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Coca, coffee and mysterious ruins.
Entry 6 of 11 | show all | print this entry |
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Since I only had one full day to take in the sites of San Agustín before heading to Bogotá, I decided to contract a local guide to take me out on a tour of the area on horseback. My guide, Pacho, has been giving tours of the area for 20 years and was a great person to chat with in addition to being a wealth of information about the surroundings and Colombia in general. The horse Pacho gave me was named Recuerdo, or Memory, which he named for his mother who had died eight months earlier and was a loyal rider of the horse. So we mounted up and headed out in the morning on a powerfully sunny day.
Pacho and I talked about our respective countries as we rode along the paths that wove between haciendas, stopping here and there to say hello to the locals in between sojourns at the random ruins in the area, many of which are in the form of stone estelas with mysterious engravings on them.
The natives who inhabited the area left no written history, so much of what is known is based on conjecture or imagination, which made the sites we came upon even more intriguing. According to recent carbon 14 tests many of the ruins date back 5000-5300 years, which means these people were probably long gone before the greedy Spaniards arrived, though one of the legends has it that the natives buried themselves alive instead of submitting to the intruders. The scenery in the area is by far some of the most magnificent I have ever beheld, and again the agriculture in the area is prolific and very varied. It seems like Colombia is a perfect environment for cultivating just about anything.
I really enjoyed my time with Pacho. He was willing to do whatever I wanted at whatever pace, and he was more than willing to answer any and every question I had about Colombia.
He told me about some of the other tours he does, like a 24-day horseride down to Quito, Ecuador, a 40 kilometer trip out to some huge waterfalls, one of which is supposed to be the second largest in the world, and a trip down to Putumayo, where for $200 you can visit a real Colombian cocaine laboratory and sample the merchandise. That´s a trip I wanted to take, but I´m afraid it´ll have to wait for the next journey, which I´m definitely going to consider. The great thing about San Agustín nowadays is that the FARC has been run off east of the Andes, so there´s really no fear of them anymore. There was a strong military presence as well, which was a good sign tourism would pick up again after almost drying up a few years ago due to the guerrilla occupation.
At one of our pitstops Pacho pointed out a coca plant in front of the house of the woman who served us a couple of cold beers. I took advantage and had Pacho snap a shot of me imitating a cocalero snatching the leaves left and right. Apparently it´s legal here to have up to six coca plants on your property since the plant has medicinal values and is "mystical and sacred" as the locals put it. Anything more than a kilo of leaves is illegal since that would classify you as having the capability of "producing" something. Well, once we got back on our horses I stuffed my handful of coca leaves smack dab inside my right cheek, Lenny Dykstra-style.
It´s a bit bitter, but gives you a slight lift and definitely curbs your appetite.
Pacho and I meandered on, stopping in to see some impressive estelas spread about in San Agustín. Imagining these people here in this part of the world thousands of years ago brings visions of a people at one with nature, as they displayed in many of the carvings and etchings they left behind.
They also supposedly used mushrooms and yage, a vine indigenous to the Amazon and a potent hallucinagenic. Once you understand this you can see more into their strange imagery. They also used the coca leaf, just as the people do here today, whether by chewing it or making coca tea. Unfortunately, more than a few foreigners have come here only to get stoned on marijuana and cocaine, some of them apparently going crazy and having to leave. The latest case was that of an Israeli girl just out of the military. This has caused some locals to fear the arrival of more foreigners, though the tourist money is in fact welcomed. It was funny to hear how up-to-date the people were here regarding the foreign population. Everyone we spoke to knew that there were 26 foreigners living in San Agustín, mostly Europeans who buy property ($5000 for a hectare of excellent land in a beautiful location), the most recent being a guy from Switzerland who had already built a house and planted coffee and sugarcane on his lot.
After my tour with Pacho we split so I could amble through the Archeological Park and museum for a while before heading back to my hostal on foot, which took me a while as it was about three miles away.
Of course I got lost a few times and had to stop in at various houses to ask directions through the woods. It was obvious few foreigners treaded on these paths, as everyone was surprised to see me wandering through their yards. By the time I made it back I was bushed and ready for bed, my ass somewhat broken from Recuerdo while my legs were really feeling all that walking on dirt roads up and down the hills. I helped Pacho prepare some business cards before crashing, and promised to stop in again the next time I return to Colombia...
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