The small colonial town of San Agustin is very enchanting, having hardly changed since the Spanish built it. In the town centre is a plaza, with a bust of Simón Bolívar, the political leader who lead Colombia to independence. Across from the plaza is the Church of St. Agustin.  It was interesting to see how… Continue reading Town of San Agustin

Alto de los Idolos is also part of the National Archeological Park of San Agustín. It is considered the second most important site, because of the number and concentration of archeological pieces. The site is less visited than the main Archaeological Site, so we virtually had the whole site to ourselves. The views were amazing.… Continue reading Alto de los Idolos

Alto de las Piedras was a residential area between 1000 BC – 1 AD and then became a monumental burial site between 1 AD and 900 AD.  It is 1,830 meters above sea level and covers an area of 27 acres.  It is part of the National Archeological Park of San Agustín.  This site has… Continue reading Alto de las Piedras

Obando a small village 12 km north of San Agustin.  It has a small archaeological site, Hipogeos de Obando, with eight underground tombs and a tiny museum with some of the excavated pottery.  The tombs were not discovered until 1992, when a tire sank into what they discovered was a tomb.  30 tombs were actually… Continue reading Obando

We could have spent weeks visiting all the archaeological sites in the area, but we only had two days. Day two we headed a little further from San Agustin, into the surrounding area to see more of the archaeology.  In addition to the main archaeological park, the park also includes some other independent sites.  We… Continue reading San Agustin Area

Mesita D has a funeral mound and a group of sculptures which have been brought here from different places around San Agustín and Isnos. An 800-meter forest trail takes you past 40 statues that have been recovered by the cultural authorities and placed in this park for protection. They are small enough that the threat… Continue reading Forest of Statues

The museum is quite small and it mostly covers the history of the principal archeologist, Luis Duque Gomez.  He started work in this area in the 1940’s.  He was joined by Julio Cesar Cubillos in the 1970’s and using ceramic fragments and carbon 14 dating, they concluded that the same culture had created the statues,… Continue reading Archeological Museum

One of the most important sites of San Agustín Archaeological Park is the Ceremonial Lavapatas Fountain.  It is quite unique and I was surprised to find that it wasn’t discovered until 1937. The Lavapatas creek carries water to a sloping bed of rock, where a complex series of carved channels and wells determine the direction… Continue reading Ceremonial Lavapatas Fountain

This ‘Mesita’ was discovered by archeologists in a relatively well conserved state and it was used as a model for restoration of the ‘Mesitas’ C and D. The site has three funeral mounds and at least 63 statues were found along with 106 tombs of varying complexity. In each one of the funeral mounds there… Continue reading Mesita B

El Alto de Lavapatas is the park’s highest hill and is a great place to take in the surrounding landscape. It was a little misty the day we were there, so we didn’t get to see as much as you can sometimes see from here, but even so it was beautiful. It is quite the… Continue reading Alto de Lavapatas