San Agustin

Up at 5am, and at the bus station for 5:45 to buy our ticket (the discount we had been offered 2 days ago suddenly disappearing now!), and the bus actually left at 6:10am. The journey from start to finish was along very bumpy and narrow roads. But the seats were very comfy (although I had to change seats after mine reclined uncomfortably far, and I couldn't get it to go back), so I didn't mind the 6 hour journey at all really. Luckily there was very little traffic on the road and so we arrived pretty much on time, and the rain that had been persistent throughout the whole day had stopped by the time we arrived.

I must say that the Colombian scenery we've driven through from the Ecuadorian border has probably been the best so far in all of South America. At times it reminds of parts of New Zealand, but really it's been a good bit more spectacular (as New Zealand doesn't have peaks to rival the Andes), and at other times the lush green-ness reminds me of Uganda, but again it's been more spectacular that that too. It's just been a bit of a pity that the skies have more often than not been overcast, otherwise I'm sure the vistas would certainly rank as the best of the whole trip.

Anyway, the town of San Agustin was actually in the middle of a busy local horse-related festival, but we got a lovely room in a lovely house owned by a lovely old couple, who just happen to have about 20 exotic birds in various cages just outside our room (I've no idea if these birds are legal or not, as they all looked very exotic, but at least they don't make a racket early in the morning, and they sure are pretty!).

So after lunch (at Brahmas), we checked out the local festival that seemed to be much like any small rural village festival back home, mostly argicultural stuff relating to cattle and horses - and very, very load music from a group of tents with drunk lads just sitting around. I reckon most of the action must have happened in the early morning, as by late afternoon it was fairly deserted.

But wow what a day we had the next day! We got up early to catch a gorgeous quick breakfast (a spherical fried doughnut thing and a yogurt) and then hike the 3km to the main archaeological site here. Basically it's made up of a series of stone statues carved by some mysterious culture maybe 1500 years ago, and then buried and covered up. The archaeologists have dug up a good number of them now (but by no means all of them), and have placed them standing upright beside the 'graves' they were buried in.

So it was a lovely stroll around the 4 main sites (although at first I was a bit perturbed by the sight of 3 big tour groups of about 30 people each, but we lost them easily enough and had most of the sites all to ourselves).

Then it was back towards the town to a highly recommended restaurant for lunch, where I had probably the best roast pork I've ever tasted. The place is famous for this dish, as they use a 'secret ' marinade or something, but it sure was the tenderest, and tastiest pork I've ever tried (mad to think that in years to come I would probably make the same bone-shattering journey back to this small town just for this restaurant, as opposed to the world-famous archaeological site just up the road!).

After our huge lunch (we just shared a set lunch, and I was still stuffed after it), it was another big hike, this time to 4 more remote sites of more statues scattered around the town. This was the highlight of the day for me really, as the hike was through great scenery once we got off the main road - basically the trail is used mostly by guided horse-riding groups, but I much preferred to hike it (but only because I'd need a good few more proper lessons to feel really comfortable on a horse). We passed by small coffee plantations and at one stage as we crossed a small stream we were surrounded by little swarms of beautifully diverse butterflies, and later we had a couple of gorgeous small parrots or parakeets follow us along the trail.

We were blessed with the weather too. The previous day it had been lashing rain for almost our entire bus journey to San Agustin, but for our hike it was dry and nicely hot. It started lightly raining as we approached the town, but by then it was a nicely refreshing.

So the following morning it was another 6am bus, this time passing back past through Popayan and up North to the salsa capital of the world (apparently), Cali.