A bit of culture - Pre-Columbian statues in San Agustin

After a day's travel we wearily arrived in San Agustin, a beautiful little town perched high in the Southern Columbian countryside and home to one of the most important archaeological sights in the continent.





The main draw-card for visiting San Agustin is to see the Pre-Columbian statues and tombs dating between the 6th and 14th centuries AD. The pre-Incan civilisation that once lived here is shrouded in mystery and disappeared long before the Spanish arrived. They buried their dead and honoured them with magnificently carved statues made from volcanic rock. So far 513 statues have been found, however it is believed that huge mayan-like pyramids may also be buried underground. These statues were discovered in the middle of the 18th Century and only recently have tourists been coming to this area since the guerilla warfare ended.









On our second day after checking out some more tombs, we luckily stumbled upon a big cowboy festival in a small town that we were passing through. In the centre of the fiesta was a rather rickety old rodeo stadium. We paid our 50 cents to get in and found the place to be packed wall to wall with drunk Columbian cowboys watching a popular horse galloping competition.