Still Monkey-ing Around in South America (Part II)

SAN AGUSTIN AND THE BADLY TIMED ENCOUNTER WITH A GROUP OF ANDEAN HIGHLAND MUSICIANS.

We made our way to one of South America´s most important archeological sites. Inhabited by a mysterious pre-Colombian civilisation, which left behind hundreds of free-standing monumental statues carved in stone. The site was a ceremonial centre where locals buried their dead and placed the statues next to the tombs. 500 statues have been found and excavated to date....so this should be an interesting couple of days!

We head to the bus station to purchase tickets, the man selling the tickets wanted us to pay $24,000/ticket for the 5-6 hour journey. By merely walking away, saying it was too much and doing a little seemingly disinterested bargaining we got him down to $18,000! Nice! We went out to wait by the bus and as soon as we saw it all we could do was laugh...it was a beaten, broken, abused little thing that looked like an old school bus. I got on and sat next to the window, I feel very strongly about the curtains on the buses in South America and that they should not be touched at any cost! The foul curtains on this particular bus did not have ties, what to do? what to do? Luckily I had a roll of sellotape handy and proceeded to plaster the curtain in it and attach it firmly to the window in order to hold the curtain back and away from me so that i did not have to spend the ride with it gently caressing my face.

Beks seat was horrific, its resting position was slightly less than upright with a lean forward and would not stay in any one locked position but rather would move with the sweet rocking of the bus. This would be OK if we were on a paved road but we were actually on the opposite of a paved road. This meant that every time that the bus moved or Beks moved or I moved or the guy behind her moved or the lady behind me moved or really anyone on the bus moved, Beks´ seat with her in it moved. She looked like a chicken pickin at corn in a farmyard.

When we got into town after a horrendous 6hrs of bumpy, bumpy (much like sitting on a pneumatic drill type) driving, we needed to find a place to stay. Most of the recommended places were outta town, so rather than start walking we found ourselves at "Cambi" -this random little hostel had only one room available and it was next to the "restaurant" which didnt seem to be in business so we figured it would be fine.

Although the beds are hard and there is someones shoes already under Beks´ bed, we decided to stay. We to get a beer, very necessary after the hours on the bus. There wasn´t any electricity in the town, but the beers are still cold....priorities! We seat ourselves in a strategic position at a place with a balcony so that we can make observations about the people bustling about.
[Important observation: I should have bought shares in a Colombian hair gel company! The males in this town LOVE hair gel, they all wear it! Their hair is actually in a great variety of styles many of them looking like abstract sculptures but no matter what the do, it is held in place with massive amounts of gel!]

We decided that we were ready for some dinner. Head to a restaurant which was mediocre, ordered a fruit salad to try and salvage the fact that the meal had been pretty traumatic! The fruit salad came out, there was a glisten of pure excitement in my eyes, but as I dove into the first bite all that joy just slid away. The fruit would have been scrumptous if it hadnt been drowned in nausea-inducing, out of date yoghurt and honey (for those that dont know, I am NOT partial to a bit of bee-poo!)

Back to the hostal for some down time. I inevitably fall asleep with my face in my book...it is coming up to 9pm after all! A couple of hours later, I was woken up outta nowhere by some extremely loud music. Was totally disorientated and didnt have a clue what was going on, until I realised that there was a full on Andean music concert going on...outside our room! I glanced over at Beks, who had still been trying to read at this point, and instantly cracked up...her face said it all, "less than impressed" would be a term that didnt even come close to scratching the surface!

She was close to boiling point but the two of us decided to have a peek at what was going on....didnt manage to as we were scared to open the door and come face to face with the masses, so we shoved our video camera out the crack in the door instead!! The harrowing sound of panpipes continued to float through our room...and bones and each time they launched into a new song, Beks and I broke into a new round of stitches!

Novelty over...time to return to dreamy dream land...except, well...I couldnt. Crazy Andean music is not conducive to falling asleep, was going to have to resort to counting sheep or ants or something!

After the onslaught the previous night, one would have expected to have had the opportunity to lay in until 7am or something....oh could I have possibly made a more unreasonable request?! 6.30am: the breakfast gang arrives, wreaks havoc and successfully manages to wake us both up. Beks face this time round was absolutely priceless, laughing didnt seem quite so appropriate and as much as I wanted to lighten the situation, the spark of humour had definitely passed away over night!

That day we changed hostals, head to the Archeological Park to see the sculptures and generally counted down the hours until our bus the next day outta the place! The Archeological Park was interesting enough, but with absolutely no information on the San Agustin civilisation, I found myself less than enthused and gradually becoming disinterested. Yet another ancient civilisation which opens the floodgates for endless questions which I am not able to have answered. Very frustrating! Our highlight of the day was actually playing with a little puppy that we stumbled upon in the ruins. Does that say something about us, or the people who recommended that we go?

All done and dusted, time for a cool drink and as we sat and enjoyed the drink, I glanced up to notice a cute, itty, bitty squirrel running about the tree. "Aww look Beks, isnt he a cutie pie!" No sooner had I said that, the squirrel began to pee and just managed to miss me!! Urgh...thats where being a nature lover gets you....!

Decided to leave the next morning, woke up at the crack of dawn....only to wait a couple of hours for the bus to arrive. Once on, there were only two free seats, right in the back corner. The seats had absolutely no legroom, (usually this isnt a problem for me) but I actually had to wake the guy up, in order to un-recline his seat, so that I could just get into my seat...set the tone for the rest of the bumpy journey back....

All those thinking of coming to Colombia....you can give San Agustin a miss!

posted by Priya @ 7:26 AM