A tropical, desertic oasis

A little desert heat was just what I needed after after two days of soggy hiking. For some reason a raincoat did not make my packing list...

To get to El Desierto de la Tatacoa from San Agustin, 3 bus rides of varying comfort lie ahead. The first was a Kia minivan driven by a a young guy who treated it like a Rolls Royce. Turns out it's his dad's car and that he lets him use it to make a few bucks toting people from San Agustin to the city at the base of the mountains. Next was a 3 hour van ride with a more, shall we say 'relaxed', driver. This 2-lane route is plied by endless amounts of slow-moving fuel trucks, which the driver had no patience for. It seemed like we were either in the wrong lane, flying around a truck, or else I was staring at the Spanish for "Keep your distance, extremely flammable" right in front of our windshield.

Anyway, one more van ride and I was at the edge of the desert, bargaining a 'tour guide' for a ride in. The motorcycle option was cheaper so I found myself hopping on another of those wobbly things, this time with my backpack on. I think my abs were sore for days after that. But the scenery more than made up for the muscle tension!

The bright red hue of the land and its erosion formations as well as the spiky, gnarled cactus reminded me uncannily of Arizona, almost like a mini Sedona without the New Age shops. In fact there isn't much in the way of civilization out there (which was fabulous!) The only inhabitants are the owners of the handful of small hostels. I chose to stay with Doña Elalia, vouched for as being a good cook! They offered me a basic room with no windows. The lack of light probably worked to my advantage as I couldn't see any spiders or scorpions. Ignorance is definitely bliss when it comes to me and arachnids; I think all my family and friends will agree!



As it turns out, a couple of girls I hiked in the rain with in San Agustin were also at Doña Elalia's, so I had some good company the rest of my visit! Upon nightfall, we headed over to the observatory a few hundred meters down the road. What awaited us on the rooftop deck was a bundle of astronomical energy in the

form of a local professor and astronomer. He would dart between his 3 huge telescopes, pointing out planets, nebular clouds, and galaxies, refocusing them as the world turned beneath us. The highlight was definitely Saturn, it's breath-taking rings clearly visible to our eyes! Later, we all sat around as the Professor showed us constellations with his laser pointer and explained the Greek myths behind each name.

I don't think I had ever taken over an hour just looking at the night sky and definitely not in a place devoid of any sort of light or noise pollution. Given its location near the equator, I was also seeing a more complete picture than I would back home. What suprised me was how dynamic it is: before you knew it, Jupiter was past the horizon but Orion was coming into view. Which explains the Professor's swiftness at the telescope. It was just stunning to realize how vast our universe is and how tiny even our entire galaxy is in comparison.

After a dark, spiderless night, the morning greeted us with clean air and blue skies. I had contracted my moto driver to take my friends and I on a desert tour so he met us at the hostel and we set out. First stop: El Laberinto de Cuzco (not to be confused with Perú)

After hiking through the laberinth, we hopped on Juan's moto/golfcart to explore the other end of the desert. the color scheme changed dramatically, trading reds for grays. Juan said it was because this later section was once completely underwater and thus the soil has a very different mineral composition. Who knows...

Street of mud! Felt amazing to squish my way through.

At the end of the trail there was a 'natural swimming pool' about $1.50 per swim.

Why not?

Our desert tour concluded, the guides brought us back to town. However, Juan's we had to stop along the way to pick up Juan's actual moto/golfcart vehicle. Apparantly it had broken down the night before and he was borrowing another guy's. Here how the operation looked:

Colombians are quite resourceful.

 

Success!

Checking out Pre-Colombian Colombia in San Agustín

To complete my cultural immersion in Colombia, I think I left the blog to the wayside! Here's trying to recap my journey:

Well, backtracking to early May...After soaking in life in Colombia´s sprawling capital for a couple of weeks with my lovely host family, I set off on a night bus to San Agustin. The main draw of this sleepy little city, nestled in the Andes, is a wealth of pre-Colombian statues, unearthed by archaeologists from around the world just a century ago. Little is known about the people that created the sculptures, which naturally lends to their mysterious appeal and my curiosity to visit!

The bus ride was surprisingly comfy, they even served snacks, drinks and provided a blanket to fend off the nip of over-exaggerated air conditioning! 9 hours later we were making our ascent up windy, cliffside roads to San Agustin. The scenery of the area is simply beautiful. Fed by frequent, tropical showers and plenty of warm sunlight, everywhere you look is bright green, accented by flowers of pink, orange, and yellow and earth of rich reddish brown.

Waking myself up with some locally harvested coffee at the hostel, I made my way to town to check out their Monday market. Countless stands dripping with a rainbow variety of fruit and veggies greet the eye while the smell of homemade stews and soups waft over from ´bars´ where you can have your fill of home cooking for a couple bucks. After breakfast I took a stroll through the meat area, stalls of white marble stained red with chunks of fresh cuts exposed to the open air. (I decided to cook vegetarian for the duration of my stay!)

Making delicious cane sugar juice.

After boosting my energy with a local specialty, freshly squeezed cane sugar juice (guarapo), I started walking to the archeological park that keeps the majority of sculptures that have been discovered. I had the afternoon to wander among the sites, imagining what the cultures that created these fantastical figures were like. Unfortunately, very little information was offered, so much was left up to personal interpretation. Basically, the statues were discovered by unearthing artificial mounds. Deep in the earth lay tombs, protected by a sort of gate of statues. The statues are made from volcanic stone and have been amazingly preserved underground, some for 5000 years!

The use of animal representations native to the Amazon region indicates that there was contact between the Andean region of San Agustin and the tribes down in the Amazon basin.

Almost all were warrior-like with characteristic feline fangs. What amazed me the most was the uniqueness of each statue despite some shared motifs. I think that's why I have 300 pictures of statues on my phone...

The following day I joined in on a Jeep tour with a group of Belgians to see various in situ statues. This time we hired a guide at one of the sites, who was able to make some sense of what we were seeing.  

On the way to another site, we stopped by a panela factory. Panela is a product of sugar cane used to make drinks. Agua de panela tastes like very sweet iced tea, at least to me! We were able to wander around and observe the process…and sample the panela at its various stages. (in other words, peel chunks of caramel-consistency off the table!)

Trapiche to extract the sugar cane juice.

Boiling down the juice.

Finished product-Panela!

My last day in San Agustin I joined up with a Colombian family staying at the hostel and we braved the rain, through it´s varying intensities, to check out some more archaeological sites. I enjoyed chatting with the daughter, an anthropology student. She had spent the last 3 months shadowing the lives of ´campesina´ women (rural farmers) in the area.  She also explained to me some of the tensions and land disputes that exist between those rural Colombians and indigenous groups. She was of the mind that although the government has taken various measures to protect the rights of the indigenous groups, that their cultures are slowly disappearing.

Coffee bushes are planted on nearly-vertical mountainsides. Our guide demonstrating how they manage not to fall of the edge!

By the time we reached the final point of our hike, the rains became torrential. After taking refuge and sipping a beer in hopes of waiting in out (beer always seems to be available when you need it in Colombia), we were forced to trudge through muddy trails for over an hour back to the hostel. It was all worth the trouble, but I was definitely happy to be heading Colombia’s only desert the next day! Next stop: Desierto de la Tatacoa.