San Agustin, Colombia

We left Villavieja and Colombia's desert for the long drive to our next stop. We had to climb through the mountains and had some beautiful views as rivers cut deep down into the hills and the road had to twist around bends in the river and cross passes and connect small towns n the way.

A church in a small town en route.

One of the many valleys that the rad followed.

Finally we reached San Agustin, a small town in southern Colombia with a wealth of pre-conquistador archaeological sites. But first there was the hostel...Hostel Francoise...a lovely place just outside the centre but within walking distance. It had a number of small buildings set on a hillside overlooking the town. The main reception, cafe and bar building...

my cabana set aside form the other buildings in the well tended gardens...

another of the cabanas in the grounds...

another cabana with the kitchen underneath...

and a picture of me doing some work on the porch on my cabana.

And the next day it was off to see the Archaeological Park for which the town is famous. It was a 3kms walk up the hill to the entrance and I bought entry tickets and worked my way through the museum reading all the labels. I learnt a lot about the interpretation of the statues but as even the experts had only a rudimentary understanding of the culture as they left no written records, only stone carvings, quite a lot of it was conjecture. But many of the stone statues are interesting and here are a few from the museum...

and the rest were outside...

one of the many graves on the site...

and yet more carvings...

a frog near the river...

the river where there were a lot of carvings on the stone bed of the river but many were badly eroded...

and yet mote statues on the top of the hill where there were many burial pits...

but despite it being a funeral site, there were some smiley faces...

What isn't represented in photos is the fact that there was a foreign language school visiting the site at the same time and they had instructions to ask questions of foreigners in order to practice their English with native English speakers and of course I was mobbed by thirty school children each with thirty questions they needed answers to such as your favourite food / film/ book, what do you do for fun / sport / pastimes and many other questions. I could have walked on but then I am a parent and I had some time to indulge them in practicing their English...which s=was so much better than any other language that I had learnt the I was their age.

Then it was the long walk back down the hill but I stopped at a cafe on the way. It was a quirky set of place with coffee and a range of local artisan beers on offer...and it was a hot day...

I tried to speak to one of the local girls at the bar and however much I wanted to get to know her better she wasn't interested.

But the orchids were fascinating, but then it was time to get back to the hostel and pack for the next drive day.