To a lost city you should enter big, Mainted by your porters, with the beast look and a machete between the teeth. Or at least I thought so, But now I look up and the steps multiply like gremlins in the rain, Always up. I spend the troop magazine and I am a squad of whitish and smelly Europeans in short pants. Riddles can barely hide their bad mood for early morning. As a host we do not present a very worthy look.
-Let's go!, They only remain 1300 steps!
I take a breath and instantly I feel a stab on the side. Here we go, one, two, Three four ... To call these cliffs.. In many of them you have to put your feet and move forward like those Egyptian spheries of the papiros. It does, We squeeze against the rock wall and climb how we can. It is the final traca after three days touring the Sierra de Santa Marta.
Fifty kilometers of endless swing, From agonized morning and rain mornings and bleak afternoons where the showers threw themselves to bomb from the sky and mosquito flocks ran to colleges through these lost mountains of God. I think of all this while I cling to the last steps and slip for the umpteenth time on the stone. I looked at my feet, irritated and sore. 50 Trekking kilometers made in shower shoes, Not bad at all!
50 Trekking kilometers made in shower shoes, Not bad at all!
In the Santa Marta agency they told us that the excursion was done with boots, Truth Boots, With those thick rubber soles capable of walking on sulfuric acid. They told us that we would also take repellent for insects, impermeable, Cantimplores, flashlights, toilet paper, matches, prismatic and a toothbrush just in case, But the most important thing was the boots. So we all meet, Indiana Jones disguised, While we introduced each other as camp children. There were two Swiss, An English, A Belgian scrambled with a Romanian, A French and a Danish who, as I instantly needed me five months touring Latin America.
That seemed the beginning of a joke but I did not see the grace and charm of the expedition disappeared as the screams increased in English. Then the guide arrived, Miguel, A Cartagena kid of about twenty years that we appealed in the truck with indifference, While everyone around me stunned. The Swiss who at his sixties had undertaken a trip through Latin America with his wife, After getting rid of his two daughters packaged finally heading to the University, He had to realize my thunderous disenchantment and decided to give me a little conversation.
-¿Español?, And you don't have a bad time traveling through Latin America?
-Not, Why?
-I don't know ... for everything you did here, So you did to them.
-They have never told me anything about it. Besides I have not done anything to anyone.
Things soon going wrong, Two hours of trekking were enough to realize that the soles of my shoes were disintegrating. First I started noticing a slight tingle on my heels, A few minutes later it became unbearable pain due to the stones, When I took a look that barely separated me from the ground a few millimeters of eaten rubber. I entrust my maginot line to endure the three days of hell missing. That collapsed with the first storm. Exactly at five in the afternoon the sky fell on our heads in the form of a tropical flood, A few minutes later we were buried in mud to the knees. When I managed to get my feet, I had run out of sole and without socks.
When I managed to get my feet, I had run out of sole and without socks
The expedition consists of two or three more groups such as ours, Five or six Europeans guided by a local guide that are found throughout the day with more or less luck and exchang. I am the only Spanish and the guides baptize me quickly as "Osshtiatiojoder", So with all, of a pull. Some in the morning he forgets and changes it for a "pussysshtia" that I don't have so controlled so I have to become a couple of times to know if they go to me.
The perspective of doing the barefoot lost city seems to move them, We seek without luck throughout the expedition a pair spare shoes until July, one, It is agreed that a couple of flip flops must still have in the backpack.. The shoes are covered with a greenish rubber and have some little holes to breathe the fingers of the feet, I better get used to because I will fit the next few days.
But all that now matters now that we are almost 1297,1298, 1299 And ... the panorama is overwhelming. A collection of stone terraces that are distributed as mushrooms between the hills full of vegetation. The first -hour fog has not yet been completely dissipated and gradually fray, Like a web between the ruins . In the background the main tower climbs on a succession of overlapping ashtrays that are suspended in a vacuum. The Lost City of the Tayrona was not discovered until the seventies, by a group of huaqueros that was dedicated to stealing the multiple treasures that stored excavation.
Lacias hair to the shoulders appear and disappear as ghosts
Almost the 90% The complex still continues under the jungle, The Kuitis Indians who inhabit the place, Tayrona descendants have erected it in their sacred place and do not allow it to be a meter or more meter. We see them from time to time, I say to the koguis. White dresses, With their Lacian hair to the shoulders they appear and disappear as ghosts between the jungle. Carlos, One of the most veteran guides tells me that these days are worried, Last week a lightning fell in the middle of a shaman ceremony, was celebrated during the night, Six of them died, It doesn't seem like a good omen.
We support ourselves and satisfied on our sticks while Miguel begins the explanations about the history of the city.
-Here the Tayronas lived in peace, dedicated to cultivating and studying the stars until they arrived ...! I realize that Miguel has paused and the jack of Guiris has looked at me again. Suddenly I feel like a bloodthirsty, Arrived from the other side of the ocean to desecrate this place in hospital shoes. I shift my shoulders and rehearse a smile of circumstances.
-But the Tayronas knew how to defend themselves and every time they tried to climb they received them with arrows, Thus they kept them away many years, but they (New pause to dedicate a reprobative look) As you know they went crazy for gold, They believed that the gold should be here and did not hesitate to kill women and children. Imagine the impression of indigenous women and children, amazed with those beings that should seem very strange, almost gods. The Belgian looks at me with interest and I notice in the Swiss a strange euphoric smile of Vesyatelodeyo? Suddenly everyone has been encouraged and are willing to have a little fun, They have also read things.
The Spanish presence decisively increased the level of aggressiveness in the continent
The Frenchman, for example, recalls that he recently read somewhere a theory based on the fact that the Spanish presence decisively increased the level of aggressiveness on the continent., spread like a virus and caused even more atrocities among indigenous people. The two Swiss seem delighted with this explanation and relate their recent visit to the Potosí mines and how much they were impressed by the cruelty that existed in that place.. The Belgian who inexplicably seems to have forgotten the existence of a certain Leopold, He is very interested in knowing how we live in my country with such historical shame. No one seems to realize that I have stopped smiling a long time.
-Then came the English pirates and the indigenous people traded with them in order to annoy the Spaniards, Sometimes they got firearms ... English proudly intervenes to explain with great detail the feats of Sir French Drake suddenly converted into a patriotic heroic, ... I swear that at this time I would travel twice the distance that I lack to Santa Marta in exchange for having a damn arcabuz by hand.
My pale and civilized fellow citizens of the old continent throw me looks of reproach and palm trees to Miguel as if from one moment to another they were going to scam him trying to endorse my colored beads. I am not at my best and vague among the ruins while Reniego of the idea of ??the damn Valdivia of coming to make the idiot in these places. I spend most of the morning alone, as if I did not use the deodorant, I must exhale an unbearable tufo to black legend.
I must exhale an unbearable tufo to black legend
At some point the sun rises on the horizon like a howbol and Miguel decides what is time to return. We go down the staircase while the joints creak like fried potatoes. Bass with Carlos, He tells me that he has Kogui ancestry and that he was also Huaquero, Farras were paid quite a few stones and ruins of the ruins. The other night? Very bad luck, Rays are common in this area. Runaway we go down from three by three steps, clinging to our hikers of hikers and stinking to mosquitoes, We have no idea where to go now, But just in case we are rapid.
I look at my spotlights with your arms and necklines watermelon, The protector does not seem to have taken effect, I think more than one is going to have a fatal time tonight. My shower shoes slip on the steps every two for three. At some point, Koguis children stop their games on the edge of the path to look at us. They go barefoot and contemplate us with astonishment while we parade as automatons between the jungle, We must seem very strange.
