Is breaking a glass door 7 years bad luck?
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2006
1
33
90
Trip End
Dec 25, 2007
San Agustin,
Colombia
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Farewelling Nan, who waited with me patiently for the bus to arrive (Cujo and Pop nowhere in sight, attending to the crop maybe) to whisk me away to San Agustin was the beginning of five days I could not have scripted myself, even if I put my crazy imagination to work. It all started innocently enough, my bus receiving a rock in the windscreen from what looked like the local chain gang on the side of the road, dressed in orange overalls and armed with whipper-snippers. With the windscreen history and the bus heading back to La Plata, Diomedes and I, the only passengers on the bus, took to waiting for an hour on the side of the road with the standard military guy armed with an AK-47. So far so good as Diomedes and I shared conversations in both English and Spanish while waiting for the replacement bus to come and collect us.
The next bus soon came, and on we headed only to be soon stopped by the military, or was it the guerillaīs
01 - Stone statues of San Agustin
. Who knows and who cares because after showing my passport and being frisked for any hidden weapons (luckily no snapping on of the plastic glove heard) it was resume journey to San Agustin. And before you could say "get outta the bus" I was being bundled into the back of a jeep "Jack from 24" style (so I made that bit up), it was off to San Agustin, third time lucky. My home for the next 3 nights was to be the great French owned establishment of Nelly, she of Casa de Nelly fame. And it was that to the dulcit tones of French, Spanish and Hebrew that I tried to fall asleep, only to have my room lit up like a Xmas tree from the light outside, a light I failed to find the switch for at 3am...who would have thought it was behind the chair directly out front of my room. Stood out like the proverbial dogs balls in the cold light of day! Now why would you come to San Agustin with the "Going Soft with the LP" trotting out such gems as "Guerillas have been stopping the traffic and burning buses or trucks, but passengers were not harrassed or robbed". What a relief. Or this one, "Few travellers come here due to intense guerilla activity witnessed over the years." Well I think it is safe to say that was then and this is now. Understanding the most up-to-date version of South American LP was written a good four years you would have struggled to come to Colombia given the dire warnings around every corner. Either that or hired the Robo-cop uniform worn by the Colombian riot squad to tour the country.
So what is San Agustin? An area the LP exceeds in goes something like this, "One of the continents most important archaelogical sites, the area was inhaited by a mysterious pre-Colombian civilization that left behind 100īs of freestanding monumental statues carved in stone
02 - A member of the British Royal Family?
. The statues resemble everything from eagles, jaguars and frogs to masked monsters. It is here locals buried their dead with the statues placed next to the tombs. The culture had mysteriously vanished before the Spaniards came." Maybe they had read the LPīs vision of impending doom for the area and hightailed it elsewhere? The best way to see the area was by both jeep and horse. And so it was the first day I jeeped it and the second on horseback. And judging by the LPīs warning the result was Oli, Rob, Iris, Tomas and Jeannine having the whole place to ourselves. And given the rumour of only 20 tourists in total in town, over a quarter were in the jeep. The kids of Colombia are nothing if not industrious and enterprising. On arriving at the waterfall, 8 year old Jennifer relayed to us in Spanish all the local history, posed for photos and graciously accepted our donation as she headed back waiting for any of the other 14 tourists in town to pass on by. The trip back was halted by more roadworks meaning my trip back to Casa de Nelly was made in the darkness, many a wrong turn taken but thanks to the locals I was always put back on track. The worst bit was being able to smell the horseshit but not quite being able to see it. Although that changed on my return to Casa de Nelly, with the light I could finally see it...all over the bottom of my boots!
Next day I woke up early, nervous at the prospect of only my third ever horseride, the first two ending in tears. As an eight year old at Uncle Berts Farm, a school camp masquerading as a three day lesson in military style discipline, run by what could only be described as a mean old bastard, who was in need of a good woman, I did not know that then, I do now! His selection of horse for me (whose name is now deemed racist and rightly so, and it ryhmes with digger) proceeded to bite me fair on the chest, meaning I left camp with what looked like an oversized lovebite on my left nipple and its immediate surrounds
03 - Jennifer, our enterprising & ambitious guide
. I waited a further 8 years before venturing back onto a horse, a horse who did everything but what I wanted it to do, including wandering into a dam, a deep dam as I was to find out. And so here I was faced with the beautiful looking Mariposa, was she to renew my faith in our equine friends, or make it third and last time unlucky? Well what can I say, after five hours on riding around on the best ass in San Agustin (just ask Oli and Rob, they had the prime view) I fell in love with Mariposa. Sure she was relucatant to take the lead, usually leaving that up to Blackberry (Spanish for the crazy-one) with the oddly named Receurdo (I Remember in english) bringing up the rear, unless whipped into action by Pancho, our wiley Colombian guide for the day. Sure, the horses had been here and done it before, programmed to trot, gallop and canter without any sign of influence from the three of us sitting on top. Think the equine version of Hymie the Robot from Get Smart fame and you are getting warmer. The three of us all had Marlboro Man moments as we roamed the Colombian countryside, in reality the only smoke was coming from Mariposaīs rear as she let fly again. What was she fed? Nothing beats being on the back of a horse as it flies along a path, finally giving your nuts a respite from being slammed back and forth against the saddle. It is the bit between a walk and a trot that really gives the seeds a workout they were not clearly not designed for
04 - Living on the edge!
. And so it was I came to say goodbye to Mariposa and her buns of steel, but like the true equine robot she was, she was off in a canter with Blackberry and I Remember to wherever she had been programmed to head at the end of the trip. Sure I felt used, not even a glance back but what can you do but head back to town and pick up the pieces, pieces of glass as I was soon to discover. My final night at Casa de Nelly was spent with half a glass door. What happens when a door continually sticks on the rails, refusing to slide without great force and great force leading to me putting my knee through the glass, sending it crashing into my room. As luck would have it, Nelly was enjoying a birthday in the house, a very loud birthday such that crashing glass did not register on her richter scale, or any other guests for that matter. As so it came to be that I spent an hour picking up half a door, wondering how many colombian pesos it would cost to repair a door and hoping none of the guests, plied with sufficient quantities of alcohol would notice half a door missing. No-one did notice, not even the guest who in broken english professed his undying love on the mobile-phone to a married women right outside my half a door. Lights out and curtain drawn fooled everyone by the looks of it. Although this 24 hours without a lick of sleep was to prove a bitch in the coming days. And on checkout the next morining my night of tossing and turning proved a waste as after the initial shock of seeing half a door and me sprouting "Accidente, si, accidente, si" as I did not know spanish for "Stupid, sticking door, looks like I did you all a favour", I was free to go and catch the bus to Ipiales, the shortcut bus that was to save time and a return trip to Popoyan. And ominously..I walked the 20 minutes to meet Oli and Rob for that bus in the pouring San Agustin rain.
