Cuidad Perdida Trek - Day 4

In the middle of the night the dogs started barking like crazy and woke us up. Ryan jumped out of his hammock with his headlamp on to see if he could figure out what they were barking at. My suspicion is they keep dogs to keep jaguars and pumas from going after livestock. I'll bet a jaguar or puma was roaming close by. I'd love to see one in the wild.

We had a bit of a sleepin this morning, I think. Probably up around 6. We had breakfast, which wasn't very good this morning, and started on the hike. It was actually sunny this morning, which I was dreading. It's hot enough with the overcast skies, now we're going to have to hike in the sun. We started hiking before dad started on his mule. After a while, as we were climbing up and up and up, I turned around and dad was gaining on us on his mule. Ryan saw him and said to me he wants to stay ahead of dad, and started running up the trail. It was pretty funny. Dad eventually caught Michael and Michal and then myself. Michal seemed to be struggling today on the uphill, they were lagging behind. Dad's mule actually kept a comfortable pace for me, so I stayed with the mule for most of the hike.

We eventually found Ryan waiting at the side of the trail much later. He ended up catching another group and didn't want to pass them.

Super tough hiking again, but it didn't seem as bad as going up.

We reached Adan, which was as far as we booked dad's mule to, so after a short break there, off we go again.

It ended up that Adan wasn't quite as close to the start as we thought. Once we got going again, dad really started struggling again. There was still a lot of up and tons of down, down, down. Ryan ended up taking dad's pack again and I took his big camera, which is quite heavy, but it was really tough for dad. I walked with him most of the way. Along a flat section, he remarked that he felt like he has no brain, just a walking zombie.

We made it back to the start point around 2 in the afternoon, I'm guessing. They weren't expecting me, Ryan and dad until tomorrow, so they had to whip up some different food for us. Dad was so happy it was over. He did remark to me at one point over the trek that he was a bit disappointed in himself that he couldn't do the while thing.

After eating, we got in the truck for the rough ride back to the highway, then into a mini van for the ride back to Santa Marta. Remember the guy on the side of the road trying to sell a piece of plumbing hose. We saw him on the way out to the hike, on the way back he was sitting in the exact same spot along the highway, waving the exact same piece of tubing.

The van dropped us off at our hostel and we said our good lucks to Michael and Michal. Laura, the chick working the reception at the hostel wasn't expecting us for another day, but fortunately our room was available.

After cleaning up, Ryan asked Laura where to get hamburgers, as he and dad were really hankering for a burger and fries. Laura suggested the hostel next door, so we headed over. The hostel where we ate is run by some white guys, so we were expecting western type of meals. We weren't disappointed, the burgers were amazing. Ryan and myself had some beers, dad was dehydrated from the trek and was downing water and Gatorade. At 7 the bartender girl (from Norway) rang a bell and announced it was happy hour, 2 for 1 rum and vodka drinks. Of course we all started drinking rum and cokes.

I have no idea what time we headed back to our hostel, maybe 10, pretty drunk and to bed. After going to bed I had to get up and hurl in the toilet.