Food on the Lost City Trek — What You Eat, Meal by Meal

Every meal is included from lunch on day one, cooked at camp, and there is more of it than people expect. Nobody finishes this trek hungry.

What you get is Colombian home cooking made in a camp kitchen. Not gourmet, not survival rations, and considerably better than most people brace themselves for. The only meal you buy yourself is breakfast on day one, before the 07:00 meeting in Santa Marta.

What a day of eating looks like

Breakfast happens at camp and leans heavily on carbohydrates, because you are about to walk for seven hours: eggs, arepas, rice, sometimes pasta, fruit and coffee.

Lunch depends on the day. On the long stages you eat it on the trail, usually beside a river, where wrapped carbohydrate and protein get handed out at a stop. On the shorter days you eat back at camp.

Dinner is communal, at the camp table. Soup first, then rice, beans, plantain and either chicken or fish, with juice. Snacks and fruit come out at stops throughout the day.

The meals that matter most

Lunch on day two is the one to take seriously. That is the 17.2 km stage, and it climbs for most of the way, and the midday stop is what carries you through the afternoon. Eat all of it even if the heat has killed your appetite, because mid-afternoon on day two is where people fade and under-eating at lunch is usually the reason.

Summit morning is the other one. You climb the 1,200 steps before dawn, so there is early food before you go. Take it even if you do not feel like eating at four in the morning — an hour of continuous stairs on an empty stomach is a bad idea.

Water

Treated water for refills is provided at every camp, so you do not need a filter, purification tablets or anything else.

What you do need is the capacity to carry two to three litres between stops. At 28–32 °C with high humidity, that is not a generous allowance. It is the working minimum.

Dietary requirements — what is realistic

Vegetarian is routine here. Tell us when you book and it is handled without fuss, and beans, rice, plantain, eggs and vegetables are the base of the cooking anyway. Vegan is possible with notice, though the variety will be narrower than it would be in a city.

Gluten-free is genuinely harder out there than vegetarian. Arepas are corn, which helps, but bread and pasta do appear and the kitchen is not set up for separate preparation. Tell us early and be realistic about the constraints.

Severe allergies need to be communicated clearly and well in advance. A camp kitchen is a camp kitchen: shared surfaces, shared pots, one cooking area. We will do what can be done and we will tell you honestly what cannot, but if your allergy requires guaranteed isolation, that is a conversation to have before you pay a deposit rather than at the trailhead.

What is not included

Breakfast on day one, on the 4- and 5-day treks. The 3-day includes it, at El Mamey after the 04:30 pickup.
Alcohol. Some camps sell beer, priced by the camp rather than by us, and it is not in the tour price.
Personal snacks. The cooks portion for the group, so if you burn fast, bring your own nuts or bars.

Who cooks

A cook travels with the group and works from the camp kitchens, preparing everything fresh on site rather than carrying it in pre-made.

That is also why the menu is what it is. It is what can be cooked well for a group in a jungle camp, with what can be brought in.

Practical notes people appreciate afterwards

Bring your own snacks if you graze. Group portions are generous at meals and non-existent between them.
Electrolytes matter more than food on the hot days, and rehydration salts weigh nothing.
Do not feed the camp dogs. They are not hungry and it creates problems for every group after yours.
Carry small bills for tips. The cook is part of the team the tip is split between — COP 50,000–100,000 per trekker across guides and kitchen — and there is nowhere on the trail to change a COP 50,000 note.

Where do you sleep? — the camps in detail
What to pack — water capacity and snacks
Lost City trek price — what full board covers
4-day itinerary — which meals fall where