Hiking to the Lost City, Hopping homeward bound

It was to be a 6am and I awoke groggily to the guide swinging my hammock.
My first lucid thought was "Ow". The ow was eminating from my ankle which I tried to move and like a stubborn horse in showjumping, it refused. I dismounted from the hammock and put some weight on it. Owfeckingoucharseowowouch. I cursed like a silesian prostitue and hopped down to the toilet to do my ablutions. The guide saw me and looked rather concerned as this was the big day, we were covering all the ground we had hiked on day one and two. He called over an old Kogi woman who proceeded to do some weird massaging of the ankle. Like the X-Files, I really wanted to believe but all she brought me was a whole world of pain. I tried to smile at her but it was hard with gritted teeth and teared up eyes. She then applied a bandage that the guide had given her. Whatever about ancient massages, this old lady had no ideas how to strap an ankle. She just wound the whole bandage around the ankle. Luckily an Israeli chap who had just got out of the army jumped in as soon as she had scuffled off and reapplied the bandage in a very professional manner. Next it was the Irish lass who gave me some Neurofen - I swallowed 3. After that I put on two pairs of socks and forced myself into my shoes.

After some coffee (no rum unfortunately) and food we set off and surprisingly the ankle didn't feel too bad. It was all mainly uphill at the start which was good as it meant little weight on the ankle. I started to feel elated and a spring developed in my step. The kilometers flew by and then it was time for the last downhill before home.

Whether it was the Neurofen or the Indian's black magic wearing off or the fact that the downhill was extremely steep I don't know, but after a couple of steps the pain was intense and increasing with every step. I had to stop every couple of steps for a pain break. Then I tried walking sideways - not bad. Then backwards - great! But unfortunately my vision was slightly impared and I fell on my arse. The minutes went by slowly and I descended like the hunchback of Notre Damn. Miraculously flat ground appeared again, but at this stage even flat was painful. But it was only for another kilometer or so and then the village where we started came in to sight. At this stage I was only thinking of sitting down so I plowed through some rivers and arrived at the bar where we started. Before even sitting down I ordered two beers and drank them within about 7.2 seconds.

After a face wash, some food and some more beers I felt vaguely (OK, very vaguely) normal again. We hopped into the jeep and cruised back to Taganga. I had the most fantastic shower of my life and a lie down (the bed felt like it had been made for the pea princess) but the trek demanded celebrating. So somehow I arose, had dinner with all of the crew and to this day I cannot explain how I was hopping around the dance floor at 3am... Indian magic?