Tierradentro and it´s underground tombs

After San Agustin, I visited another UNESCO World Heritage Site at Tierradentro. This area is even less visited then San Agustin due partly to the road condition.

Tierradentro contains the only known underground tombs in Latin America. They are believe to date between the 6th and 10th Century. Most of them are decorated with motif and painted with 3 basic colours (black, red and white). Again not a lot are known about the people who built them nor the tombs themselves. But many items were found in the tombs alongside the bodies, these included statues similar to those seen in San Agustin. All the tombs are built high up in the hills surrounding Tierradentro.

For me and Nicolas (my Belgium companion), the village and hills in this area are more interesting then the tombs themselves. We enjoyed hiking the hills to visit the ruins, chilling in the tiny village (of 15 houses!) sipping our juice and having the whole place to ourselves!

For more information go to UNESCO World Heritage Site on Tierradentro.

San Agustin and it´s facinating Stone faces

I recently spent 3 days in San Agustin, a town in the South of Colombia.

I came to see these fantastic ruins which was found only in the 1970´s. And up until recently, the whole area were not visited by travelers due to active guerrilla activities. But it is now safe for visiting. There are more then 500 stone statues to be viewed. Most in human shape, but some in animal shape, such as a bird holding it´s pray - a snake in it´s beak. Some of the statues were preserved in a perfect state, including the colours used!

The site is pretty big, spread out over the countryside, so on the second day me and 2 other backpackers rented horses to take us along spectacular scenary to visit some of these sites.

Very little is known about the culture surrounding these ruins. But they were believe to have been scultured by the Andean people between the 1st to 8th Century.

For more information, check the UNESCO World Heritage Site for San Agustin.