This post is dedicated specially to my friends Yali and Francesca, because they both like an adventure and poo story! Let's put it this way, if I had known how hard the Ciudad Perdida trek was, I probably wouldn't have done it at all, but now that I am back, tired, eaten alive by mosquitoes, stinky, recovering from a bad...tummy, I am so so glad I did it. The Ciudad Perdida is what remains of the Tayronas a pre-colombian civilization that chose to leave in a frikking remote place. The trip consists of 6 days, three going up and three coming down, it's 45 km and it's hard, long, steep, wet. You walk on all sorts of different surfaces, stones, gravel, clay, horse poo, slippery moss, and slippery slippery stones in rivers for about 4 hours a day; in 3 days you go from sea level to about 1400 mt. On the 3rd day in order to reach the very top, where the actual 'city' is, you have to walk on 1600 steps, I nearly died, and I am not exaggerating! It became very clear on the first day, after a very steep hill that I was shamefully unfit, I appeared on the hill 15 minutes after everyone else panting, sweating, barely dragging my legs to the nearest bench, it was not good, I wanted to give up, I thought: "ok we have only been walking for 3 hours I can go back and that will be the end of it!"... but no I decided to stay and try. To add more fun and a little extra challenge, I got a serious case of diarrhea (sorry I know it's gross!) for 4 of the 6 days, can you imagine how easy trekking was? Our guide didn't seem to be very concerned with my situation, 2 days later he told me: "no te preocupe! in each group there is always 1 with bad diarrhea!" and I can confirm it to be true, we met on the way a other groups and many individuals with the same miserable expression as mine. Our days were pretty much like this: - toss and turn in own hammock trying to sleep but not fall from it - wake up frustrated and sleep-deprived at about 6 am - have breakfast with your group - set off for the day - walk , climb, slip, get bitten by mosquitoes, sweat in massive quantities for 4 hours - arrive at next camp - avoid the so called shower contraption thingy and wash oneself in the river's freezing water (Sam still says it wasn't that cold!?) - have super early dinner at 6 pm - start tossing and turning activity in hammock till next day - repeat 5 times At night we would stop in these Cabañas, essentially a roof under which they hung our hammocks, two of the 3 places were rough but bearable, and somewhat clean, the last cabaña, in the Ciudad Perdida made my heart sink when I saw it. It was the filthiest, dirtiest place I have ever seen, and now I can say the dirtiest place I ever slept in, eaten in and done other things too...but not wash, honestly it was so gross that I felt cleaner in my sweaty clothes than under one of the available 'showers'. It was horrible, there were rats, ants, cockroaches, you name it. But we laughed about it quite a lot, I guess between Sam and I and our two other compañeros Martin and Liz, we managed to keep a positive outlook on things. Anyway, overall it has been a very tiring week in which,on a good day, I smelled of wet dog, but it was worth it, the Ciudad Perdida is magical, still not spoiled by too many tourist, it was a great achivement for me to do this and be among the few people that have explored this beautiful place. In few years it will be like the Inca Trail, I am glad I have done this now, and I am glad I am back to flushing toilet and clean sheets. Next Stop: Cartagena.