Day 1: This is hot

We got up excited and packed our small bags for the trek. We were both only taking our day sacs, mine quarter filled with the camera. Other items included one set of dry clothes in a ziplock bag, underwear x4, socks x1 for the night (incase of mosquitoes), board shorts and a towel. Also toiletries and cards, all you need.

We were picked up and dropped in Santa Marta at one of the tour offices where we met our group. It was a diverse group of 14 people from the three 20 year old English kids who just completed second year at university to the 36 year old German businessman Eric, and many nationalities and ages in-between.

We were separated into two vechicles, one a local type bus with no sides (but the seats faced forward) and the other a 4WD troop carrier with side facing seats. We decided on the bus to reduce the chance of travel sickness.

Our bus left the town with an extra person or two and with interesting packages, two looked like cakes. We did the usual South American trip where we dropped people off, picked two more travelers up, dropped packages off and collected food. The funniest was when our bus was flagged over by a motorbike. The person on the back was not holding on, instead he held three grocery bags in each hand out either side of the bike. Turns out these were chickens and there were buckets of ice under one of the seats.
After a while we turned onto a dirt road and got ready for the assent into the jungle. This was an overgrown, bouncy track up, out of sight. We swung both ways and bounced to the roof, then crossed rivers and along edges with shear drops, all the good parts for a jungle drive with a crazy driver.
We arrived at the starting point for the trek, a small town with a few restaurants where we had sandwiches and coke.

After our bite to eat we set off just as people who had just finished walked into town. They gave us encouragement like "turn back now" and "hehe, good luck", lovely words. As we walked out of town we found out why. The first section was a little bit of flat or slight uphill for ten to twenty minutes which bought us to some natural pools and we were already sweaty and wet. We are not even climbing yet. Although we were already very sweaty we decided it was too early and went on. It was straight up for the next half an hour in the heat with 80% or more humidity. We stopped here for 'halftime' oranges. You looked around and almost everyone was wet through already, for some even all of the shorts were wet from sweat.

We pushed on up, another 40 minutes or more straight up. This incline really separated us all and let you know that the land was boss, not you. It just bloody kept getting hotter. The youngest of all the group (who was likely the smallest but appeared very fit) was the first to break, giving her bag to one of our guides, Jose. Just making it to the 'top' was a success and it was the first time we got a breeze since the start. It was like a Christmas present to me, so much so that I powered the last meters to the sound and sight of the wind pushing through trees at the top. Everyone was now wearing darker clothes, all a shade darker from sweat and we were just over 1 hour into a four or five day trek.

We stopped and waited for the whole group to arrive atop the hill, with great views as shown in the photos, named, 'before the watermelon stop'. As you may guess we then got watermelon and sat in the shade.

If you didn't pay enough attention at this stop (which I didn't), a chicken may come and do some quality control on your watermelon, just alittle. After that we soon realised that if you spit out the seeds these crazy chickens fight each other for them. It was a good form of entertainment.

Just before we left this stop, in true 'lost city' fashion, it started to rain. We covered up the bags and just accepted the rain on us. It was actually nice while it drizzled, a change from the sweat. Unfortunately it didn't last and after the rain it was even more humid!

We walked a little further uphill until we stumbled across a perfectly manicured lawn lookout. It was totally out of place and the only area it would have fit was a tee area for the members of the weirdest golf corse known to man. It would have made a great driving range.
After another half hour, again up, we finally hit some flat terrain and our final stop before the camp. A cup of typically Colombian coffee (really bad is all I'll say) and the cutest little fluffy kitten. This was odd as most animals are not so smooth, usually they have scars or bites.... but not this guy.

Alittle up and down and a small decent into camp we came. We picked out hammocks, fourteen of us in a line, shoulder to shoulder, and headed to the natural pools.

I'm not the biggest fan of heights as you may know so I did the only thing I could. I walked up and jump off straight away. It worked and it wasn't as high as I expected, not nearly as high as the platform in San Marcos or the jumps at Semuc Champey, all in Guatemala. From the pools at the bottom you could swim to an edge and move along until you were under a waterfall, a form of free back massage.

Sarah arrived down to the falls and after some deliberation, threw herself off the edge too, with one hand holding her nose closed and the other waving in the air. We enjoyed the water for a while, a cool and insect free environment, what's not to love?

We had to get out to go have dinner and again we covered ourselves in insect repellant. One of the guys, a Chinese Australian had bought two bottles of Aguardiente, a local aniseed spirit. It's like Sambuca or Ouzo but thin and not like a syrup. It's about 25% alcohol.

During our dinner, the four of us who were completing the trek in five days had to decide on our route options. We had the option to break up an eight hour day into two smaller days, either on the way there or the way back. We decided on breaking up the day on the return. This also ment three days and nights with the full fourteen. We are here to trek, let's relax on the way back!
We all headed to bed or more correctly I guess would be we headed to hammock. These human fabric swings had an interesting odor; we named it 'dirty backpacker.' Whatever you did there was no escaping it. "I wonder what smells worse, backpacker or my shoe?", no one really knew.

We all lay down to sleep and tried to sleep 'diagonally' like we were taught in the amazon, when Eric in the hammock next to me elbowed me square in the head. It was a really good shot, and also the point we all realised the gap between each hammock is not big enough to sleep properly.

We fell asleep to the sound of the river, a waterfall and the sounds of the jungle. At about 1am, I half woke up and (thinking I was in a bed) rolled over. This left me face heavy, staring at the ground in a bad position. It took me about 5 minutes to slowly edge back without flipping out of the hammock...... not ideal.