What to Wear on the Lost City Trek

You will be wet for most of every day. If it is not the rain it is the rivers, and if it is not the rivers it is the sweat. So the only question that really matters when you pack is how fast a thing dries.

Cotton does not dry. Synthetics and merino do. That single distinction settles most of this list, and if it is all you take away from this page you are already ahead of most people.

The other thing worth accepting now: nothing you own is waterproof enough for four days here. The goal is not to arrive dry, because you will not arrive dry. The goal is to be damp and comfortable rather than damp and miserable, and those are very different trips.

Walking kit

Two quick-dry shirts is plenty. One is the shirt you walk in for four days, and yes, it will be the same shirt for four days. The other stays sealed in a dry bag and only comes out at camp. Bringing four is carrying weight for nothing.

Long sleeves are worth having even in the heat, which surprises people. They cover you from the sun on the open sections, from insects at dusk, and from the vegetation where the trail closes in.

For your legs, light trousers and shorts both work. Trousers protect you from insects and scratches; shorts are cooler and dry faster. Plenty of people bring one of each and alternate.

Then there are two things people get wrong and regret:

Underwear that dries. Nothing cotton. It is the single most common mistake on this list.
Two pairs of socks, minimum. One to walk in and one kept dry for camp, stored in a bag during the day. Merino or synthetic blends.

Footwear

The full detail is in the packing list, but the short version is that trail runners which drain beat waterproof boots which fill. You cross rivers on foot, several times a day. A membrane keeps water out right up until it cannot, and from that point on it keeps the water in.

Whatever you bring, break it in at home. Almost every blister we have seen on this trail traces back to the same three things: new footwear, wrong footwear, or wet footwear. Do not debut anything here.

And bring sandals or crocs for camp. They weigh almost nothing, and letting your feet dry out overnight matters a good deal more than it sounds.

Rain

You need a real rain jacket. Not a poncho, not a windbreaker. It rains hard here from May to November, and the trek does not stop for it.

That said, expect the jacket to give up at some point, because in this humidity everything gives up. Its job is to buy you the first hour of a downpour, not the whole day. Which is why the dry bags end up mattering more than the jacket does.

At camp

The nights are not cold. You are in a tropical mountain range and the camps sit low, so cold is not the problem. What you will be is damp, and damp at rest feels a lot colder than damp while walking.

For those hours you want one dry set of clothes that travelled all day sealed in the dry bag and gets worn only there, something with sleeves for the evening insects, and swimwear. There are places to get in the water and you will want to.

What you should not bring is a fleece or a down layer. You will carry either one for four days without taking it out once.

Near indigenous settlements

You pass Kogui and Wiwa houses, most noticeably on day two. Dress modestly there: shirt on, nothing revealing.

We know you are hot and tired. It is still someone’s front yard. This is one of the rules your guide will enforce rather than suggest, and it costs you absolutely nothing. If you want the full context, it is in the indigenous communities guide.

What to leave at home

Anything cotton: jeans, t-shirts, underwear. Wet by lunch on day one and still wet on day four.
Fleece, down, thermals. There is no cold on this trek that justifies any of the three.
Anything you would hate to ruin. Mud, river water and four days of sweat are hard on clothes.
An outfit per day. That is roughly 4 kg you will carry for nothing. The answer is two sets, one wet and one dry.

How to dress each day, on the 4-day route

Day 1 is 9.3 km of warm-up. Wear exactly what you plan to wear for the rest of the trek, because today is the cheap day to find out what your shoes do inside a river.

Day 2 is 17.2 km and it is the climb: the long, hot day. Wear the lightest kit you have, with long sleeves for the settlements you pass.

Day 3 is the terraces. You start before dawn in cool air and finish in full sun. It is the only day you might want a layer setting out, and the only day you definitely will not want it by nine in the morning.

Day 4 is another 17.2 km, downhill. Wear whatever is least destroyed and get the poles out if you brought them, because this is the day your knees and feet do the work.

Seasonal adjustments

From December to March the weather is drier and you can carry lighter rain gear. Lighter, not none: the afternoon showers turn up all year round.

From April to November the rain kit stops being optional, and it is worth bringing two dry bags instead of one, electronics in one and dry clothes in the other. Assume anything left outside a dry bag will get wet at some point in the trek, because it does.

What to Wear on the Lost City Trek — What Actually Works