Guerrillas in the Mountains?

Until quite recently, the area around Tierradentro and San Agustín in the south of Colombia was not the safest due to guerrilla activity. There was an attack on police in September 2014 in Tierradentro and military operations near San Agustín in May 2010. Therefore, when we came across a band of heavily armed men dressed in fatigues while walking on a small path towards the ancient tombs of Tierradentro we felt some trepidation. We're now pretty sure that they were army, though, and we had a nice chat with them about the area, although didn't bring up anything too political!

The path where we came across the army - we obviously didn't try to get any pictures of them!

We'd left the touristy village of Salento for Popayán, one of the larger cities in the south of the country. It's known as the White City (see Arequipa, Perú and Sucre, Bolivia) and lived up to its name, with plenty of colonial buildings and churches lining the streets. We didn't spend much time here, though - we were just using it as a base to get to the UNESCO-listed archaeological sites at Tierradentro and San Agustín.

Popayán - the (a) White City

Not much is known about the pre-Colombian civilisations in this area. All that is left now are underground tombs, particularly in Tierradentro, and hundreds of statues and rock carvings, primarily in San Agustín. They date to the first millennium AD and no-one knows what happened to the cultures that created them - they'd disappeared by the time the Spanish arrived in the 1500's.

A tomb in Tierradentro

The tombs in Tierradentro are situated on four different hilltops around the town of San Andrés de Pisambalá. They consist of a large well of around 5-8m depth which gives access to a cave where bodies were interred in pots. Many of the tombs have no decoration, and many have been looted and damaged. However, some still show colourful, but simple, painted geometric patterns and creepy faces carved into the walls and supporting columns.

Statues guarding a tomb in San Agustín

Although Tierradentro has a few statues, the majority are found at many sites around San Agustín. Again, not much is known about them, but there are many hypotheses as to their meaning. They range from 1m to 7m in height and take on the form of humans, animals and a mix of the two. Some are thought to be gods and others shamans. To our eyes, they appear quite aggressive, with many bearing their teeth and others seeming to represent child sacrifice.

An owl/eagle and snake god?

The town of San Agustín is set in a beautiful location, close to the source of the Magdalena River, which we'd seen before in Honda and Mompox. Here, though, the river was much narrower and raged far below in a deep canyon. We found a good way to visit the river and a number of the archaeological sites was on horseback. This was our first time on horses, and we had a good time sitting on them while they did whatever they wanted!

Jo and her horse, Carmela

From San Agustín, we took a night bus up to Bogotá, which will be our final stop in Colombia before we fly up to the Dutch island of Curaçao for a few days. We're using this as a stop on the way to Guyana, avoiding the currently unstable and dangerous Venezuela.