the globe says
Colombia
Fly to Santa Marta via Bogotá. The Lost City is reachable only on foot — four days through the Sierra Nevada with a licensed guide.
Trek camps with bunks and river swims; in Santa Marta, a casona in the old center.
A city 650 years older than Machu Picchu, reached by 1,200 mossy stone steps, with a fraction of the visitors — plus Kogi villages whose people still keep the mountains.
Swim in every river pool the guides allow — the trek is hot, and the pools are the memory that lasts.
December to March
Con mucho gusto — with pleasure; the coastal Colombian reflex.
One River by Wade Davis — ethnobotany and history in these exact mountains.
Minca's coffee farms in the foothills, for the recovery days after.
The trek is genuinely demanding in heat and humidity — train a little, and go only with licensed operators.