Kogui Trek

• Meet your guide at your hotel in Santa Marta. We can organize from Santa Marta by private transport or meet you at Aracataca.
• Travel to the village of Aracataca
• Exploration of Gabriel Garcia Márquez Landmarks
• Jump in a 4×4 to reach the Kogui Community where you’ll spend one night
• Get introduced to the elders and the community
• Share meals and myths of the Kogui Culture
• Sleep in a traditional house
• Traditional welcome ceremony at a waterfall
• Discover their fields and manufactures
• Help Kogui in their daily life
• Evening cultural exchange
• Travel back to Aracataca or Santa Marta

We will meet in the town of Aracataca, easily accessible from Santa Marta by public bus or private transport depending on your option. Arrival at 09:30 am. Upon arrival, our local guide will greet you, and we will explore key landmarks from Gabriel Garcia Marques history such as the train station, the almond tree esplanade, San Jose church, Melquiades’ tomb, the monument to Remedios La Bella, and, notably, the home of Gabo’s maternal grandparents, which served as a profound inspiration for his literary works. 

We will enjoy lunch at a local restaurant in Aracataca. Following lunch, we will proceed by 4X4 to the mountains. Our journey on a dirt road into the territory of the indigenous Arhuaco people. Continuing alongside a broad river, we will arrive at the community where Javier, our indigenous guide, and his family will warmly receive us. They will share their traditional lifestyle with us, beginning with a hike to a stunning waterfall where we can traditional welcome in ceremony while Javier explains the societal structure of the Kogui people, the significance of the poporo (a pre-Columbian container), and the role of the coca leaf in their daily practices.

In the late afternoon, we will engage further with the Kogui community, convening in the settlement center after dinner. Overnight accommodations will be in hammocks with mosquito nets, allowing us to experience and appreciate the community’s way of life firsthand.

In the morning, after breakfast, we will meet the Mamo, the spiritual leader, if he is available, before exploring the community’s agricultural. We’ll wander through fields of yucca, rice, plantains, bananas, coca, and sugarcane, culminating at the sugarcane production area where we’ll have a tasting. Afterwards, we’ll cool off with a refreshing swim in a large, natural pool.

We will cross the river to visit the Kogui school, where we’ll meet with the children studying and their professor. Nearby, we’ll watch local men craft cotton threads used by women in the community to weave their famous bags, known as mochilas.

For lunch, we’ll join our guide’s family, and his wife will demonstrate the traditional art of bag weaving by local women. In the early afternoon, our transportation will arrive to take us back to Aracataca. From there, you can catch a bus to Santa Marta, arriving in the late afternoon.

sharing stories and myths with the community before sleeping.