Funny statues and other stuff

Sorry for the delay in posts, I´ve been having fun. San Agustin is a nice place. It is a nice little mountain town in the middle of Colombia. But it ain´t near anything. The climate is more agreeable than Bogota it rains less and is somewhat warmer. The people are very friendly the women are cute and petite, and friendly. As I said in my previous post the main attraction of San Agustin are the statues, and there are lots of them. They are all located outside of town in the Archeological Park and various sites. The first day here I went on a 4 wheel drive tour of various sites and locations. It was fun, it was an all day affair and it´s only about $15.00 what a deal. The second day I did a tour of other sites on horseback. That was even better. We went places i would not have walked to or been able to take my bike on because of muddy conditions or whatever. It has been years since I rode a horse and I loved it. My guide was the delightful Ana. Remember what I said about cute, petite and friendly that´s Ana. One of the places we visited was called the Chaquira, no not that one her name is spelled Shakira, as opposed to being a statue this is acarving in a rock or carvings I should say. On one side is a carving is a carving of a male figure, facing the sunrise, on the opposite side is a feminine figure facing the sunset. Apparently the site was used for ritual sacrifice or something. But it was pretty cool, the scenery in the area is fabulous. I have close to 200 photos of the statues and of the local area--but mostly statues. I had heard that the statues were like those of Easter Island. I have not yet been to Easter Island but from the photos I´ve seen there is not much similarity. The tallest statue I saw was perhaps 10 feet high (3 meters). All the rest were perhaps 1-2 meters high. Many of the statues were tomb guardians for high ranking people. Variously featured were shamans, farmers, warriors, eagles and women of various social stature. Almost all are carved on a thick flat surface. The skill that went in to carving these statues using stone tools is absolutely incredible.
San Agustin is a nice place but after eating and drinking and possibly smoking weed there isn´t much to do here. The nearest movie theater is a 45 minute drive. Mall surely you jest. While in town I stayed at the Hostal Itaca. The owner is a nice friendly sort. Some of the locals told me to be wary of the guy, and I took their advice, but I couldn´t really see what the problem is. He´ll bend over backwards to make your stay pleasant. He makes an excellent breakfast for $2.00 and is all in all a very pleasant guy. At one time I was in a hammock reading and he comes in with a bud in his hand and says "Do you like this?" Of course I enthusiastically said SI. He said "this is for you if you want more no problem." So I smoked that and asked if he could get me $5000 pesos worth and he said no problem. (5000 pesos=2.50) I wasn´t expecting very much but he comes back 5 minutes later with a 4 finger bag. I was impressed.
Cute women and dope dealing hostel owners are all well and good but it was time to move on from San Agustin. The place sort of grows on you. Land is incredibly cheap. I checked out a couple of farms. I could have bought a small coffee farm (real small maybe half acre) for about $7000.00 I was tempted but then I looked at my stocks and said no. My plan for when I left San Agustin was to go to Popayan Colombia, spend a couple of days there and go to Quito Ecuador. As often happens plans changed. The owner of the hostel talked me out of going to Popayan because it went right through the area where FARC is the strongest. Several other people concurred with him. So instead I went to Mocoa and from there to Pasto. The trip to Mocoa was nice and pleasant but from there to Pasto things got really interesting. When going to Mocoa we were following a valley and everything was fine. To go to Pasto we had to go over the mountains. Soon after we left Mocoa in a full size bus the road turned to dirt and we started going up. This is when it started getting interesting. Imagine a city bus going over the mountains on a 4 wheel drive jeep trail. Yup that was the experience. We were actually above the clouds for a while. Quite a few times when we encountered another vehicle on the road one or the other of us would have to back up and let the other one by. The distance was a little over 100 kilometers yet it took us about 8 hours of driving time to do it. The busses in Colombia have a digital speedometer in the passenger compartment so you can see how slow you are going. We spent an awful lot of time doing about 12-14 kilometers per hour. Even on rare occasions when we got onto pavement we rarely got above 40 kmh. We were stopped twice by the military and made to exit the bus and be frisked. But only the men. I wonder how long it will take the FARC to figure they can have women armed to the teeth and they won´t get frisked. I finally got to Pasto and get a room across from the bus station and go out to have a few beers. There is a disco right across the street.So I go. I´m sitting there and the police come in and tell all the men to get in line to get frisked. It is only on this part of Colombia that I have experienced this. They must be really worried about terrorists down here. I had heard that the gov´t really hadn´t goten control of that part of the country yet. I guess they are right. I am now in Quito Ecuador, I got in at about 9 last night. I will report more soon.
hasta la vista baby.
Charlie