I got lost in a Colombian Jungle

Fun fact: Colombian hiking trails are poorly marked… very poorly marked

This was a fun realization me and my teammates had about 2 hours into our hike in the jungle 2 days ago. 

Let me back track a little bit, I found this fun 2.5 mile hike through the Colombian jungle, starting at Pablo Escobar’s prison, which we were guaranteed to see 2 waterfalls. It also said that they recommend doing the hike backwards because it is “easier.” So me, and 3 other of my teammates decided it would be a perfect morning hike, and then we could go and get lunch afterwards. A perfect day right, what could go wrong?

To first get to the start of the hike, we call an Uber to take us an hour up the mountain. The last 30 minutes of the drive are tight switch backs on a single lane, two way road. The Uber driver constantly remarks “wow” and “I’ve never been to this part before.” Finally, he drops us off at a fork in the road where a bunch of bikers are resting. And we’re like… what now? 

We see a sign that says something about a trail and we follow in the direction of the arrow. After about 5 min of walking we get to Pablo Escobars prison that he built for himself which is now an old folks home. And our hike begins. We follow the arrows painted on the ground and explore a little bit of the abandoned torn down parts of the prison. We also read a few ominous signs that were very poorly translated into English. We find the trailhead and it is blocked by a barbed wire fence, we just decide to walk past it… the hike must go on. 

The first hour or so of the hike was fun, really fun. We were on a relatively flat path, and had a lot of fun seeing some little waterfalls. We took lots of pictures, we were laughing, and just reveling in the fact that we were hiking through a Colombian jungle. 

Not long after that, the honeymoon phase ended as we encouraged steep, muddy drops. The worst part was that maybe 5 or 6 of these drastic drops had a rope to help us down, all of the cliffs after this did not. Our chacos were no match for the dense mud and pine needles. We encouraged a couple on the hike and there was one instance where the guy slid straight down a muddy cliff. Yet, he saw us and climbed right back up to give us a hand to help us down. A true saint. 

We thought we would be fine if we followed the couple because the guy had done the hike a few times before. Yet somehow they got so far ahead of us we couldn’t find them. And that’s when things fell apart. We were following the trail on my phone with the gps, a green line, and a topographic map that showed no landmarks. Because I don’t have any service in Colombia and the gps on my phone is only so good, we couldn’t find the trail. Well, we could find a trail, but we weren’t sure if it was our trail or a trail that’s going to lead us 45 min in the wrong direction. 

We should have turned around at this point… but we didn’t. 

We find a trail and the little blue dot that shows our location begins to drift further and further away from where we are supposed to be, but we decide to say a prayer and keep following the trail. We follow it for about 30 min and the blue dot keeps on getting farther from the trail. The thing is, the trail that we were following was not a flat trail, and quite frankly I would barely call it a trail at all because half of it was a river. It also had several ups and downs, and by ups and downs I mean cliffs, that the only way you can get up and down is by grabbing onto roots or a spikey tree. 

All of a sudden as we are slowly climbing down what maybe is our 10th cliff so far, the blue dot magically goes back on the green path. By the grace of God we were rolling the right path all along. We thought it was smooth sailing from this point forward… it was not. 

We were constantly finding and losing the trail, and time was ticking. We had to make it back by 5pm to the base for dinner. Another fun little tidbit to keep in mind is that we had rice and eggs for breakfast and didn’t bring any food along on our hike that we thought was gonna be 2 hours. It’s safe to say we were starving. 

The next 45 min or so we were lost, there is no way to sugar coat it. We had no clue if we were on the trial or just climbing up and down cliffs that had no end in sight. Finally, we descend the steepest cliff with spiky roots on both sides and find a beautiful waterfall. It felt like heaven. But the sad part was it was already 1:15 and we had only a couple more hours before we needed to exit the trail to get back to the base. So we took a few quick pictures and went on our way. 

Another fun thing that we realized when we got to the waterfall that the “trail” we had spent the past hour or more walking was marked as “dangerous” and “only proceed with a guide.” So that was really encouraging.

When we hit this point in our journey, we were tired, cold, muddy, and hungry. We also were arguably more lost than before. We had little hope that we would actually make it back before dark. At this point the trail was a stream. It wasn’t a babbling brook kind of stream, it was a stream with a bunch of rocks everywhere. This past month has also been unusually rainy in Medellin so of course the river was high. The worst part about this trail was that we probably crossed the river about 50 times. Each time I said a prayer that none of us slipped on a rock because there was no way we could carry someone out if they were injured. I also was so scared I was going to drop my phone and we would be toast. 

By about 2:00 we are somehow not even halfway through this 2.5 mile hike and we’re more scared then ever. We climb up we believe to be the trail and we keep on climbing up this cliff. Finally we get to this drop, about a 10-15 ft drop. At this point we are tired and exhausted. We decide to turn around. We figured that we could quickly backtrack our steps and hopefully make it back before 3:00 when the gates to Pablo Escobars prison closed. It was rather adventurous of us really. 

About 15-20 minutes into back stepping we find a path we saw from a cliff we were on earlier and decided… why not try it. It is a blessing that we did try it, because it led us right back onto the path. 

It was truly amazing how fast we finished the last mile of the hike. There were a couple of times we thought we may have crossed the wrong path, but never like before. Finally, we hit the dirt road path that will lead us to the town and we take a sigh of relief and revel in the beauty that is surrounding us, something we hadn’t done for the past couple of hours. 

We end the trail around 3:00 which was perfect because it was 2 hours before dinner. We go to call an Uber and the lovely “no cars available” shows up. Great. We just barely escaped the jungle and now we’re stranded in this farming town. We ended near a bus stop which was also near the local community center. We walk up to them and ask how we can call a taxi and he laughs at us. He told us we were never gonna get a taxi up there and we were going to have to wait for the bus that was going to come at 3:15. 

So we go back to the bus stop. 3:15 comes and passes and no sign of a bus. Around 3:25 about 15 people slowly file towards the bus stop. They told us the bust would come at 3:30. 3:30 comes and passes and we’re starting to doubt the actual existence of said bus. 3:45 comes and I’m really getting worried that the bus isn’t going to come and that we’re gonna have to sleep at this bus stop. However, shortly after the bus comes and we ride it for 20 min to the local metro station. From there we call an Uber and make it back to the foundation by around 5:00. In time to shower before dinner. 

I get to the terrace and I can’t believe that I’m actually seeing this view of Medellin. It’s something I never thought I was going to see again. I eat my pasta dinner and rejoice in the fact that I’m going to sleep in my ‘home’ for the night. It was a long day, and one that was truly terrifying, but I wouldn’t change the experience for anything. 

I posted some photos on my instagram @shelby.whiting if you want to see some of the super cool views that I did see while on this crazy journey. 

Psalm 56:3 “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you”