Harking back a few weeks now to distant memories of communing with all the insects up in "La Sierra" as the Locals call it. The last week of which was staying on a Finca a days walk from the (very nice) little town of Palominas up the coast from Santa Marta. Its strange there because they only have water every 4 days, so most of the time we used water from big oil drums that are filled up each time the pipe is connected.
The plumbing up in the mountains is a little better as the pipes from the streams uphill aren`t shared with other villages... well they are, but indigenous villages with a dozen families living in thatched houses with mud and straw walls, so not quite such a strain on the resource. I met the chief of one village, who is also the medicine man and chief chewer of Coca leaves Mamon Selio is his name. He just sits and watches, quietly chewing away.
It really was a great experience being up there and living to some extent off the land, and trading things like needles with the indigenous folk for bananas and root vegetables! Very different from the tour group fun and shennanigans of the lost city treck, which in itself was a fairly magical excursion. It did sometimes feel like a cross between an Indiana Jones film and The Jungle Book (yeah thats a cool feeling too) and you did have to work hard to have some time on the trail in peace. The forest up there is just magnificent, my pictures will never do it justice as you can never get an idea of the scale of it all they are all on film, so one day I might get round to developing them and posting a few for you, in the mean time you can look at my friend Richs at http://www.flickr.com/photos/goneforawander/sets/72057594109613710/ and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/goneforawander/sets/72057594109641634/. The depth of detail and variety in everything whether you are looking at the foliage a few feet away or a buttress of the mountain on the opposite side of the valley shrouded in mist, fractally infinite whisps of moss and vines hanging off trees that would look more at home in the lord of the rings than reality is just impossible to convey without putting all your senses there in the middle of it all.
Okay having computer trouble, so this is all going to go as is, and Hopeully be followed up by more compete transcripts from paper and pan diaries soon....
The plumbing up in the mountains is a little better as the pipes from the streams uphill aren`t shared with other villages... well they are, but indigenous villages with a dozen families living in thatched houses with mud and straw walls, so not quite such a strain on the resource. I met the chief of one village, who is also the medicine man and chief chewer of Coca leaves Mamon Selio is his name. He just sits and watches, quietly chewing away.
It really was a great experience being up there and living to some extent off the land, and trading things like needles with the indigenous folk for bananas and root vegetables! Very different from the tour group fun and shennanigans of the lost city treck, which in itself was a fairly magical excursion. It did sometimes feel like a cross between an Indiana Jones film and The Jungle Book (yeah thats a cool feeling too) and you did have to work hard to have some time on the trail in peace. The forest up there is just magnificent, my pictures will never do it justice as you can never get an idea of the scale of it all they are all on film, so one day I might get round to developing them and posting a few for you, in the mean time you can look at my friend Richs at http://www.flickr.com/photos/goneforawander/sets/72057594109613710/ and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/goneforawander/sets/72057594109641634/. The depth of detail and variety in everything whether you are looking at the foliage a few feet away or a buttress of the mountain on the opposite side of the valley shrouded in mist, fractally infinite whisps of moss and vines hanging off trees that would look more at home in the lord of the rings than reality is just impossible to convey without putting all your senses there in the middle of it all.
Okay having computer trouble, so this is all going to go as is, and Hopeully be followed up by more compete transcripts from paper and pan diaries soon....
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