This region of Colombia, deep in the south near the Ecuadorean border, was off limits to tourists for many years. Drug cartels made it dangerous, but it was the armed guerrilla groups that placed it on most country’s “no-go” lists, as the risk of violence and kidnapping was huge. Thankfully over the last ten years southern Colombia has opened up for travellers, but more importantly, it’s become safe once again for its local inhabitants who lived through a turbulent few decades.
We’ve come to San Agustin, like most visitors, to learn more about the ancient pre-Hispanic cultures who lived here thousands of years ago and mysteriously disappeared, leaving no written record, but a wealth of stone statues and tombs indicating their belief systems and way of life. We’re also going to explore some of the dramatic scenery of the Colombian Massif, where rivers and mountains form, and thick jungles and forests give way to pretty farmlands, particularly the coffee plantations for which San Agustin is famous.
Our guide for the next two days is Milton, a charming chap who grew up with his family on a coffee farm in the mountains and now runs English lessons in the town alongside guiding tourists. He knows pretty much everyone in the local area, being greeted with affection wherever we go, from young kids to grizzled old men. He’s also developing a bit of a social media following, posting daily football challenges on Instagram, which he involves us in.
Our first stop is the nearby San Agustin Archaeological Park where hundreds of ancient statues have been laid out on display. We start in the little, and very informative, museum where we learn how excavations started in earnest in 1937 when three different areas around San Agustin were deemed to comprise significant archaeological finds, and given protected status. Lots of archive photos showcase how the early excavations took place including from 1940 when Luis Duque Gomez came to San Agustin. Over the next forty years he discovered many sites and conducted a huge amount of research into the ancient civilisation that lived here, and the museum is named after him.
Milton introduces us to a specialist Spanish-speaking guide for the park, an older man called Oscar who is a fount of knowledge and great company, and we start to walk through the park, wandering first along a winding path in tranquil forest where various statues have been placed on display. Oscar tells us that there is evidence of human habitation here for over 6000 years, and that the civilisation that carved all the monuments and constructed all the tombs continuously inhabited the area for over 2000 years until their sudden disappearance around 900AD.
He points out the similarities in the stone figures to African, Polynesian and Asian physiognomy and poses questions about the connections between ancient cultures, both within Meso-America and with civilisations many thousands of miles away. He also talks to us about the traditional usage of hallucinogenic plants for shamanic and healing rituals telling us about his time with the indigenous leader Querubín Queta, who is one of the most important, influential and famous voices for the indigenous people of the Amazon and beyond.
Queta has just turned 115 years old but still campaigns for land rights and the respect of indigenous practices and lifestyles. His knowledge of traditional medicine and ancient wisdom is apparently profound and revered around the world, and Oscar claims to have participated in over 200 ayahuasca ceremonies over many years with him. The spiritual insights ayahuasca have given the peoples of this part of the world are hugely powerful and it seems that the connections long lost civilisations had across the oceans may well have been as a result of ancient astral travel between shamanic practitioners.
Amongst the many statues representing the anthropomorphic mix of human and animal figures is a figure apparently vomiting, which is one of the key parts of ayahuasca ceremonies, where the plant purges the body as well as the mind of impurities, allowing deep insights and connections with the spirit world. And this lost civilisation shared much of the cosmovision that other pre-Hispanic cultures believed in, with deep astronomical knowledge of both lunar and solar cycles. They also seemed to regard men and women as equals with many representations of women as leaders.
At one particular statue Oscar pulls out a wind instrument similar to the one the figure appears to be holding and demonstrates how it would have worked, playing a beautiful melody. It’s somewhat marred by a tourist who tries to join in tunelessly on a set of pan pipes she has in her bag. Oscar continues unfazed, and during our walk with him various other tourists keep hanging around trying to glean the insights he’s sharing with us as he’s so fascinating.
We stop for coffee near a remarkable place called The Fountain. It’s a collection of natural rocks in a river that have been individually carved with figures of people and animals, and was used for purification, maternity and initiation rituals as well as stargazing in the carved pools. But what’s really impressive is that when you look at the rocks through a camera they collectively form a skull, which is very hard to discern with the naked eye.
It’s even more obvious from the air apparently, although the rapids are now covered with a roof structure. A number of experts believe there is a connection between these engravings and the Nazca Lines in Peru almost two thousand miles away, which also need to be viewed from high above to make sense.
Our afternoon requires a different perspective. After finishing in the archaeological park Milton takes us for lunch in a fantastic vegan restaurant in San Agustin called Tomate to prepare us for an afternoon of mountain biking around the local area. We had been prepared for a few steep hills but what we end up faced with is an almost impossible route combining vertiginous, rocky off-road descents along shifting, perilous paths and vertical inclines that require us to literally push the bike uphill for long periods. Milton of course, being almost half our age and twice as fit, pedals gleefully along while we puff, pant and dismount our way along.
Behind us in a back-up vehicle follows Marlio, our driver from yesterday, and the bike-hire owner Carlos, no doubt wondering why on earth we’ve signed up for what turns out to be a pretty punishing afternoon. To be honest, we’re asking exactly the same thing but the views are stunning and the experience is rewarding, if ridiculously challenging.
After almost an hour of cycling we pass a little family sugar cane farm where we stop to watch the age-old production process of bubbling vats over vast wood fires, slowly reducing the panella down to fudge-like caramel which is then formed into blocks and packaged for sale. Milton tells us that Colombian cyclists - who are famously strong and world-class competitors - were for a while rumoured by their Tour De France opponents to eat bricks as they would be seen tucking into huge slabs of reduced sugar-cane for energy.
We try some of the rich, sweet sugar and try and channel the professionals as we climb our way up to La Pelota, an archaeological site in the hills where further stone sculptures have been found, bearing some of the original colours they were painted with. Beyond that we slip and slide our way along treacherous inclines and dirt tracks, stopping for Milton to pick us mandarins from the local fruit trees.
Eventually we come to La Chaquira, a spectacular viewpoint above the Magdalena river, where it carves a huge canyon through the valley, and ancient faces were carved into the rocks. Ditching the bikes we climb down the hillside canyon to the lookout only to have to drag our weary limbs back up again. We’re faced by a huge hill, far too steep for us to cycle up, and watch Milton slowly disappear ahead of us, determined to conquer it on two wheels. When we eventually make it to the top he’s waiting for us, smiling, with ice creams from a little shop. We sink into seats in the shade and devour them as if our lives depend on them, which they probably do!!
It’s taken us four hours to complete the 17km circuit and Milton is running perilously late for an English lesson he’s giving so he powers on ahead to the centre of San Agustin while we gratefully coast downhill most of the way to reach the town, dismounting once more however for the final push back up a steep hill to get to Finca El Maco.
Thankfully tomorrow promises to be a more relaxing experience so we collapse into our tiki hut to recover for the night, awaiting whatever Milton has in store for us in the morning.
