If you look on a map, the major attractions in the Cauca area of Colombia look pretty close together. However, many of them can only be reached by bumpy, rocky road meaning your travel time increases significantly. Equally your travel comfort decreases significantly too! But the road to San Agustin, the town in Tierradentro, keeps you occupied with breathtaking mountains and valleys. As long as the driver safely negotiates the windy sheer-drop bends, you can forgive the bumps.
We’ve been fairly lucky with bus journeys recently. The bus from Cali to Popayan took 2 ½ hours when it could have taken 4. And the bus from Popayan to San Augustine took 4 hours, not the 5 or 6 we’d geared ourselves up for. It’s always better that way.
This journey started with the longest sales pitch delivered from the front of a bus that I’ve ever witnessed. The guy carefully explained every health risk going and how the book he was selling would provide all the answers for a disease free and healthy lifestyle. A good forty minutes long, it was impressive stuff. By the end even the parrot nearby was repeating his spiel!
San Augustine is a tiny village consisting of one dusty road that snakes uphill to a 16th century church with a thatched roof - incidentally you wouldn't want to smoke near it, but apparently the thatched roof if there so that in the event of an earthquake, it doesn't destroy what's inside the church. The road has a number of guesthouses and a couple of restaurants – both of which serve the standard meal of meat (usually chicken or beef), rice and fried plantain. It’s a cheap and filling, although after the tenth time in a row you just want some variety. I miss vegetables.
The main pull for tourism here is the ancient tombs that have been found in a number of locations in the surrounding hills and mountains. We took a walking tour with a really competent guide called Fabien, (the bar has been set fairly low by William in Ometepe!) who explained all there was to know about these tombs and stone statues dating back 2500 years.
In truth there isn’t a great deal any guide can tell you about these tombs . For example, why did some contain bones and some an urn? That question drew a blank. A lot of what is found is made sense of by educated guesses. But that doesn’t make it any less wonderful to see for yourself.
In fact, we had an interesting day, language-wise too. We took the tour with three Frenchmen who spoke Spanish. Fabien only spoke Spanish therefore we picked up as much as we could – he spoke slowly which helped – and anything that we didn’t understand, was translated via French to English. It worked a whole lot better than you’d think!
We spent a whole day walking through the green countryside, frequently stopping to climb down into tombs. It was magnificent. There are many more tombs that have yet to be excavated. They keep a policy whereby only once a tomb has collapsed due to an earthquake do they unearth a new one. It's all very carefully monitored and controlled - especially considering there is probably many more valuable gold and ceramic artefacts to be found. Who knows, maybe other tombs will reveal more answers about these ancient civilisations and what they believed in.
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