The road from Popayan to San Agustín climbs quite steeply to over three thousand metres and then just seems to disappear. This is one of those destinations where getting there makes it feel like an amazing adventure. The next two hours are what can only be described as off-roading in a mini bus as we bounced down a narrow unpaved track with incredible views on either side. The track takes you through Purace National Park and on clear days you can see the massive form of the volcano looming out of the flat paramo landscape in the distance.
Then you start to descend down through the coffee plantations into the valley of the upper reaches of the Magdelena river and then again climb until you reach the green and white painted town of San Agustín from where you can explore the amazing archeological treasures that have sat undisturbed for over a thousand years.
The easiest way to reach San Agustín is via the city of Popayan. Buses leave from the main bus terminal about four times a day and cost around 45,000 COP. The 125 kilometres take about four and a half hours to cover normally, but it can take drastically longer than this due to traffic and road conditions. As mentioned above over half of the time is spent on an unpaved road that is prone to landslides and blockages so I would try and set off on an early bus if you want to make it before nightfall.
Popayan has an airport which is served by most major cities in Colombia. It is also on the main Pan-American highway which makes it very accessible by public transport. The bus from Cali for example will take about three hours and Bogota eight. We arrived into Popayan from Salento and this took about eight hours also.
There’s more than one archaeological site to visit and plenty of exploring to be done. From the main site close to town to community museums in small villages. These can be quite difficult to reach independently but don’t worry we will, in this post, give you all the options we used to give you the most cost effective way of reaching all the mains sites and a few of the other things to do round and about the area.
The park entrance is quite close to San Agustin and it can be reached by taxi at a cost of around 8000 COP or you can walk. You will find the route on the maps.me app. It’s about a three and a half kilometre walk on quite quiet roads and tracks.
At the time of writing it cost 50,000 COP per person to get in for non Colombian nationals. This gives you a two day passport that includes entry to the Archaeological park and also two other sites, Alto de los Piedras and Alto de los Idolos.
The park is split into seven, well sign posted, areas the first of which is the very well laid out and informative Museum just before the actual entrance into the park. Some of the information boards have English translations which makes it well worth a look.
As you enter the park itself your passport gets embossed with an idol stamp which is a very nice touch. Here there is a small cafe and you can hire a guide for your tour of the park. We didn’t bother with the guide as we wanted to take our time around the site. I believe the charge is about 35,000 COP but I’m not exactly sure of the price.
You enter the park through a trail called the forest of the statues. This winding route takes you past 39 statues which are out of their original context. I believe most of these statues have been recovered from around the world having been sold to private individuals by grave robbers sometime in the past.
You pop out of the forest at a covered bridge that leads to the sign posts, which shows the way to the three mains sites where you’ll find the statues & tombs and these are called Mesitas and are signposted as A,B and C. Each Mesita which is a group of burial mounds has a board with a little map and some information. You can stroll around these areas freely and there are little covered seats to rest or in our case to shelter from the rain.
After a good look round at the three areas of tombs you can then head up a signed path towards the view point Alto de Lavapatas. On the way up you pass a river bed with some carvings of serpents. The water has been diverted so you can see them, I must admit though, I struggled to make them out. Continuing on up the path you pass some restaurants and vendors who have cut holes through the fence for people to enter. At the top of the steps you come out onto the hill top with a tomb and great views over the surrounding hills and valleys.
When we where there it rained all morning but was fine in the afternoon so we ended up spending all day there visiting each area twice once wet and once dry. We then walked back to the town. The walk back is mainly downhill so not too strenuous.
You can however do it as part of a horse riding tour, as we did; see below for more details. Although it’s just a small site it’s well worth a visit. I thought the carving looked like an alien but that’s just my imagination running wild.
It’s 3000 COP to get in and you can get guided round the site by the children of the town from the nearby school but unfortunately the tour is in Spanish so not worth an extra charge for us. We did watch them show some Colombian tourists round and it seemed very interesting. The visit here is part of the Jeep tour.
There are many waterfalls in this area of Colombia including the second longest waterfall in the country, Salto des Bordones as well as this one there are many more that are just as impressive. Here’s the ones that we visited.
Mentioned above this waterfall is Colombia’s second longest uninterrupted waterfall, free falling for more than 400mtrs. Its located near the town of Isnos, just north of San Agustin and we visited this place as part of the jeep tour that we took. On our tour it wasn’t possible to visit the base of this waterfall but we were able to view it from a look out point on the other side of the valley. We believe that there is another tour that you can take which takes you to the base of the waterfall if that’s something you want to do.
This waterfall was another we visited on the Jeep Tour. This one was more of an adrenalin junkies paradise as the waterfall was somewhat obscured by about 10 different wires hooked up to various extreme sport activities strung across the valley. You could zip line your way across the canyon to the waterfall, spend time in a hammock suspended over the ravine, you could swing on a giant pendulum or take your chances on the glass walkway. We opted for stepping onto the 2 separate viewpoints to see the gushing water force its way down into the ravine. Definitely worth a visit if you want to add a bit of spice to your waterfall viewing.
One of the other sites we visited on our Jeep Tour was Estrecho del Magdalena which is a narrow fissure of rock, approx 2.2 mtrs, which the river flows through at an alarming pace. This is the narrowest stretch of river in Colombia and is, nowadays, very much a tourist attraction. The river is deep in a gorge and almost immediately after passing through the narrow rock it makes a dramatic 90 degree turn right and continues on. When you arrive at Estrecho you walk down some stone stairs before arriving at the rivers edge. One word of caution is that the stones can be a bit slippy so take care and make sure you wear some good sturdy footwear.
The jeep tour can be booked through your accommodation and is a really cost affective way to visit some of the more distant archeological sites as well as other attractions. The cost was 50,000 COP per person with an English speaking guide at an extra cost which we decided we didn’t need on this occasion.
The vehicle we did the tour in turned out to be a mini bus which was quite surprising considering some of the unpaved roads it needed to navigate. The van picks you up between 8.30am and 9am depending on where your pick up point is then you’re off for a full day out which we thought was amazing value for money.
As well as the three archaeological sites of Alto de los Idolos , Alto de los Piedras and Obando you also get the two waterfalls mentioned above and the Estrecho. There’s a lunch stop with the cost of the lunch being at an extra charge. We also had an unscheduled stop at a Panela factory which was really interesting.
The horse back riding tour is the easiest and most interesting way to reach the other three sites we visited, La Chaquira, El Purutal and El Tablon. You can walk from San Agustin but you will still have to pay for the recommended guide and it’s a six hour trek in some pretty muddy conditions.
I was pretty nervous about the horse riding as I hadn’t done it before, Lynne on the other hand was really looking forward to it. I had no need to worry as the horses were pretty tame and knew where to go. For me it was just a case of hanging on and going with the flow.
The tour costs 50,000 COP per person with an extra cost of 25,000 COP per person for the English speaking guide which we thought necessary as we could then get instructions for the horse riding. It turned out to be a great choice as the guide was a mine of information about the area, the tombs, the local fruits and how nature was used to produce pigments.
The guide’s brother showed us items he claimed were genuine artefacts that he had himself taken from tombs. unknown to archaeologists, which will quite probably end up in private collections or round the neck of a random tourist as a memento. Of course it is completely illegal to remove these items from the country.
We have always tended to use Booking.com having said that if your on a tight budget another good site to try as a comparison is Hostelworld, If your looking to compare different sites you can do that on Hotellook, we tend to look on here first to make sure we are getting the best deal.
You can book your visits as you go at the entrance to your chosen attraction or site. Or you could use the following links to book in advance or just to find out what your choices are in the area. GetYourGuide and Tiqets are our go to choices you could try Viator to see how they compare.
For a full list check out our resources page. Don’t forget always shop around to find the best deal for you. What works for us should be good for you but it’s always reassuring to check.
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As part of our South American adventure in 2022, we headed to Minca after spending some time in Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast with the full intention of doing some hiking in the lush green forest area in the foothills of the Sierra
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