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In Search of the Lost City

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Below is a travel piece I wrote after my trek to Ciudad Perdida last year. The Washington Post initially offered to publish it, but then stopped responding to my emails - I think they laid off their travel editor or something. I forgot all about it until it popped up in an unrelated mail search. So here ya go: In Search of the Lost City I blame Steven Spielberg. When I arrived on Colombia's Caribbean coast and learned that the remains of an ancient city lay hidden deep in the nearby jungle, visions of Indiana Jones began to dance in my head. A few days later I found myself trekking for six days along steep, muddy, snake- and insect-infested trails, fording whitewater rivers and crossing countless stepping-stone bridges, drinking the river water and sleeping in hammocks, all just to reach and return from the thousand-year-old ruins known as Ciudad Perdida. The lost city languished untouched for centuries until 1973, when it was rediscovered by treasure hunters. Two years later, af