Cuidad Perdida!
I’m skipping all kinds of crap here, this blog is officially way outta order.
Anyhow, This is me after hiking 4 days through the jungle, covered in alternating layers of sweat, 100% DEET and SPF 70, slightly rinsed off by showers in waist-high river water and pouring rain. After we made it to the cuidad (which is hidden above a 1200-step staircase built into the side of a hill in the jungle), we had to turn around and hike the entire freaking way back.
This was probably my favorite part of the five months I’ve been traveling. It was intense, dirty, beautiful, crazy at times, and incredibly difficult. I wore that same outfit every day for the entire week. I have never, ever been dirtier, even counting the two times I recently voluntarily submerged myself into a pool of mud (example below).
The first entire day of Cuidad Perdida we spent sliding up and down very steep hills that were covered in a goopy tomato-soup looking mud substance. The following days we hiked for five or six hours each, up and down rocky terrain, through pounding rain, over slippery rocks, and across deep rivers.
There was a French man in the group who was probably in his 50s and in better shape than all of us youths combined. He kicked our asses, frolicking, no, running, for literally hours with no need for water. I’m not sure he even breathed. He also wore a formal button up shirt which he sweat through within minutes each day. He was only beat by his son, who didn’t speak a word of English OR Spanish and finished hours before the rest of us.
There was also crew of three Australian guys who SPRINTED the entire trek and did it in 2 days less than everyone else. They didn’t speak any Spanish and just yelled “COMIN THROUGH!!” whenever they were about to bound past someone fully out of control. At one point I overheard them talking to their guide trying to convey they needed to take a crap, and I only heard lots of “YOU KNOW? LIKE NUMERO DOS! LIKE PBBBTHHH!” …So they were super mature….
At one point we crossed a river on a fucking ZIPLINE. We then walked across a 2 foot wide path on the side of a mountain while rain positively poured down from the side of the cliff, threatening to knock us down the five story drop into the raging river below. It was intense. At one point some indigenous people had to make a human chain across a river that had risen to our necks to help some of the group across.
Never have I ever received so many mozzie bites in my life. I looked like a leper and found myself waking up in my hammock in the middle of the night scratching furiously like a dog with fleas. Every one of my mosquito nets had holes in it; sometimes my hammocks were positively lousy with mosquitos just waiting to feast before I even crawled into them.
Every person I spoke with advised me, whatever you do, keep your shoes dry. By day 2, hour 1, we crossed so many rivers, many of which I slipped into off the rocks, that I just gave up and trudged straight through, shoes and socks and all. Pretty much everyone in our group did the same. As a result, I lost a big toenail. So that’s hot.
Despite all of that, or maybe because of all of that, I loved it.
