[Josh] Tonight, our quest for El Dorado continues.
[pilot speaking]
[Josh] Deep in the Colombian jungle...
All right so, Jaguars, spiders, snakes, plants...
- pretty much the whole jungle's trying to kill us. - Yes.
[Josh] Clues from a mysterious civilization point the way to hidden treasures.
Oh, come on! Look at this!
Are there other cities out there?
- Absolutely. - [Josh] No question?
No question
[Josh] Whoo!
It's our most dangerous expedition ever...
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
I have never been in a jungle environment
that was more challenging than this one... ever.
[yells]
Duce!
...as we uncover the truth behind the lost city of gold.
Ha-ha!
Is it a wall? Look at that!
My name is Josh Gates...
Hello!
...explorer, adventurer...
This is sick.
[yells]
...and a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.
Whew! That was exciting.
With a degree in archeology,
and a passion for the unexplained...
[exclaims] Ya-ha!
...I travel to the ends of the earth
investigating the greatest legends in history.
Okay. Let's punch it.
This is Expedition Unknown.
[Josh] Okay, here we go Let's do it.
My team is currently hiking in the mountains of northern Colombia.
It is hot, it is humid,
and we are miles from civilization.
We got here the same way those before us did,
by being obsessed with legends.
And no legend has sowed more destruction than El Dorado.
In the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors mounted expeditions
to the new world in search of this fabled city of gold.
Their campaigns unleashed suffering and death.
And their thirst for treasure drove the extinction
of entire civilizations.
But where did the story begin?
And could there really be gold
and lost cities out there to be found?
I followed the trail of conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada
to Lake Guatavita in Columbia.
Welcome to El Dorado.
Oh, my God.
It was here that the indigenous Muisca people anointed their new chief
by covering him in gold
and depositing offerings in the lake.
In time, the story of The Golden Man, El Hombre Dorado
mutated into the legend of a golden city, El Dorado.
Imagine hearing stories
of people covering themselves in gold.
They must be so dripping in gold that they can afford to bathe in it almost.
- Their imaginations must have gone wild. - Yeah.
[Josh] At a Muisca burial site,
we discovered real treasures that the Spanish never found.
- It's gold. [exclaims] - Yeah. It's a piece of gold.
[Josh] Unbelievable. Look at this.
But the El Dorado myth is about more than just treasure.
It's about an entire lost city.
When the Spanish arrived on Colombia's Caribbean coast,
they encountered the gold-adorned Tairona people
who retreated to strongholds deep in the mountains.
For the next 400 years,
outsiders for unable to reach these mysterious cities.
Then in the 1970s,
looters discovered a massive Tairona settlement deep in the jungle,
which they named Ciudad Perdida,
or the Lost City.
Today archaeologists at the site
are using cutting-edge scanning technology
to reveal something extraordinary.
There may be more lost cities
and priceless treasures even deeper in the interior.
My mission, reach the team at Ciudad Perdida
to find a real El Dorado.
We're carrying all of our filming equipment,
not to mention a week's worth of food and supplies,
20 miles up a mountain to Ciudad Perdida
- It's beautiful here. - It's beautiful, isn't it?
- Yes. Which usually means it's also dangerous. - Yeah.
What should I be worried about here?
- We have jaguars... - Uh-huh.
[Sergio] We have 80 different kinds of spiders.
- [Josh] Eighty? - [Sergio] Eighty.
That I can handle. Let's talk snakes.
We have some deadly snakes here.
- What do you have? - Bothrops.
We call that the fer-de-lance.
- That's very dangerous. - Yeah.
I have a little experience with them.
Packing up venom in a single bite to kill a man six times over,
a fer-de-lance nearly punched my ticket in the jungles of Guatemala.
[man] Josh, snake.
Snake right by you.
- Where, where, where? - Up, up, up, snake.
And in this part of Colombia, it's responsible
for nearly 70% of all snake bites.
Perfect.
All right, so Jaguar, spiders, snakes, plants.
- Pretty much the whole jungle is trying to kill us. - Yes.
-At least we'll die in a beautiful place, though, -Yeah.
Okay, guys, come on.
We need to hike more than six miles uphill to reach camp tonight.
Day two is another eight-mile trek
into the mountains.
And day three will bring us the final leg
to meet the archaeologist at Ciudad Perdida.
As the afternoon wears on, the sky opens up.
Not surprising, considering this area sees
more than 157 inches of rain a year.
Brian and Diego. Really slippery, be careful.
Don't lose that camera.
There's mud, and then there's whatever this is.
The trail turns into a giant slip and slide,
and as my tech supervisor Diego learns, it's not the fun kind.
[grunts]
- You okay? - Yeah.
[Josh] We slog on.
Still a few miles out from tonight's camp, our pace slows to a crawl.
And when the sun sets,
our situation goes from uncomfortable to un-viewable.
All right, well, we have lost the light.
The rain has stopped momentarily,
and we are trying to get ourselves to camp.
You really don't want to be hiking here after dark.
It's a pretty dangerous place to be.
Exhausted and caked in mud,
we stumble on for another mile,
desperately hoping to find our campsite.
I see lights. Here we go, guys,
Okay. Home sweet home.
- We're here, guys. - [Josh] Look at this.
Salvation.
This simple shelter built for the trek to the Lost City
may not look like much,
but after today, it feels like El Dorado.
[sighing in exhaustion]
Great day, everybody, Let's... [chuckles] Let's do it all again tomorrow.
Wonder what time the generator goes out.
Good night.
[yawns] Good morning.
I had this horrible dream that we were in a--
Oh, no, it's all real.
Okay, here we go. [sighs]
Today we need to log eight miles to reach camp.
But our spirit and everything else is a bit dampened.
One of the real challenges up here is that everything is wet.
It is so humid,
it's raining, it's misty.
You're sweating. And then, no matter what you do,
even if you hang your clothes up, they end up like this.
Still soaked.
Okay.
We make our first and easiest river crossing...
marching through verdant pastures
as we approach the heart of the jungle.
After hours of hiking in swirling heat and humidity,
we encounter something I never expected to see out here...
People.
Passing us on the ridge is an indigenous family
from a culture known as the Kogi, descendants of the Tairona.
Hola! Hola!
Machete's bigger than the kid.
Amazing.
A short walk later, we arrive at their village
where the Kogi live much as the Tairona did.
No machines, no electricity, no written language.
Isolation has protected Kogi culture,
which, despite appearances,
is actually incredibly advanced.
After all, they're living in harmony
with one of the most punishing environments on earth,
a place where European invaders,
for all their might, simply couldn't cut it.
The knowledge and grand construction of their ancestors,
the Tairona, was a secret to the outside world,
their own private El Dorado, until looters chanced upon the ruins.
- [exhales sharply] Sergio... - Yes, Josh.
So, explain this to me.
Looters found this Lost City in '75.
These looters, they were farmers, and they used to go out
in the mountains for hunting.
Right. These weren't, like, career criminals.
They were local guys.
- Yes, they were just locals. - Got it.
And what did they find up here?
One of these guys was hunting,
and he saw a stone steps.
-And that was it. They knew someone was here. -Yes.
[Josh] Wow.
And so soon after that, gold starts showing up on the black market.
Yeah.
The farmers unearthed thousands of Tairona offerings
left in burial pits at Ciudad Perdida.
Some of this stunning jewelry is on display
at the Museum of Gold in Bogota.
But much of it vanished,
lost to the illegal antiquities trade.
And how do archaeologists find this place?
The thing is that the looters, they started to fighting
and killing each other over the gold.
Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
- Have you ever seen that movie? - No.
Humphrey Bogart. Great movie. Similar story
Greed brought out the worst in the conquistadors
and in these farmers.
Fortunately, one of them blew the whistle
and lead archaeologists to the ruins of a real life El Dorado...
allowing it to be studied and conserved.
Nearly 40 years later, the team we're trying to reach believes that
what's been found so far is just scratching the surface.
- Okay. Uphill? - That's the plan.
- Let's go. - Let's do it.
Okay, so Humphrey Bogart is this down on his luck prospector, right?
He's in a bar and this guy comes in
and he's got a map.
We forge on mile after mile.
[dramatic music playing]
- Hey, Brian? - [Brian] What?
[Josh] Have you ever seen Treasure of the Sierra Madre?
[Brian] No.
[Josh] As dusk approaches,
we find our shelter and try to get some rest.
[dramatic music playing]
We're back at it bright and early.
"Just six miles to go" becomes my mantra.
The trek is starting to feel like Groundhog Day.
Oh, look. Another bridge.
Only this one is more of a bridge to be.
[Sergio Guerrero] Okay, Josh. Here is where we cross.
[Josh chuckles] Okay.
All right. Let's get wet.
- Come on. - [Sergio] Let's do it.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh exclaims] That is not warm.
-Everybody's across? Okay, let's do it. -Yeah.
From here there's nowhere to go but up.
We climb higher and higher into the mountains
until we finally reach the first traces of the Lost City.
- Josh, you see this? - Yes?
Yes. Stairs.
Yes. This is part of the Lost City.
This was built by the Tairona.
This was built by the Tairona over 1,000 years ago.
Unbelievable.
- Yes. Yeah. - And look, it just goes up, up, up.
The entrance to Ciudad Perdida is a marvel.
Exactly 1,200 steps engineered in dense jungle.
One, two,
three, four...
These stairs are the only way in or out
of the Lost City.
The Spanish noted that Tairona warriors were incredibly fierce.
Using their tactical knowledge of the jungle
to carry out lethal ambushes.
By funneling invaders onto narrow staircases like this,
the Tairona were able to repel attacks
and keep the Spanish at bay.
Two sixty one, 262, 263, 264, 265...
But we will persevere.
Turns out every day was leg day for the Tairona.
Five ninety seven, 598, 599,
six hundred. Halfway, guys!
[man] Can we stop? I'm thirsty.
I can't hear you. Keep walking, everybody.
- Someone's gonna puke. - You're doing great.
Everybody's doing great.
[whispering] We're gonna die.
We climb on
and the ancient Stairmaster literally takes my breath away.
But what we find at the top truly leaves me speechless.
After three days and more than 20 miles uphill,
we are among a small handful of people
to reach one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the last century.
The Lost City.
1198, 1199,
1200.
Oh, come on!
Look at this!
Woo!
[dramatic music playing]
Woo!
Oh, look at this place.
This is insane.
If you're looking for the Lost City, here it is.
I'm searching for the truth behind the legend of El Dorado
at Ciudad Perdida.
The ruins of a Lost City
hidden in the depths of the Colombian jungle.
What lies before is a marvel of engineering,
more than 169 stone terraces
spanning 88 acres.
All built on 4,000-foot peak
in the middle of a deeply inhospitable jungle.
Completely overgrown when it was first discovered,
archaeologist Santiago Giraldo and his team
have been excavating this site for decades.
Living and working out of their own makeshift village near the ruins.
Oh, man, so great to meet you.
[Santiago Giraldo] All right, good meeting you, too.
- I love your office. Right? - Beats a cubicle anytime of day.
- I got a lot of questions. - Go. Fire away.
Let's start with this. When?
The place began to be built by what we think were
sort of like pioneers coming in to new farming areas
around 650 A.D.
Spanish called them all Tairona
- but we don't know what they called themselves. - Right.
And when does this main section of the city get built?
This was built up
sometime between 1100 and 1200 A.D. in a single push.
[Josh] Okay. At its height, what do we think the population was here?
Anywhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people.
- Just in this-- - In just in this town.
In the upper part of the basin, over 10,000 people.
Now all this forest that you see wasn't here.
So what you'd have seen would've been
- farmland and patches of forest. - Right.
We see these big rings and these terraces.
Would all of these have had a structure on them?
Yeah, all of these had structures on them.
The smaller rings are dwellings.
The really large rings are community spaces,
feasting areas, workshops, and what have you.
So kind of like the Kogi huts that I saw coming up--
It's very similar architecture. It would've been bigger.
- Yeah. Got it. - But a bit more sophisticated and polished.
[Josh] The terraced platforms we see today
are just the foundations of this vanished metropolis.
Radiating out from the city center
were hundreds of interconnected plazas
stretching far into the jungle.
Each plaza was dotted with round thatched roof buildings,
ranging in size from single family dwellings
to massive multi-storied town halls.
All landscaped with tropical fruit trees
and fed by irrigation channels.
Now, after two decades spent exploring these ruins,
Santiago is just starting to map its full extent.
That's extraordinary, you know, that we have this
this thriving civilization here,
building absolutely stunning things.
And yet, I think to a lot of the world
Tairona isn't a name that they know.
When the Tairona culture built this mega city on a mountain,
Europe was in the throes of the Dark Ages.
The Maya were in decline,
and the great Inca empire didn't even exist.
But because the Tairona didn't have a written language,
most of what we know about them
comes from their greatest enemy.
How did the Spanish talk about the Tairona in their chronicles?
[Santiago] They described them as decked out in jewelry and finery.
Like, most everyone had gold nose pieces,
gold ear spools.
That was just daily use.
The Spanish must have really been intrigued by that.
When we talk about El Dorado,
the Spanish obsession with this idea that there's a golden city.
Is part of it fueled by places like this?
Spots that the Spanish could not easily get to.
There's always the idea of...
The indigenous folks are hiding something.
- Sure. Right. Right. - That they're hiding it away.
[Josh] Eager to get their hands on gold,
the Spanish founded Santa Marta in 1525.
And began raiding coastal Tairona settlements.
But conquering this jungle citadel
was too great a challenge.
This is far away from Santa Marta.
Getting here would've been
a good eight to ten days.
[Josh] And when they did venture deeper into Tairona territory,
the Spanish were turned back by the harsh jungle and fierce warriors.
The Spanish had a really hard time with the Tairona.
Poisoned arrows,
big stones tumbling down staircases taking people down.
This is not a place that you would wanna attack.
If you've got the high position
you can defend almost every single foot of the space.
[Josh] But despite never reaching Ciudad Perdida,
the Spanish still sowed the seeds of its destruction.
Why does it collapse up here?
Why does it all go away?
There were a number of epidemic cycles
that were diseases brought in by the Spanish.
Smallpox, influenza, typhoid fever,
cholera, bubonic plague
and indigenous populations of the Americas had no immune response to them.
90% of the population dies.
The Tairona ceased to exist
as a socio-cultural entity.
Right. So from that time period until the 1970s
- nobody's up here? - Yeah. No one's up here.
- It is literally lost to time. - Yeah. Absolutely.
[Josh] When looters finally found the Lost City,
they dug up hundreds of Tairona graves
and stole thousands of golden artifacts.
But Santiago is convinced
they barely scratched the surface.
He brings me to a Tairona monument
that may be the key to unlocking more lost cities
and their treasures.
Okay, Josh. This is one of Ciudad Perdida's biggest mysteries.
Some people like to call it the map stone.
The map stone. So it is this huge stone
that looks like it is completely carved.
It's got all of these incisions on it
and, uh, it's got it on this face.
On the sides but not the back.
I haven't seen any other carved stones like this walking around.
There is nothing like this at the site.
Nothing like the map stone has been found throughout Colombia.
- Or throughout the Caribbean. - Wow.
What are some of the theories as to what this thing is?
Some people think that it's, um,
originally the map of Ciudad Perdida.
A city map. Welcome to Ciudad Perdida, you are here. Sure.
- Okay. - Yeah. But,
we've overlaid it on top of actual maps and they don't fit.
Me and my colleagues we have a number of theories,
like some sort of constellation map.
- Aliens. - Oh, of course.
[Josh] Okay, so it's probably not a star map
made by little green men.
Santiago has a more down-to-earth hypothesis
he's eager to test with the help of imaging expert
Daniel Rodriguez Osorio.
I'm Josh. Nice to meet you, man.
Talk to me. What are we gonna do?
So kind of help us get rid of the moss and all that and just bring out the line?
It's get snapping. Come on. Go for it.
[camera shutter clicking]
Work it. Work it.
Show me sexy.
Okay, now you're a stone.
Daniel snaps hundreds of pictures of the mysterious map stone.
A few hours later, the images are rendered into a 3D model.
Whoa!
[Daniel Osorio] Look at that!
That is incredible.
[Santiago] That is very cool.
Wow! And you can manipulate it in any direction.
[Daniel speaking]
[Santiago] This is really amazing.
One of the things that jumps out, of course,
is these long paths that we see right here.
It appears to be representing a much larger territory.
Well, that begs a really important question.
Are there other cities out there?
Oh, absolutely! Absolutely.
- No question? - No question.
So deeper in this jungle, farther up in this basin,
there could be other places like Ciudad Perdida?
Yes, I'm absolutely certain.
- How? - Let me show you.
[Josh] We retire to the team's mess hall
to review new intel that could lead to undiscovered cities,
and even Tairona gold.
Okay.
- So? - So very recently,
we were able to complete a four square-mile LIDAR scan
of the area around Ciudad Perdida.
It's this laser-scanning technology. You did it with a helicopter or a plane?
We did it with a helicopter.
It sends out hundreds of thousands of lasers
and they filter through the canopy,
hit the ground, bounce back,
and give us a very, very precise map
of all the terrain.
So it's absolutely crazy.
Did it find anything?
Way more things than what we were expecting.
[Daniel speaking]
Wait a minute. Everything on here that's orange
- is potentially a Tairona site? - [Santiago] Yeah.
It's the whole basin.
Everything in orange appears to be Tairona architecture.
Hundreds of round, flat, terraces
just like those at Ciudad Perdida.
If these scans are accurate,
dozens of lost cities and incalculable treasures
lie hidden in the jungle.
This is far from legend.
This could be a real life El Dorado just waiting to be discovered.
[Santiago] We knew that there were more sites.
But then, when we saw this data, it was like,
"Wow, okay, we've got a lot of walking to do."
Where are we?
[Daniel speaks]
So you've got this impressive LIDAR data, but
the question does remain, are these sites?
The only way of knowing it is to go out and verify them.
What right here looks promising to you?
This one right here. It's located on a ridgeline.
Very similar to the pattern that we find at Ciudad Perdida.
- There's no paths out there, there's no... Nothing. - No paths.
No, there's nothing up river, no one lives up river.
So, what would it take to reach that place?
Uh, about a day or two, weather permitting.
[Josh] But before we bushwhack into the wild jungle,
Santiago has arranged for a scout.
A helicopter that supplies the archaeologists here
graciously allows me to hitch a ride to safely put boots
on the ground,
we first need to chart a path to the site.
[speaking in Spanish]
[speaking in English]
We take off and fly toward the unknown,
and hopefully the location of a truly lost city.
[speaking in Spanish]
[speaking in English]
I'm lifting off from the ruins of Ciudad Perdida,
searching for a real El Dorado,
a lost Tairona city hidden in the depths
of the Colombian jungle.
By air, the target is just three miles away,
but with terrain this unforgiving,
the question becomes, can we actually hike to it?
We turn around and fly back to Ciudad Perdida,
the road ahead or lack thereof,
will be beyond challenging.
Tomorrow, we blaze a trail.
Brutally early the next morning,
my crew and Santiago's team gather in the clouds
to begin our next incursion into the jungle
and towards what we hope is another lost city.
We go on this side of the mountain, across a creek,
and then head up that ridge line.
[Josh] It looked a lot easier on the LIDAR map.
- Yes, maps do lie quite a bit. - [chuckles]
[Josh] Yeah, this is a lot more vertical looking.
As the crow flies, it's really not that far,
- but... - Sure, but we're not crows.
- As the snail crawls. - [laughs]
It's a whole different ballgame.
- Okay, should we get into it? - Let's go.
You ready, everybody? Let's do it.
We're hiking into territory that is so uncharted,
it might as well be on another planet.
In fact, everything you're seeing from here on out,
you may be the first people to see it
since the Tairona were here 400 years ago.
Just remember, follow Santiago and Daniel, if you're following me,
you're in trouble.
These steps are real slick.
The stone steps are treacherous,
but at least there's a path that doesn't last for long though.
And soon, we're completely on our own in the jungle,
surrounded only by nature,
and totally exposed to the elements.
We're basically off trail from this point onwards.
[grunts]
[Santiago] Watch out.
- You okay? - Yeah.
It's a challenge.
It's a real challenge.
[sighs]
[thunderclap]
Hey, guys, let's get rain covers at the ready, I think it's gonna dump.
We're gonna get wet.
[man] Dude, it's like a slide, it's like a mudslide.
[Josh] The rain pushes the needle on this hike
from challenging to miserable.
This is where things get fun.
We're slogging down a steep ravine with zero traction.
It's a little like descending a mountain made of warm butter.
It's gonna get slipperier, slipperier, slipperier.
Oh, [bleep].
- It's just gonna get way, way worse. - Than this?
Than this, yeah.
Time to go.
[man] Let's roll.
And if the ground sliding under our feet isn't enough,
we find out quickly that the rainforest itself
is capable of leaving a mark.
[man grunts] God, cut myself.
- You okay? - I don't know.
[man grunts] [bleep]
- Let me see. - Fell down, the branch got right into me.
- [bleep] - [exclaims]
Let's get it clean to have a look at it, but I don't think it's that deep.
It's one of those spiny palms, spiny palms,
don't touch.
Everything in this jungle has evolved to play defense.
Even the trees, many of which are covered in painful needles.
It's astounding that the Tairona built cities
in this environment, and easy to see why
so many of the Spanish who searched for them never returned.
- [exclaims] - Whoa, whoa, whoa, Brian!
- Brian! Brian! Are you okay? - Yeah. Okay.
After sliding off the ridge, my director of photography
Brian was saved from a far more dangerous fall
by a tangle of vines.
- Okay. - Our local guides raced to the rescue,
cutting away the vegetation.
-Now, Rob, your first outing on Expedition Unknown, -Yeah.
Easier or harder than you, than you were told?
- [laughs] - I...
I just want to survive the one,
then we'll worry about the second one.
Welcome to the team, man.
Freed from the vines, we tossed Brian a rope
and haul him back up to somewhat safer ground.
Yay, Brian.
- Whoo! - Crisis averted, we forge ahead.
- Muy buen. - Come out this way.
[Josh] Okay, right behind you.
I gotta say, I have made a career out of going
to very remote difficult places.
I have never been in a jungle environment
that was more challenging than this one...
Ever.
This. [pants] This is madness.
Whoo!
We finally find some relatively level ground.
I'd be thrilled except for the river running through
the middle of it.
- You can almost do it here, but it's a little too spicy. - Yeah, I mean,
if you, if you take a tumble right here...
- You're going down. - Oh, you're going down,
you're going down all the way to the river.
And it's raining, so does that mean this thing's gonna get fatter?
- Yeah, this is gonna swell up. - Okay, let's get moving, guys, before it gets too heavy.
The recent rain is going to make this river impassable.
We cross now or we don't cross at all.
The rushing water nearly pulls me off my feet.
A little deeper here.
If someone gets swept up in this current,
they'll be in Brazil by sunset.
Something my field producer Dave Duce learns the hard way.
[exclaims]
All right, here we go, nice and slow, everybody.
[exclaims]
[grunts]
[man speaking]
I'm fine.
Another close call. After cheating disaster,
my producer Dave Duce catches his breath.
And we soldier on in search of a lost Tairona city
deep in the Colombian jungle.
[thunder rumbling]
Over the river, okay, what's the move?
So everyone, the going is very steep, very slippery.
If you're gonna grab anything, look before you grab,
- 'cause there's a lot of spiny thorny stuff. - Okay.
This is as bad as it's gonna get, right?
Yeah, for the time being. Yeah, tomorrow, it will get worse.
[Josh] Me no happy.
We resume our trek into the mountains
as the rain resumes with a vengeance.
Fortunately, Santiago's team is equipped
with the latest rain gear.
Nice hat.
This is truly insane.
It's basically no trail at all.
Just pull yourselves up this super muddy incline
deeper into the jungle.
It goes on like this for hours.
A lot of loose rocks, be very careful
you don't dislodge something and send it down.
[grunts]
Hey, guys, I just remembered
- I left my iPhone charger back at camp. - [bleep], go back down.
They probably sell 'em up here. It's okay.
Here we are, equipped with the latest gear,
struggling to trek just a few miles,
and yet somehow more than 1000 years ago,
the Tairona were able to build sprawling cities
and craft elaborate gold jewelry,
seeing where they did it makes their accomplishments
that much more impressive.
That was insane.
- [exhales] Everybody good? - Yep.
Okay, we're up the hill and it stopped raining,
so, we got what, two hours of daylight?
- At the most. - You don't think we're gonna make it up to location X here?
- No, no, no, too late now. - Okay.
We got to make camp here.
- When you say here. - Here is...
- Like here? - You know, this is the flattest area
-we're gonna find. Off we go. -All right,
-let's get into it, everybody. We're making camp. -All right.
I see why the Tairona have built their massive
terraced platforms.
In these mountains, flat ground is a rare commodity.
Our first step in setting up camp is to clear
an area large enough for our canopy.
That would normally take hours,
but thankfully Santiago has brought along Beto,
who he calls a machete ninja.
It's cheaper than therapy.
[Josh] Next, we construct a roof with rope, branches,
and tarp.
Good?
Okay, here we go, stretch it out.
- [thunder rumbling] - [Josh] Go!
Just in time, rain's back.
After a few finishing touches,
I'd almost call it cozy.
And it's just that simple.
We built a hotel. Amazing.
[laughing]
[Josh] With shelter taken care of,
we set to work on humanity's other basic need.
There we go! Hey!
- We got fire. We made fire. - Whoo! Right.
[Josh] Our little outpost is a far cry from a Tairona city,
but it'll do. And once the sun goes down,
we can at least rest for the night.
- Sort of. - [men snoring]
[Josh] Okay, great day, everybody, sweet dreams.
All right, on the move.
The next morning, we pack up the camp
and faster than you can say, "What the hell am I still doing here?",
we're back on the hike.
Just watch your footing and watch what you touch.
Super sketchy up here.
We trek all morning until we arrive
at the last ridge we need to scale to reach our target.
Okay.
- So how are we doing, GPS-wise? - Um, let me check.
[Josh] Let's take a look at where we're at here.
Here we go, okay, so?
Um, according to the GPS, we're sort of halfway up.
Uh, we still have a ways to go.
Undertaking this hike is such an education.
I don't know why all this stuff is still off the map.
Oh, yeah. This is where you start understanding
why, uh, one, research is so difficult,
even why looting was so difficult,
and why the Spanish had such a hard time with these folks.
One of the things I keep thinking about
as I slip and fall and trudge up this thing
- is there might be nothing here. - [Santiago laughing]
Oh, for sure, you know, that's one of the risks of exploration.
One of the benefits with the lidar data is that, uh,
we're moving towards a target,
whereas before we had the lidar data,
we were just, like, moving around in the forest.
Right, at least we've got a guide now.
- At least we've got a target. - Yeah.
[Josh] For the Tairona who connected all these sites
with paths and stone stairs,
reaching other cities was an afternoon stroll.
400 years later, the jungle has swallowed everything.
Now, just seeing if something is out here
takes decades of archaeological research,
a cutting-edge helicopter lidar scan
and a group of people nuts enough to trek out here.
Well, you know, maybe we find
just a perfectly preserved staircase
and just walk right up.
Don't think so. [laughs]
Be positive, Santiago, it could happen. Okay.
- Well, I guess we keep climbing, yeah? - Yeah.
All right, let's keep climbing, come on.
Don't fall and die, everybody.
The break's over and the hike starts again.
[panting]
Okay.
The final push up the mountain is punishing.
In the rain, it would be impossible.
Thankfully, the weather holds and we keep going higher.
It seems to go forever.
Until it doesn't.
We're on level ground. Whoo! Okay.
Co-ordinates-wise, how are we doing?
We are where we should be.
- [Josh] We're here. - [Santiago] We are.
- [Josh] This is it. - Yeah, this is it.
- [Josh] Nice work. - [Santiago] Good work, man.
- Nice job, everybody. - [Santiago] Yeah, we are on the co-ordinates.
Okay, Santiago, I don't know how to break this to you.
I do not see a lost city.
Of course not. We still need to verify
that something is actually out here.
Right.
- Flagstones. - Yeah.
- Those flagstones, right. - Yeah.
Flagstones, grinding stones, walls,
anything that looks made by humans.
- Okay. - That's where our verification comes in.
Places are lost for a reason.
- [Santiago] Absolutely. - Machetes out?
[Santiago] Absolutely. Machetes out.
[Josh] We get to work clearing centuries of growth
while keeping a sharp eye out
for any evidence of human construction underneath.
- Josh, hear that? - [hard tapping]
- [Josh] Is that stone? - [Santiago] It's stone.
Are you sure?
Oh-ho-ho-ho!
Hear that?
That does sound like stone.
Here, let's tear it back. Come on.
- Could I cut some of it? Watch out. - [woman] Yeah.
[Josh] Okay.
Lots of roots.
- [Daniel] Oh, yeah. - [Santiago] Oh, there we go.
Look. Look, look, look, look, look, look.
Look, look.
[Josh] Ha-ha! Look at that! Is it a wall?
Oh, my word! Look at that!
This is a wall. Unbelievable! Ha!
[Josh] While climbing the 1,200 steps to Ciudad Perdida,
my producer, Rob, thought of something so important,
so profound, so, well, you just have to see it
to understand.
What?
Oh, my word.
This is genius.
Who wants to break a world record?
Back up, everybody.
Fair thee well, brave Slinky. Fare thee well.
[mouths] Wow.
Okay, now who's gonna hike down to get it?
- [Josh] Is it a wall? - [Santiago] Yeah, it is.
[Santiago] Definitely a wall.
- Unbelievable. It's a wall. - [Santiago] All right.
We got pottery.
- [Josh] What's that? Hey! - [Santiago] We got pottery.
[Josh] Pottery, look at that.
So it's dark in the center, sort of reddish on the outside?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a fine red type. Tairona period.
We've got a wall, we've got pottery. We've got a site.
This is crazy.
The Spanish spent centuries searching for El Dorado
and we just found traces of a city
that may have fueled the legend.
After clearing a portion of the wall,
we scour the area, uncovering more evidence
of habitation.
Oh! We got more stone, come here. Come over here.
- Check this out. Look at this. - [Santiago] Yep, yep.
There is stonework everywhere.
[Santiago] Oh, yeah.
There's more over here at the edge of a ring, right here.
- [Josh] Look at that. - [Santiago] Right here.
[Josh] Look up here, there's a ring.
[Santiago] We've got the edge of a ring right here
and we've got another edge of a ring right there.
All this is a terrace.
[Josh] Just like Ciudad Perdida.
- Just like Ciudad Perdida. - Big, open terrace.
- [Santiago] 60 feet across, yeah. - Come on.
These terraced platforms would have been connected by stone paths
and covered in round, thatched roof buildings.
The wood structures may be gone,
but we still find traces of what life was like
inside.
[Santiago] We've got a grinding stone over here.
[Josh] Oh, look at that!
- [Santiago] See? - [Josh] Unbelievable!
Grinding stone means people.
[Josh] This is kitchen, this is eating,
- this is family, this is everything. - [Santiago] Yeah.
That's what it is.
And it's just been sitting here waiting to be found.
Think about the last person who touched this.
Uh, that was 400 years ago.
It's absolutely crazy.
- It's awesome. - That's one of the things that I love about this job.
This is so cool. I mean, that's history right there.
- [Santiago] All right. - Awesome.
All right, let's keep looking.
Unfortunately, we soon discover
that although this lost city is a major find,
we aren't the first to reach it.
[Santiago] There's a looters' trench over here.
Yeah, these guys got into it really bad.
More looter pits here.
[Josh] The looters were targeting Tairona graves
and the precious offerings left inside.
But it's not just gold that was lost.
Look at this. Here's another one of these
looter pits. You can see this big depression down here
under this fallen tree.
This is so sad because this would have been
the grave of a Tairona person.
It would have had pottery,
it would have had their bones,
it would have had, perhaps, gold ornaments
and things like that. It sort of robs us of
knowing more about the Tairona, right?
Because they didn't have a written language,
and so their art, their gold, the things they made,
this is how we know about them,
and so every time a looter comes up here and takes something,
it's something that we will never, ever get to understand.
But thanks to cutting-edge technology,
archaeologists like Daniel and Santiago
are finding a way to fill in some of the blank pages
in the lost story of the Tairona.
What are the beach balls all about?
They are reference targets for lidar scanning that were done.
So we're gonna do a laser scan down here, that's what this is?
[Daniel] Yes.
[Josh] So it brings out the architecture. Got it.
- [Daniel] Yeah. - [Josh] Okay.
And even more importantly, digitizing these structures
gives the archaeological community around the world
virtual access to the site.
From humble stone tools
to massive landscape engineering,
we are just beginning to unlock the secrets of the Tairona.
I feel privileged to help discover a new lost city.
But for the archaeologists out here,
the real work has just begun.
How big is the site? How many people lived here?
Do any unlooted artifacts remain?
And what will they tell us about the culture?
- It's gonna be a lifetimes' worth of work and then some. - Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely, absolutely.
More like four or five lifetimes' worth of work.
We really are just almost literally scratching the surface here.
- Yeah. - We're just peeling away the thinnest part
of what's here.
With aerial lidar and with terrestrial lidar,
we're actually beginning to tease out how it all fits together.
I have to say, just the experience of being here
is pretty amazing.
It's not every day you get to go
to some place that is off the map.
- Absolutely. - You know?
A city out in the middle of the jungle that,
other than a few enterprising looters...
- Absolutely. - ...nobody's stood here
- in hundreds of years. - No. no.
- Another pin on the map. - Another piece of the puzzle.
- All right, let's keep putting it together. - All right.
[Josh] The Spanish came to the new world for gold,
glory and God.
They encountered cultures who prized gold,
not for its material worth,
but for its spiritual value.
This fundamental disconnect is at the heart of the El Dorado myth.
Hiding offerings was seen as hoarding wealth.
The 'Golden Man' ceremony was misunderstood
as a golden city.
The conquistadors dreamed El Dorado into existence
and saw inaccessible sites like Ciudad Perdida
as proof that it was real, but just out of reach.
For centuries, their quest
justified theft and outright genocide.
Even today, gold lust lures desperate looters
to steal clues that could help us understand
the pre-Colombian cultures of the Americas.
Thankfully, archaeologists are working tirelessly
to unearth the secrets
of these mysterious civilizations.
Because the real El Dorado isn't some golden city,
it's the places, peoples and stories that we've lost.
And while they may not always glitter...
those discoveries are worth far more than gold.