The bare necessities... in Leticia, Colombia (Part One)

Part One.

Every traveller bravely sets off with the intention of doing something that has never been done before, only to find, in this day and age, it’s almost impossible. With a name for every nook and a review for every cranny of the world, it seems travel beyond the guidebook is the stuff of BBC documentaries and National Geographic magazines, with the rest of us simply following the tourist trail laid out for us by locals, eager to satisfy our appetite for “new” experiences. So, imagine our excitement when our hostel manager asked us if we were interested in an activity so far off the beaten track even the Lonely Planet doesn’t list it: A two day trek through 60km of virgin rainforest, across a former narco-trafficking route, in the Colombian Amazon to meet a mysterious community of settlers. We couldn't believe our luck. The starting point for this unique hike was 'Kilometro 20' in Leticia, a growing town in southern Colombia bordering Brazil, Peru and the world’s largest rainforest: the tremendous Amazon. Slightly nervous about the long day ahead, three of us followed our guide to El Calderón, the entrance of what is referred to in Spanish as selva selva or 'real rainforest'.

We walked, or rather, bounced along the spongy bed of brown leaves, admiring the colours surrounding us, like enthusiastic guests being shown around a friend’s newly decorated home, the tall, skinny trees welcoming us into their world. This state of awe lasted a good few hours until just after lunch when the inevitable happened: it started to rain.

When you’re in the middle of virgin rainforest you realise what it means to be “at one with nature”. It means getting soaking wet when it rains, and stepping into swamps to get across them; it means using the resources around you to traverse rivers - as well as your imagination - and it means there really is no light as dusk draws close (more so when Isma, ever the engineer, was the only person who thought to bring a torch).

The sunset slowly crept up on us, and we moved faster to get to end of the forest, but our determination was matched by that of the day, who was all too eager to meet the night; within an hour darkness had cast itself over the Amazon like a thick blanket.

And that’s when the path split into two. Left or right, right or left. The most important decision we would have to make that day - just fifteen minutes from the end of a nine-hour hike. Grateful for the lack of light camouflaging the confusion in our guide’s eyes we shone the aforementioned headtorch over the two potential paths before doing what anyone with a fifty percent chance of success would have done… …we went the wrong way.

Find out what happened in Part Two.