day he searched out a camp site.

One night we stayed at this traditional cattle ranch, sleeping in hammocks. Another night we strung hammocks in a simple shelter providing shade for stock animals.

Terrific trip. Great fun.

The worst thing about Venezuela?

Terrible food! Inedible, really. Our tour took us to the most famous steak restaurant in the country. It was awful.

The coffee was fantastic, however, & available everywhere for something like C$.10 a shot.

In Venezuela I first heard of an amazing hike to a lost city hidden in the jungle. Unfortunately it was in Colombia, one of the most dangerous countries in the world. (Eight hikers were kidnapped on that hike in 2003. One escaped, the rest survived over 100 days in captivity.)

I instantly resolved to go for it.

First I had to climb back up the mountain to retrieve my pack. It was exactly where I had left it 6 days before.

On to Colombia!