secret tours in Colombia

My Colombia guidebook doesn't mention the 'secret tours' of San Agustin, but I found out on my first day that it was possible to visit a real-life cocaine factory as a tourist.  I'm sure the official tourist office wouldn't advertise them, but there were some local tour guides who had an arrangement with the grandmother who ran a family cocaine-processing plant to take tourists along and watch the proceedings.

I learnt this from another tourist - in fact he first told me about his tour a few hours before it started, and I suggested that he take care, not take any valuables with him, etc.  It sounded very dodgy to me. But he emailed later that evening to tell me he was safe and well and that the tour had been fascinating. We found ourselves on the same archaeological jeep tour the next day so he told me all about it, from the leaves being brought in, through the stage where the brown residue (the crack cocaine) is thrown away - apparently this family don't want to sell crack as it takes too many young lives - to the pure white powder at the end.  Amazingly, he was even allowed to take photos.

At first my reaction was that I wanted to do the tour, it sounded fascinating but more than that I suppose was a kind of glamour at seeing first-hand something that is highly illegal.  But then I thought more about it, about the fact that you have to pay to do the tour, that the payment helps to support the industry, and perhaps more than anything for me the fact that tourists going along and taking photos somehow adds legitimacy to the whole industry.  I have nothing at all against Andean peasants chewing coca leaves to stay awake longer, seems no different to me from London businessmen drinking wine to relax.  It has been a part of the local culture in the Andes for centuries and seems to do no harm.  Indeed I have no problem with anyone taking any drug as long as it doesn't make them a danger, or a nuisance, to others.  But cocaine makes people aggressive, is highly addictive, and the whole industry to produce it has led to low-level guerilla warfare for decades in Colombia with many associated deaths and millions having been forced from their homes.  So, reluctantly I admit, I decided not to seek out one of the guides offering secret tours
.

the historical sites of southern Colombia

Following work in Ecuador last month over two public holidays, I had accumulated enough compensatory leave to fly to Colombia a week before my assignment here so as to visit a couple of archaeological sites in the south.

Tierradentro is known for its underground tombs, carved out of the rock and painted in mostly geometric designs in white, red and black.  Some also have carvings on the pillars, such as in the photo above.  There are 162 such tombs, dated to between 600 and 900AD, built by an unknown people who have since disappeared.  Many have been looted, but the small local museum displays some of the pots found in them, pots which mostly contained bone fragments of the deceased.  Apparently the dead were buried twice, firstly as a complete corpse, and then when decomposed they were removed from the tomb and cremated, and the remains re-buried in these pots.

Visiting the tombs was quite hard work, as you enter via a stone spiral staircase, the steps some two feet deep and the walls in many cases curving inwards - my thigh muscles felt like jelly after hauling myself up and down many of these steps.  There is a lot of walking, too, with groups of tombs in various locations in the mountains around the little village. The scenery is beautiful though, with lush greenery, fruit trees everywhere (orange, guava and passion fruit especially), and orchids dripping from the trees. I would very happily have spent a second day there just to walk the trails a second time.

Unbelievably my private two-bedded room with modern ensuite bathroom (with hot water), next to the museum, cost me only $7 a night, and large glasses of freshly squeezed fruit juices were $1.

But I couldn't delay as I also wanted to get to San Agustin, where the tombs were not in themselves impressive but were guarded by great carved stone statues, some 300 of them over a large area.  Large enough for me to take a jeep tour one day (for the sites over 20km away from the town) and a horse-riding tour another day (for a round trip of some 12km or so to four other sites).  I also spent an entire day wandering around the main archaeological park.

The statues are generally of human-like figures but with jaguar teeth and various other fantastical features.  They were mostly carved between 300 and 800AD.  No-one is sure exactly what they represented; maybe demons or some other kind of supernatural figures.  Originally they were coloured - in red, black and yellow - but only a handful now retain their colour.  Some have also been eroded by the elements.  The majority, however, look as though they were made in the last few days with their clear, sharp lines.

Besides the human(ish) figures were carvings of frogs and alligators, and one of an eagle holding a snake in its beak and talons.

Again, the landscapes around the place were beautiful.  I enjoyed walking out in the fresh air, along country lanes and forest trails, up hills and down into river valleys, and past fields of coffee plants.  And of course, in the country that contains nearly 20% of the world's bird species, I was surrounded by birds: parakeets, tanagers, woodpeckers, swallow-tailed kites, and the surprising sight of several groups of Colombian chachalacas lumbering through the tree tops.