Looking down over Rio Buritaca from La Cabana Alfredo about 620m up in the Sierra Nevada we just completed Day 1 of the trek to Ciudad Perdida.
We left hours after we meant to from Santa Marta & collected our 12 other Trekkers to travel in cramped 4x4s to El Mamey. We had a lovely group, Aussies, a Swiss chick, Norwegian chick, Israeli guy, French guy, Scottish guy & honeymooning couple from Belgium. Our guide was the very serious and not particularly fit looking Mauricio & our cook the most hipster trendy trekker I've seen - Junio. We also had this random Argentinian backpacker who talked his way into a job as a translator join the group - the soon to be infamous Cesar.
As we walked and chatted for several hours through the sun, mud, rain & humid jungle we all got to know each other. Cesar was almost a body double for Borat. I could not stop laughing at the guy. Not only could he speak worse English than my spanish he was just crazy.
He said to me he was like a Mexican in New York - lied his way in & was just cheating and faking his way through for cash. His translations were an endless source of entertainment - at one point he said our guide told us to 'go to bed & be happy' and when we asked what time sunrise was he said 'it's impossible to tell because the sun is crazy'.
After a hearty & tasty carb loaded dinner we tried to hang out all our wet clothes around our hammocks hoping they'd dry in the night & settled into bed pretty early ready for a 5am start & 14kms or so in the morning.
