Big Statues
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2010
1
11
19
Trip End
Nov 14, 2010
San Augustín, Huila, Colombia
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
We got dropped off at a Y and were loaded on to the back of a truck, which taxied us into San Augustin. One of the guys in the back with us was coming back to San Augustin, his home town, after having been in Ecuador. He said, "Don't worry about your safety here, the only risk you run is wanting to stay! Your going to love it!"- We got off the buss and were pointed to Maya's Hostel by the tourism bureau, where up on the hill in the historic part of town we found a nice, white, colonial house with green trim. Mario greeted us with lots of energy, showed us our room options, which we had bargained down to 8 dollars, and gave us lemonade and coffee. He chatted about our options and recommended that we go to the Archaeological Park outside of town. So we snarfed up some free bananas and ran down to catch the colectivo out of town. When we got to the park they said, "Feliz dia de Archeologia! La entrada hoy es gratis!" Happy Archeology Day! The entrance today is free!" Yay! So we saved about 6 bucks each (10,000 pesos) and got our first taste of the San Augustin funerary statues. There was a nice museum giving some information about the lifestyle of this pre-Colombian society which first inhabited the Alto Magdalena in the Archaic Period (6000 a. C.) for 15 centuries and disappeared before the Spanish had even arrived on the continent. They are remembered, in fact, even known about at all, because of their incredible statues carved in volcanic rock, on which they portrayed figures and animals depicting a complex cosmology/ guards with jaguar teeth and dilated pupils of cat-like eyes demonstrate their use of ayahuasca, or yage, in religious ceremonies. Check out some more info: http://trifter.com/caribbean-latin-america/columbia/the-valley-of-the-statues-in-san-agustin/
We walked around to several funeral plateaus and saw some massive tombs and statues set up, almost in Stonehenge fashion, guarding the graves. Really impressive stuff! When visiting these places one if left with a curiosity that cannot be satiated, for so little is known about these people, as there are no written records about them. Just statues.
That night we made ourselves a huge veggie feast and hit the hay early. We woke up early and had Mario's 5,000 pesos breakfast, which was massive! We then waited a few hours for the car to arrive and take us on what would be our first tour in Colombia. When he did pick us up, it was in this little car on the verge of breaking down. Lily had to reach out her window and open her door from outside. We were taken to some waterfalls, one of which is the 3rd highest in the world. We drove through lots of pretty countryside, coffee fields, Lulo plants and papayas. There were blackberries growing on the side of the roads and also lots of sugarcane. We went to two more statue parks and got some explanations of the symbols on some of the statues. Then we went to the most narrow spot on the Magdalena River, which runs through almost all of Colombia, spilling out into the ocean about 1500 kilometers later in Baranquilla.
We called it a day, made more dinner, shot the shit with Mario...who offered up his sister and her 10 children to Daniel and relentlessly hit on Lily. Very funny man!
