Tales from an intrepid viajero in Latin America Despite promising myself that I´d never be so self-indulgent as to write a blog that´s exactly what I´m going to do. Welcome to the blog that I´m writing while studying Spanish and travelling in Latin America over the next 8 months

San Agustin

San Agustin is a place of lush green landscapes, river valleys and random pre-Colombian statues. It has to be one of the most pleasent and laid back places in all of Colombia. I passed a few days there hiking around the countryside and stumbling across random statues dating back to hundreds of years before Christ. When a couple of us hired a guide to explain to us some of the history behind San Agustin it became apparent to me that archaeologists use the technique of MSU (Make Sh1t Up) to come up with their theories. They have about as much idea as you or I as to the meaning of some of the statues around there - we were told that the person holding a baby in the one of the statues could be either trying to protect it from death or trying to strangle it. Now, they seem like two fairly divergent explanations to me. However, saying all of this, I found the tour and information that guide gave us quite interesting.

Another day was spent horseriding to various archaeological sites around San Agustin. It was the first time that I`ve been horseriding and a couple of my friends persuaded me to go. It took me a while to get into it but once I learnt how to get the horse to cut other people up and run them off the road it was quite good fun. My horse was slightly lacking in assertiveness skills but after a few hours of training, Lucy, soon learnt not to let the other horses run roughshod over her...

The Tatacoan Desert

It was slightly surreal to find a desert all of 5 hrs from the lush green landscapes of San Agustin but this is Colombia and one constant is the country`s capacity to surprise. The Tatacoan desert is not formed of sand dunes but looks like a mini Monument Valley with its red clay looking formations and landscapes. It is a bit out of the way to get to and barely any "gringos" make it there which means you are a minor celebrity if you do. Unsurprisngly, the conditions are slightly inhospitable out in the desert but you can have a good wander around the wierd rock formations late in the afternoon or early in the morning. There`s even an observatory for star gazing. While wandering around it did occur to me that the desert would be the perfect place to open up a hostel as it is one of the few places in Colombia left with no hostel...