San Augustin, Columbia

San Augustin is my favorite place in Columbia so far. It isn't that this town has a unique look about it because it doesn't. In town the buildings are one, maybe two story stories of the usual variety. There are panaderias, resturantes, stores that sell basic needs, always a market, a few artisan shops...it could be one of many small towns in Columbia. The difference is the people.

 

My hostel was on a dirt road outside of town, a road that is unpaved starting maybe a hundred feet from the square but we were not that close in. People walk and everyone greets with a "buenas dias" and a smile. Some rode into town in horse drawn carts, mostly single axle with auto tires. Outside the market, the horses stood patiently like so many diagonally parked cars while their masters sold their produce or shopped. Of course some people have cars but not as many in this end of town, and many a motorcycle whizzed by me.

 

 

 

 One woman told my friend Niko that up until two years ago San Augustin was full of guerilla fighters but it is safe now. It feels quite safe to me. A woman on the square was making a panela of fresh squeezed sugar cane rendered with gelatin from fresh hooves. She would scoop this mix from a pan beneath a post rigged on her cart. Then she would work it rather forcefully all around and it would get thick and stretchy almost like pulling taffy. When it got too thick she scooped more. She was in constant motion all day and was rewarded with many customers. It was much too sweet for my taste. Another woman I walked a distance with, told me how she had come from Germany with her children, found a nice house to rent, married and settled in. I could be tempted to settle there myself.

 

  

San Augustin has a big archaeological park with many burial sites and stone statues. They date starting around 800 AD. It was apparently the in place to be buried for a fairly long period of time. I couldn't find mention of a particular people, they are simply called indigenous people. There were a few mounds excavated in the park, a spring area with stones carved and laid out in some significant manner and a beautiful bamboo bridge. There was an overlook site that I thought was not worth the long, heart-thumping climb. Another area , Bosque de las Estatuas, is a trail with about thirty statues said to be recovered from grave robbers. Bogota decided they needed a large number for a permanent exposition. The townspeople were outraged and blocked off the road to the park. Now, along the trail, there are several flat replicas made of something like foam-core with signs under them explaining that they are in a Bogota exhibit. I noticed the noun 'to be' is the temporary state and hope that is the sign of a small victory.

 



A cutout of a missing statue.

 

I have to confess that I am totally enamored with some of the plant life I found in the area. Bamboo grows to be easily five inches in diameter and is used in all kinds of construction projects.. The shoots can be taller than I am and still be called shoots while the adult plants tower overhead. Air plants root themselves in trees and something similar but smaller attaches to power lines in town. And the flowers, oh! the flowers....

A bamboo bridge at the park.