San Agustin, Colombia

Parque Arqueológico

January 3, 2008

- Van Morrison

After an overnight bus ride traveling south of Bogota I arrived in San Agustin around 8am and following a short rest I headed out to see the archaeological park filled with mysterious statues. The countryside was nice and green with deep rolling hills, while the town itself was smaller than any place I had been in Colombia so far, a nice change. It was a short 3 km walk to the park past lots of restaurants and small hotels and hostels. The statues in the park were really amazing, there were many different kinds featuring figures in different shapes and sizes. Originally the statues were found buried in man-made stone tombs and have since been removed from the tombs for display purposes. The park had several sites with groups of statues and was fairly crowded with Colombian tourists.

There weren’t any booklets or literature about the origins or history of the statues so there wasn´t much to do but wander around the sites and look at the various statues. At one point there was a bridge across a river overlooking a massive series of rock carvings in the riverbed that formed interesting shapes and channeled the water in intricate curves downstream. On the trail towards one of the groups of statues there was a shack where they were pressing sugar cane juice from the raw sugar cane. It was pretty tasty when mixed with a touch of fresh squeezed orange juice, although with all the sugar in it, one glass was more than enough, and at fifty cents a glass not expensive at all.

Over lunch at one of the restaurants on the way back I tried to figure out my next destination, whether I would go see the burial tombs at Tierradentro or go to Popayan or Pasto for the carnivals there on the 5th and 6th. I decided to try to make it to Pasto as everyone advised me that their carnival was the best, so I bought a bus ticket for 6am the next morning because the road is unsafe to travel on at night since it is very isolated possibly subject to guerrilla activity. I hoped that I could get to Popayan and then move on to Pasto the same day over the course of 12 hours of bus rides. The road to Popayan was supposed to be very rough but with beautiful scenery passing through a valley next to a large volcano so I thought it would be worth it.