Adventures to Ciudad Perdida- Part 2

I told you I was going to post another blog entry sooner than later…

So the quick responses I got from the millions of people that read my blog (???) were that I needed more details and of course pictures. In response to that… I am a whooping 29 years old now! Next February I will be turning the dreaded…we’ll you can count and I don’t want to say it. But one thing I have noticed is that my eye sight has gotten worse, someone found a grey hair on me the other day (still don’t believe them), and that my memory is about as sharp as the spoon I used to stir my coffee this morning. And so recalling a 6 day adventure in full detail seems a bit daunting to me but I am going to try!

Where did I leave off…another example of how sharp my mind is (I had to read my own blog to remember- yikes)! So after I woke up from my diabetic coma in the beautiful Caribbean city of Santa Marta, Colombia, I ventured out to find some “fried goodness” for breakfast! Knowing I was about to risk being kidnapped in the Colombian jungle, I wanted to make sure I took in a few amazing empanadas and papas relleno (stuffed potato) before this happened! We all know that food in captivity is not all that great!

An old SUV type truck/van pulls up in front of our hostel around 8 am. The excitement in the air is high as we meet our guide and his wife. With the help of a few others, we get our gear packed among the amazing amount of food they packed for us. Hope you didn’t think we were going to carry that…we got a mule to do that (hello- its Colombia)! Just before we’re about to pack in like sardines, I run to my new friend selling the fried goodness and purchase my 4th papas relleno of the morning which turns out to be a horrible decision. We pack into this 4 wheeled beast and I wonder, for almost 1.5 hrs, why I decided to eat about 3000 calories of pure fat before such a ride!

The truck stops along this road to get gas (someone with a bucket of fuel siphons it into your tank) and some of us run to a great fruit stand. Not sure why I was interested but I went and purchased 2 amazing sugar mangos (sorry everyone…they don’t sell them in the US). Maybe I felt bad about eating so horribly earlier that I wanted to balance it out with a fruit, but this also turned out to be a bad idea. As we take off again, within 2 minutes we take a hard right onto a road that does not look like a road but more like a gnarly mountain bike trail! This road traverses up, around, and over 3-4 mountains! You know when you’re driving and you run over those “rumble tracks” on the highway…it’s like that except multiply is by a 1000! Let me also remind you there are possibly 10 people in a 6 passenger vehicle. Needless to say my sugar mango was not that enjoyable. I’ll bet I may have got about 40% of it in my mouth, 20% on my friends, and the rest on my favorite Vanderbilt shirt (go Dores).

After what seemed like a year on that road, we come to a remote town! So weird that all of a sudden, in the middle of nowhere, you has paved roads, houses, and little stores! This quaint little town is where we will begin our trek to Cuidad Perdida, but not before we absolutely stuff ourselves with sub sandwiches and Coke! They know how to take care of Gringos! After eating enough food to make my Ironman Triathlon preparation seem sheepish, packing and repacking gear, lathering up in mosquito repellant, and double checking the Oreos are easily accessible, we officially begin the hike. I am feeling a bit like Indiana Jones and Clark Griswold!

I know the title says “Adventures of Ciudad Perdida” and I have not written about the actual hike yet…but let me remind you: THIS IS MY BLOG! Plus I am writing this in only my underwear, sweating profusely, in my non air-conditioned room, feeling the heat of which Weather.com said it “feels like 114 degrees” today! How about them apples?

Miss everyone! And a special shout out to my Uncle Dan who is seriously considering sending me frozen cheeseburgers via this new shippable box his company invented that keeps things frozen for a few weeks! He’s a genius engineer and I am a hungry boy! Gotta love family!