COSMOPOLITAN · 131On the final day of the trek, we
turned the last corner, lightheaded
with relief, and found a shaman
from the Wiwa tribe sitting on
a rock waiting to greet us and
perform a soul-cleansing ceremony.
He was devilishly handsome and
already had multiple wives, so it felt
way more hopeful than any of the
dates I’d been on back home.Anything less Bear Grylls?
There’s not a spa hotel in sight,
but on the final night, back at
Hotel Tayromar, just having toiletpaper and a proper shower felt
incredibly luxurious after seven
days sleeping in basic camps in
the jungle. This trip is not for the
faint-hearted, but it is for those
who want a truly unique experience
(and travel stories you can dine out
onforyears to come). ›Get me there
Seven-day Lost City Trekking with G
Adventures, from £539, including two
nights at Hotel Tayromar, excluding
flights; Gadventures.co.uk
faced with ANOTHER steep
mountainous path and I just stood
there and screamed expletives into
the forest. Which made my fellow,
rather athletic and clean-mouthed
hikers stop and snigger into their
eco water bottles.
Ultimate status update?
There is so much Instagram fodder
it’s hard to know where to start,
although obviously there is no
reception so you have to store up
latergrams. The point of the lost city
trek is to, erm, find the lost city of
Teyuna (also known as Ciudad
Perdida), which had remained
undiscovered until 1972. We were
successful in this mission, and the
view from the top made the days
leading up to it so worthwhile.
Forget the 30-day squat
challenge; we’re talking
1,200 steps leading up to
the highest point – 3,937
feet above sea level. On
the way back down, we
swam in a Timotei-ad-style
waterfall and I found
a lost child from a local
village and carried her
back to her tribe – a
moment I’ll treasure forever.
One morning, as I woke at
the crack of dawn, I found a
donkey standing next to my bed.
Another night, after about 10 hours’
trekking, and soaked to the bone,
we gathered at the camp under an
awning with our group leader, Sergio.
We ate bowls of warm salty
popcorn while he sang us
songs about frogs and
told us about the
local Wiwa tribe’s
belief that you
must be patient
to find true love.
I may have cried.
OK, I was like
Gwyneth Paltrow
making her Oscar
speech in 1999.