Is The Lost City Trek Safe? My Thoughts & Experience

There’s no doubt about it, the Lost City trek in Colombia is an amazing experience. It’s one of the best things to do in South America!

But is it safe? Yes, the short answer is that the hike is generally safe. The main risk is twisting an ankle or something of that sort. I did the hike myself recently and it was a lot of fun.

With that said, staying out of danger was one of my main concerns before going, because Colombia doesn’t have a great record and there’s still a lot of guerilla violence in the country.

In this blog post, I’ll try to address all of these worries and share some top tips for staying safe on the trek.

Background: The Lost City Trek

This article is only focused on safety info.

If you’re looking for more general details on the Lost City trek and how to do it, I wrote a complete guide for that here.
 

Safety On The Trek: What To Know

• Violence

Colombia has a high crime rate and tourists aren’t immune to that, although the situation has improved a bit in recent years.

In 2003, eight international tourists were kidnapped at gunpoint from the Lost City trail by guerillas from the ELN group. They purportedly did this to protest human rights violations from paramilitaries in the area.

The tourists were finally released after being held hostage in the jungle for 101 days, but the trail was closed for 2 years because of the incident.

The good news is that there haven’t been any more problems since the trail reopened in 2005. It’s had a good safety record for more than 20 years now.

There’s also an army presence in the area now, and the trek has become a major source of income for the locals, so disturbing tourists would be counterproductive for everyone involved.

With that in mind, I wasn’t too worried about guerillas on the trek, and once we got into the jungle I stopped thinking about the whole thing completely.

• Theft

I haven’t heard of anyone having things stolen at the camps on this trek, but it is a dorm style sleeping arrangement, so just be smart.

Each camp will have about 20-50 people sleeping in it every night, and if you lose anything the trekking companies won’t be liable.

You can hide your phone and cash under your pillow, or under the bed mattress if you want to be extra careful. Just don’t forget it when you leave camp the next day.
 

• Trail Conditions

One of the main risks on this hike is just the terrain. It’s very rocky and muddy, so there are lots of opportunities to slip, trip, or fall.

With 4 days of continuous hiking in this kind of environment, it would be very easy to twist your ankle at some point on the trek.

Our guide told us that happens to people very often. He had even seen one hiker break an ankle, and another was paralyzed after diving head first into shallow water.

One of the steepest sections of the trail

However, if you’re careful and watch your step, you’ll do fine. Don’t worry.

No one in our group ever got hurt, and none of the other groups we talked to had any problems either.

In general, the trail is never steep enough to be dangerous in terms of huge drops or anything like that. You won’t be rock climbing with exposure or anything.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t cliffs on the trail, but they’re easily seen and easily avoided.

All of the river crossings have bridges now

• Food Safety

The situation with food and water safety has improved a lot, but unfortunately some people still report getting sick on the Lost City trek.

Even though the camp workers do a pretty good job with hygiene and meal preparation, it’s hard to keep things perfectly clean and safe when you’re cooking in a remote jungle camp.

We talked to another hiker on the trail and they said three members of their group got very sick with diarrhea and throwing up, and had to be carried out on mules.

Thankfully that didn’t happen to anyone in our group, but if you want to be extra safe, there are lots of places to buy bottled drinking water along the trail, or you can bring your own water purification tablets (here’s the kind I used).

To be fair, all the food we ate was great, and there was filtered drinking water available at every camp where we stayed.

We had no issues with sickness on our trek, but the possibility remains.

Drying our clothes in one of the camps

An indigenous village we saw along the way

• Animals

The Sierra Nevada mountains are home to many kinds of animals, including jaguars, tapirs, toucans, and howler monkeys.

Unfortunately we were unlucky and barely saw any animals on our trek, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.

It’s rare to see a venomous snake or spider on the trek, but it’s not unthinkable, so take reasonable precautions for that.

Be careful where you step, especially if you go off trail or wander around outside the camp at night.

Give your boots a good shake every morning to make sure there aren’t critters hiding in them.

Bright green mountains

• Bugs

This is a jungle hike, so naturally there are bugs. I didn’t find them to be terrible.

There is some risk of diseases like Yellow Fever from the mosquitoes in this area, but cases of that are rare. I’m not aware of any tourist contracting Yellow Fever here. Just know that it’s a possibility.

Some trekking companies for the Lost City do recommend having the Yellow Fever vaccine, but it’s not required.

You can get the shot in Colombia, and sometimes they even give it away for free at the Bogota airport, but keep in mind it takes 10 days to be effective.

I was glad to have the vaccine just in case, but most people go without it. No one else in our group was vaccinated for Yellow Fever, and none of us had any issues.

Definitely bring some bug spray to use every day while hiking. Mosquitoes will try to bite when you sit down to rest, and they were especially bad when we were touring the ruins at the end of the trek.

At night, all of the beds in the camps have mosquito nets to protect you when sleeping, so you don’t need to worry about that.

The beds are protected with mosquito nets

More Colombia Travel Guides

Thanks for looking! I hope you found these safety tips helpful for visiting the Lost City in Colombia.

Don’t forget to check out my complete guide for the Lost City trek before you go!