Ciudad Perdida, the older lost city

Ciudad Perdida predates Machu Picchu by about 650 years.

The ancient city sits in Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

The Tairona people built Ciudad Perdida around 800 AD.

One hundred sixty-nine terraces are carved into the mountainside.

Reaching the entrance means climbing 1,200 stone steps.

Ciudad Perdida may have housed 2,000 to 8,000 people.

The Kogi people visited Ciudad Perdida before its discovery.

Local looters found stone steps while hunting birds in 1972.

Stolen gold figures soon appeared on the local black market.

Archaeologists reached Ciudad Perdida and reconstructed it by 1982.

Only about 30 to 40 percent of regional sites explored.

Tourist hikes resumed in 2005 under active army patrol.

The Kogi people help manage the preservation of their ancestral heart.