Beach at Cabo San Juan Guia. Photo: Andrew Bain

From its mountains to beaches, this corner of Colombia offers plenty, writes Andrew Bain.

Not all lost cities in the South American mountains are at Machu Picchu. High in the northern reaches of Colombia, in the coastal Sierra Nevada range, a pair of lost cities lies hidden in dark jungle. Around them, monkeys scamper through the canopy, hummingbirds hover beside flowers, and poison frogs hop about the undergrowth. It's one of the most evocative mountain wildernesses in South America.

The Sierra Nevada is the world's highest coastal mountain range, rising to more than 5700 metres above sea level. A great portion of it is protected by Tayrona National Park, considered by many to be Colombia's finest national park.

Kogi village. Photo: Andrew Bain

People come mostly for its beaches - locals proudly and regularly tell you that these Caribbean beaches were once rated the second most beautiful in the world - but it's in the mountains behind the beaches that the haunting remains of two lost cities, Ciudad Perdida and Pueblito, furnish the jungle.

Advertisement

Hardy travellers come to trek to Ciudad Perdida, an ancient city rediscovered by a treasure hunter in 1875. The trek is a journey of around five days on foot, wading across the Buritaca River seven times and sleeping and eating in basic conditions in indigenous villages.

Pueblito yields more easily and can be reached on a day hike that also takes in a number of the beaches. From Santa Marta, which is claimed as South America's oldest city, it's a short drive to the roadside village of Cabalazo, where I begin walking. Jungle teems down the mountain slopes, and inside this snarl of growth it feels almost as though you could lose a city in a week.

Hiking through Tayrona National Park. Photo: Andrew Bain

Read more:

Caribbean dream