After yesterday’s over-exertions Milton and Marlio promise we’ll have a more relaxed day today, taking in more of the stunning scenery around San Agustin, visiting some more archaeological sites and ending up at one of the finest traditional coffee farms in the region. And we have an auspicious start, driving past a cheerful chap picking coffee at the side of the road who is very happy for us to take his photo as he works.
We’re on our way to El Estrecho del Río Magdalena, which is where the river negotiates the narrowest point in its entire 1500km journey, passing through a tight rocky gulley that at this time of year we can safely stand upon, but in the gushing torrents of April and May should be deep underwater. It’s pretty impressive and Milton chooses the spot for Day 12 of his quest to reach 365 “keepy-uppys” so we join him on camera to count him down and cheer him on.
Driving back up the steep mountain side we come to the village of Obando where in 1992 a Chivas bus delivering to the local market square got stuck when its back wheel went through the earth into a newly-opened hole. The locals called the national archaeological association and they discovered thirty tombs of high-ranking individuals dating back over two thousand years.
We’re shown around the very-well presented site by a young girl called Luisa Valentina who is part of a programme to involve local children in history and tourism, providing them both a chance to interact with foreigners and thus develop presentation skills, and also to earn some extra money. It turns out both she and her companion on the gate are also students at Milton’s English lessons but she’s too shy to speak English to us. Her delivery of all the information in Spanish is very accomplished though.
We’re able to descend into a couple of the now excavated tombs where we can peek inside and hope to glimpse some of the ancient pictographs that are akin to those in another site in southern Colombia called Tierradentro. Sadly, we’re unable to discern the painted animal and human figures that were once painted on the tomb’s interior walls but inside the little museum we are able to examine the ceramic remains that haven’t been shipped off to bigger museums.
We also see a series of paintings that vividly illustrate how the indigenous people lived around the time of the Spanish conquest along with some photos of Amazonian tribes living similar lives in more modern times. One of the paintings illustrates the use of ayahuasca and how shamans embodied their jaguar spirit animals, while another remembers iconic heroine Guiatana, who like Boadicea fighting off the Romans, exacted revenge on the Conquistador who beheaded her son by leading an uprising against the Spanish invaders, beheading their leader in a raid one night.
The following day on our journey to Neiva we stop at the town of Timana where a statue of her, wielding her oppressor’s severed head, takes pride of place in the town square and see the cliff where she threw herself to her death rather than accept slavery under the Spaniards.
From Obando we drive back across the Rio Magdalena into the central Andes to the town of Isnos, which like San Agustin has been at the centre of excavations. At Alto de los Ídolos we visit a beautiful archaeological park where all the tombs and statues are in situ as they were found, but now opened to view. The whole site is laid out in a giant crescent which was constructed 3000 years ago, with a long curving elevation created by digging out vast quantities of earth by hand. It was used to bury the dead and also create land for housing, and about 2000 years ago giant tombs with sarcophagi were constructed for leaders and dignitaries.
Intriguingly, the moon-shaped hills and many of the statues found here suggest that this was a site honouring women and that the civilisation that lived here for millennia was led by, and highly respected, females. At its centre is the tallest stelae found in all the excavations in southern Colombia, a striking woman standing over 5 metres high. However she was originally placed with half of her body underground and her feet pointing to the underworld, while her upper half and face faced east to the rising sun. Archaeologists believe it was symbolic of a connection between the underworld and rebirth and only excavated it in the 1970s.
Elsewhere are tombs where carbon dating places them many years before Christ, and that contain sarcophagi with stone guardians guarding the entrance. Some of them are a mix of human and animal forms, while others are distinct representations of local wildlife including monkeys, eagles, crocodiles and even guinea pigs, which are still considered a delicacy in regions of Colombia which border Peru. A number of the statues still have a residue of colour on them, predominantly the red, black, yellow and white of the deadly coral snakes that are feared and revered here.
The tombs were looted over the years by both local people seeking treasure and archaeological experts shipping their contents to Europe but a few spectacular finds, such as a pair of gold winged fish ornaments survived and are now on display in Bogotá’s Museo de Oro, where we saw them almost five weeks ago.
In addition to this site being a man-made earthen construction, aerial exploration has established that San Agustin Archaeological Park, Alto de los Ídolos and the final park we visit, Altos de las Piedras, all astronomically line up, showcasing the advanced knowledge of the night sky and earth’s rotation that this civilisation possessed. At las Piedras the main draw is the statue entitled Doble Yo which has two heads vertically on the stone, which when viewed from the side have animalistic bodies. There’s no-one else at the site when we visit and Milton is not allowed to accompany us as we explore so after a quick ten minutes around the various tombs we feel cultural ennui setting in and decide it’s high time for lunch instead.
Milton and Marlio take us to a rural restaurant called El Rancho de Juancho for a quick pit stop in the sunshine before we head on to the much-vaunted Saltó de Mortiño waterfall which thunders well over 200 metres to the floor below. However, it turns out that a few years ago the surrounding land was purchased by a Colombian entrepreneur who has exploited his countrymen and women’s love for a good time and photo opp by turning this wonder of nature into a theme park of amusement rides and zip lines, with a hefty entrance fee. Coupled with the fact that due to the time of year, and the ever-worrying changes in climate, the flow of water is barely a trickle, we can’t help but feel it’s a major disappointment.
Yet our final destination today is anything but. As mentioned previously Colombia is not only the world’s largest coffee producer, but often hailed as its best. And the department of Colombia that produces both the most, and finest, coffee is Huila, where we currently are, and not as many think, the Zona Cafetera where Salento is. In fact, San Agustin is now regarded as the best producer of coffee in Colombia and arguably the world and we are privileged to be visiting a little organic farm that has been producing some of the very best coffee on the planet for the last 65 years.
It’s owned by a lovely and gentle man called Luis Alejandro, who grew up here with his brothers and sisters and took over the running of it 34 years ago when his father died. He works with both Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance, supplying them with a large proportion of his crop each year, and while he is thankful for the support they give, he only gets about 10% of the retail price that we pay in our supermarkets. The beans he supplies them are the green beans that are hand-picked and washed, but shipped abroad along with multiple other suppliers to be roasted wholesale by giant corporations.
However, he keeps three special varieties back to roast himself and sell as artisan products to individual buyers like ourselves. So we sit down as he charmingly explains the difference between the Caturra, Bourbon and Geisha varieties and which countries appreciate them the most.
Americans apparently love the Geisha brand because they feel it is exotic, although Alejandro says it’s just clever marketing and of course, there’s no such thing as Japanese coffee. Europeans prefer the taste of Bourbon, whilst his favourite is Caturra as it has the most rounded flavour. We feel very smug as we’ve already announced we like it the best and asked to purchase two bags which we add to the mountains of coffee currently stowed in our luggage.
Alejandro then takes us on a walk around his farm, which is just idyllic. He shows us how he grows coffee from seeds, and practises complementary planting among banana plants and various trees to help with insect reduction, shade and irrigation. But he confesses he’s very worried about the lack of rain they’re currently experiencing as there should be daily downpours keeping his crops watered, but they’ve not had rain for over a month, and he and his family are praying for rain. We really have screwed up the planet.
Having visited quite a few coffee plantations around the world, most of whom favour quantity over quality, it’s a real joy to spend a couple of hours with Alejandro, discovering the traditional land husbandry he practises, and as Marlio and Milton return us to the hotel and say their goodbyes we reflect on the hardwork and love that goes into producing the little black magic that billions of people drink everyday with little thought to the cultivation behind it. We’ll be savouring every drop of Alejandro’s coffee when we get back home.
The following day we leave beautiful San Agustin to drive north for almost seven hours, traversing the entire length of Huila following the course of the Magdalena river. We’re heading for our final destination, the small town of Villavieja, about 45 minutes beyond Huila’s capital city Neiva, and on the way we pass an enormous man-made lake which produces a lot of the department of Huila’s electricity, and drive through La Tunel Verde, a long stretch of road where huge green trees stretch overhead to create a green tunnel.
As we get further north we reach rice country, and see vast paddy fields being harvested, with roadside shacks where women sell mangoes, pineapples and bananas to passing drivers. But it’s the unique desert landscapes of Tatacoa that are luring us to Villavieja and the ultimate ecosystem on our Colombian list.
It’s a magnet for backpackers and explorers keen to wander the other-worldly terrains but sadly, our pre-booked accommodation of the Tatacoa Star Eco-Hotel on the sun-baked dust path of the town proves a little too challenging for us. It’s geared to the most cost-conscious, young travellers, happy to grin and bear it in a ramshackle hostel for a few days but we’re a little too long in the tooth for its basic nature. We also don’t want to spend our final nights roughing it beyond anything we’ve done in years.
So after various negotiations, and a flexing of the credit card, we manage to upgrade ourselves to the 3 star Cosmos Hotel just out of town and pile all our luggage into the back of a tuk tuk, bumping our way to our new lodgings. With a ridiculously hot 36 hours ahead in this furnace-like terrain we quickly get changed ready for a snake-dodging astronomical experience that finishes our five week adventure on a high that’s literally out-of-this-world!!
