Lara Croft eat your heart out!

After San Augustín we went to the thriving metropolis of Popayán for a few days.  It's not a huge town but it's well-known for its beautiful colonial architecture and is known as the 'white city' due to the colour of most of these buildings.  The historic downtown area is quite pretty, so we wiled away a couple of hours wandering around snapping pics, then climbing a lookout hill with a great view out over the town and surrounding landscape.  We were also lucky enough to be in town for the food festival which seemed to be a pretty big event.  Probably because Popayán is the only place in Latin America to have been declared a City of Gastronomy by UNESCO, in tribute to its significant tradition of regional cooking.  Who knew?  Not us, that's for sure.  But there was plenty of food on offer (not all of it traditional stuff) so our tummy's were happy.  Even more so when Brendan, the Irishman we were still crossing paths with, showed us a place to get cheap beer rather than being fleeced at the bars.  It was just a little corner store, complete with security bars over the entire counter, but who cares about ambience when you're getting beers for less than $1?  Not us.

Street graffiti

View of Popayan from the hilltop.

Then, just because we hadn't had enough archaeological adventures, we went to do some tomb raiding in Tierradentro, a national archaeological park about 100km from Popayán.  It was a pretty rough ride, so after a few hours of bouncing around we were glad to arrive in the little town of San Andrés.  Brendan had told us he was staying at a small hostel run by a little old local woman, so we decided to give her hospitality a go too.  Martha was a sweet lady, probably in her mid 70s, and she was always hovering around in case we needed anything.  Which we did, because there was only one restaurant in town and it was too expensive for our budget so Martha kindly cooked for us.  Although, we weren't entirely sure if she cooked up her nice white chicken we'd seen running around the garden...

Cute thatched roof church in San Andres.

Local transport - find a spot wherever you can.

There are five main archaeological sites to visit in Tierradentro, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.  Most people split them up over two days, but we decided to bash them all out in one go.  Which turned out to be a huge mission, involving climbing up and down steep hills all day long.  No pain, no gain though, right?  We set off at about 8am to arrive at the first site when it opened at 8:30am.  Alto de San Andrés has a great view over the town, and at that time of the morning there was mist still floating low in the valleys.  Not a bad way to start the day.  The guide had spotted us by this stage, so he came over to show us around and collect the 10,000 peso fee each which got us into all the sites and the two museums in town.  There were a few tombs we could climb down into, but unfortunately they weren't lit and we weren't allowed to use a flash, so our photos didn't come out very well.  Still, it was a cool introduction to the tombs as we could still see some of the paintings on the walls and roof.  

Entrance to one of the tombs.

Next up was El Tablón, which was the smallest site containing a few stone sculptures like those we saw in San Augustín.  So after about 5 minutes we were straight onto the third site.  El Duende is similar to Alto de San Andrés, with 5 or so tombs we could climb down into.  But again, they were unlit so photos were kind of useless.  The guide reassured us this wouldn't be a problem at the next site though, as there were plenty of illuminated tombs to be seen.

Walking between sites - not a bad view.

Alto de Segovia is the most visited site because of the sheer number of tombs and how well preserved they are.  Again, there was a guide who would unlock/lock each tomb for us, waiting as we climbed down into the depths below.  And it was a lot harder than you think.  The steps were so huge we really had to climb back up them, and because we were descending down into tombs they weren't exactly spacious stairwells. They were bloody impressive though - amazing caverns with pillars, columns and detailed carving work, and paintings over every surface except the ground.  There were even some ceramic urns in one or two tombs, but most have been removed and are preserved in the museum, to prevent damage caused by looters.  There were 12 illuminated tombs at this site we could climb into, and after that we were pretty much tombed out.  

But our climbing wasn't over yet, not by a long shot.  We still had a massive hill to conquer to get to Alto del Aguacate (Avocado Hill).  After visiting the two museums we were directed to what was basically a goat track zig-zagging straight up the hill.  And fuck me it was hard work, about 30-40mins of steep climbing on a narrow, unstable dirt track.  It was an awesome view when it finally levelled out though, and we could see for miles all around.  

The relief didn't last long though, because once again there was more uphill to come.  Of course.  Another 30mins or so later we were finally at the top.  There were quite a few tombs/holes along the ridge of the hill which looked pretty cool, and I guess that's where the name Avocado Hill comes from - the holes kind of resemble half an avocado with the stone scooped out.  Kind of.  But the tombs are in a pretty shameful state of disrepair so they really are just holes.  I guess it's too much of a mission to climb up to maintain them.  But again, the view was pretty damn spectacular and we could see the nearby town of Inza spread out on a hill in the valley.  It's really more about the views than the tombs there anyway. 

Avocado Hill

Then came the long downhill hike which took longer than expected, but thankfully wasn't as steep as the way we climbed up.  We eventually made it back over to the site where we started the day, and trudged our way back into town at about 3pm.  So after walking up and down hills for about 7 hours and god know how many kilometres with no food, we totally earned the ice cream and chocolate afterwards.  And after our legendary effort of seeing everything in one day, we decided to move on to Cali for some tropical weather.

Getting our Indiana Jones on in San Augustin

After crossing over the border into Colombia we got the bus to a city called Pasto, where we stayed one night before making a mission across a pretty dodgy road (it felt similar to the Death Road in Bolivia at times) to a little town called Mocoa and then further north to San Augustín.  We chose this route because it made more sense than going north and then having to backtrack, but because it's a dirt/gravel road it took about 9 hours.  But never fear, we're not precious travellers and we can handle a bit of roughness.  Couldn't say the same for a poor woman behind us though who was a bit spewy.

When we finally arrived in San Augustín it was getting dark and chose that moment to start pissing down.  So after getting ripped off for dinner we flagged down a taxi to take us to a hostel that had been recommended online. La Casa de Francois is a farm on a hill with beautiful gardens and plantations, where the French owner has built the dorms and rooms out of bamboo and mud with glass bottles in the walls.  It's such a stunning and tranquil location that we felt right at home.  You can't beat relaxing in a hammock watching the sunset over the hills.  

Our dorm on top, kitchen underneath.

San Augustín is a small town famous for its pre-Colombian archaeological sites, and it was definitely well worth the ride out there.  And how's this for an impressive fact (according to UNESCO no less) - it's the largest group of religious monuments and megalithic sculptures in South America.  So this tiny little town can justifiably give the middle finger to all other similar sites, wherever they may be.  

There are a few different sites in the town, but we decided to visit the San Augustín Archaeological Park first.  We met a hippy backpacking Irishman who was staying in the same dorm as us, so we decided to explore together.  We had a quick look at the small museum then wandered into the Bosque de las Estatuas (Forest of Statues), where 39 of the best statues stand in the open air amid lush forest.  The statues, in varying states of preservation, are carved out of volcanic rock in different styles and sizes, depicting gods, warriors and an assortment of both real and mythical creatures.  Not much is known about the ancient civilisation who created them, but it's thought that most of the statues were markers of ceremonial and burial sites, and were related to the spiritual power of the dead and the supernatural world.  It was a beautiful setting and it totally blew our minds knowing that what we were seeing was almost 2000 years old.  

There were a few other sites to see in the Archaeological Park, such as four mesitas (small man-made hills) which contained artificial mounds, terraces, funerary structures and more stone statues; La Fuente de Lavapatas, which is a complex religious monument carved in the stone bed of a stream; and Alto de Lavapatas, which is the oldest archaeological site on top of a hill with an amazing view of the surrounding hills and valleys.  We spent a good 3 hours walking around the Park and loved every minute of it as it was unlike anything we've ever seen.  See kids, history can be cool.

La Fuente de Lavapatas

The next day we went on a jeep tour of some other sites that were further out of town.  We visited a site with several underground burial tombs that we could actually climb huge steps down into, and a couple more places (Alto de los Idolos and Alto de las Piedras) with larger stone statues, the largest being 7m high and weighing several tonnes.  However, after a few hours of driving and walking around sites, we were pretty much statued and tombed out.  Although, an exciting (and unexpected) viewing was when were at one of the burial sites and I spotted something down in a tomb.  On closer inspection it turned out to be a huge black tarantula attacking and devouring a frog.  Stupid frog should've realised that jumping into a deep, dark tomb wasn't the genius idea he thought it was.  Made for some good, albeit creepy photos though.  Then on the way back to town, just to mix it up a bit, we visited someone's property where there was a massively deep valley and a waterfall cascading down to the stream below.  All in all it was another good day.

San Augustin turned out to be a great place to spend a few days checking out ancient archaeological sites, and enjoying the tranquility of one of the best hostels we've stayed at.  Sometimes it really does pay off when you make the effort to get off the beaten track a bit.