Deep in the jungle-swathed mountains of Sierra Nevada lies La Ciudad Perdida, Colombia’s fabled ruined city dubbed “the new Machu Picchu”. Built in 800AD by the indigenous Tayrona tribes, it was abandoned following a run-in with Spanish conquistadors and largely forgotten, until looters rediscovered it in the 1970s. around 10% of it has been uncovered and made open for those who make the pilgrimage here on the Lost City trek.You’ll need to make like Indiana Jones if you want to see it for yourself, as the high-altitude trek up involves a three-day trudge through humid cloudforest.One-third of the 30,000 square kilometres of the UNESCO reserved biosphere Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a National Park open for exploration, where a path has been roughly carved through the wilderness to lead you to a hidden city and the central axis of a lost civilisation.
