We have two volunteers, a husband and wife, John and Serena Star-Leonard, from Ireland and New Zealand respectively doing wonderful work putting together a video and posting blogs for the Mariposas in an effort to raise money for the foundation. How Can We Help? That is the link to their blog, a specific post about their work with the Mariposas Amarillas, and soon we shall have a video putting the issues into real life perspective. That is Serena up above with the some of the kids playing under her tripod.
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Thursday is sports day at Oasis, the afternoon school. It is an afternoon program so most of the kids to attend another school in the morning. We play on a concrete court in the blazing hot sun. Many of the kids run around with no shoes. You could fry an egg on this court easily. We had to take breaks about every 20 minutes and buy bags of water for ourselves in the kids. I worry about how much water the kids drink when we are not around.
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I am so mad at myself for not getting pictures of the kids being interviewed. Ricardo the boy on the right was interview along with two other childern at the morning school. They were so nervous in front of the camera with the microphone and all the official technology. Everything they used was powered by batteries because as of this moment there is still no source of electricity in the school.
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So let me take a step away from volunteering and talk about my 5 day trek to the Lost City (La Ciudad Perdida)
I cannot seem to get half the photos to load so you will just have to wait till facebook or until i return and go through them personally with you! The trek to the La Ciudad Perdida can be done in 4 to 6 days. I did it in 5 which is the average. It is 46 km total, 23 km there and 23 back. The way there is spread over 3 days and the way back in 2. It is beleive to have been founded in 800 AD by the Tayrona people. On our trek there we had to cross the river around 20 times, sometimes stepping on stones and sometimes getting our feet wet. Luckily, our first three days of treking we managed to get to the encampments before the rains started. Above is a picture of the waterfall pre-rain.
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The waterfall during rain. I took a lot of pictures trying to capture the intensity of rainfalls we experienced in the afternoon but it was nearly impossible. This seems to be the best illustration.
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This is one of the river crossings where we had to get our feet wet. The river was so strong here we were not allowed to cross barefoot. It was the last crossing before the Lost City. We had a puppy (dubbed Puppy Perdida) who followed us for 2 and half days. Ralph, one of my fellow travellers was afraid the puppy would try to swim after us (he had done so before) and carried him across while hanging on the rope to not float away himself. After crossing the river this time we climbed around 1,000 steps to get up to La Ciudad Perdida (I counted on the way back down).
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This is a Cogi village we passed along the way. These are the typical style huts that are likely very similar to what they had at the lost city. The Cogis are descendents of the Tayrona people. We would hope to have more knowledge of the Tayrona people but they had no written language and thus rely on stories and archeology.
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Some of the many steps we climbed in the La Ciudad Perdida. The site may have housed 2,000 to 8,000 people. The Tayrona people abandoned this site during the Spanish conquest leaving the settlement to disappear into the jungle and mossy green.
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The closest thing to written language in the Lost City. It is a map of their terrority. While we were there we could imagine the children sitting in a circle being taught by their elders. Similar to today, just sans electricity. =)
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La Ciudad Perdida consists of a series of 169 terraces carved into the mountainside, small circular plazas and tiled roads connecting it all.
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The site was discoverd in 1972 by a group of grave robbers, a local man Florentino Sepulveda and his two sons Julio Cesar and Jacabo. They found a series of stairs and followed them to the Lost City. Authorities then discovered the site in 1975. They sent in the army and archeologists to protect the site and learn from it. Looting and fighting continued for years after.
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The indigenous knew of the site prior to the grave robbers but never said a word. They sometimes used it for religious ceremonies and still do to this day. I took one or two pictures of some of the children asking for sweets but felt uncomfortable taking more than that. I did not want to reduce these people to a subject of tourism simply for being natives and sticking to their natural way of life. If you would like to see them ask me when I return! Or look on Google and I am sure some else has posted something.
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You can only travel to Ciudad Perdida via a guided tour. The area is protected by the military but has not had Guerilla problems in about 5 years. Some of my friends who trek a lot on their own refuse to pay the money for the tour. I highly recommended sucking up the money and going for it. It was my greatest experience so far. The pictures I took do not do the city justice. It is amazing and wonderful to explore ruins and be the only ones there. It was just our group of 7, our tour guide, and the military. I have never before had the chance to explore an ancient site in quite the same way. Plus, I earned it! After all that hiking.
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This is the infamous shot of La Ciudad Perdida. Hope you don´t mind my little bit of meditation. I think that is my only disappointing part of the tour, we only had 2 hours at the Lost City. I would have preferred spending a whole day their, exploring and taking it all in, doing yoga and meditation. It is probably better for maintaining the site though if the tourists that come almost daily are not climbing up and down everything all day, but rather take a slow walk through.
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This is one of my tour guides Jhon. He is up in an avacado tree throwing really large avacados down on our heads. (He was aiming for our hands actually). We each got to take one home with us. I never quite realized how much an unripened avacado weighed until I had to add it to my bag for the last day of hiking. I also never realized that avacados grew on trees. Learn something new every day! Jhon was super helpful for me the last 2 days, because not long after La Ciudad Perdida my ankle did one of its fun twists. He cut me a walking stick and walked super slow in the rain helping me through the final days of the hike. I cannot thank him enough! On top of that, I practiced a lot of spanish with him because he spoke no english. The tour was incredibly Colombian as all the people that worked there the trek were Colombian, and I actually did not find anyone who spoke English. This was a downfall in someways for aquiring information, but fantastic in the way that all the money spent was going for Colombian jobs and welfare. Shop Local Baby!
So a few other notes of my last few days. I would have written sooner but this weekend I went out. I went out Saturday night for my friend Sam´s last night bartending at the Dreamer Hostel. I pre-gamed pretty hard with Arguideinte (not sure if I spelled that write) and by the time we were all ready to go out it was down pouring. But we still decided to go for it. The cab drivers could not get us to our destination because their cabs were being water logged. We had them drop us off at the Colombian bars we passed on the way and sprinted into one after leaving a hefty tip for driving in such conditions. We were the only gringos in the bar. First we got stares, but after we bought some drinks and started joining in the dancing we gained some grins. Everyone was singing along to the music and I did not know a single song. It was a fabulous Colombian night. We ran across the street to a larger bar for better dancing. The water was rushing through the street well above my knees at this point. We hung out at the other bar dancing and making friends until the bar closed. When it closed, our new friends told us not to leave, that it would not be safe with all the drunk people in the street, and that we should wait or else likely be robbed. We hung out for another twenty minutes and then tried to catch a cab. After a few more minutes we decided as a group of 8, we were hopefully fairly safe and walked the 20 minutes back to our hostel. We made it back safe and sound, but oh was the next day hell! A hangover I truly deserved. But the hangover did not go away. I think I was actually on the way to getting sick on Saturday and then just amplified it with my drinking. I am still recovering today and it is 3 days later. I am hoping to eat something more than crackers and fruit today. We shall see! Sadly, these kind of food troubles are normal ones travellers face in Central and South America. I just hope I only have to deal with it once, because it is the least fun part of my trip. Until next time....
Pura vida!
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