Short Trips san agustin and tierradentro tour

Fly to Pitalito, a small town only 45 minutes away by car from San Agustin. As there is only one flight per day and the departure time varies depending on the day of the week, we have kept this day free.

Upon arrival in Pitalito, your tour guide will be waiting for you at the airport to transfer you to the hotel in San Agustin.

Note: As the flights are not included, you can book the flight to Pitalito directly with the local airline Satena. If you need any assistance or wish to include the flight, please contact us.

Overnight: San Agustin
Meal Plan: -

We will spend the morning at the main Archaeological park site. The park is an open-air exhibition of about 16 reconstructed funerary mound and hundreds of megalithic sculptures. We can also see related archaeological materials at the site´s museum.

The sculptures and monuments in the park have been traced back to the mythology of pre-Hispanic people that inhabited the area hundreds of years ago, and who were forced out of the area and into the Amazon and Orinoco regions of Colombia around 1400. The group practically disappeared at this time. The dates of the statues are uncertain, but they are believed to have been carved between 5–400 AD.

At the park, we will visit various sites including: Bosque de las Estatuas (The statues forest), the Mesita A, Mesita B, Mesita C, Alto de Lavapatas and Fuente de Lavapatas, a complex maze of pools and water channels hewn from bedrock carved with figures of animals and humans. It was used for religious ceremonies and bathing. 

After visiting the park, we will have time for lunch before going to El Tablon and La Chaquira. At El Tablon we will see other anthropomorphic statues. Then, we will hike to La Chaquira one of the most impressive sites, with deities carved into the sheer rock above the beautiful Río Magdalena gorge. 

Overnight: San Agustin
Meal Plan: Breakfast

The Magdalena river is the most important river of Colombia and the fifth-largest river basin in South America. It stretches from the Central and Easter Andes in the south of the country to the Caribbean Sea in the north. It runs up for nearly 949 miles (1,528 kilometres) and is home to many diverse ecosystems including forest, mountains, valleys and wetlands. As the source of the Magdalena River is not far from San Agustin, today, we will be able to visit the Magdalena Strait, where the river squeezes through a narrow canyon just under 3m (9.84 ft) in width. 

This region of Colombia, besides being famous for its archaeological sites, is also quite important for its high-quality coffee. Therefore, after visiting the Magdalena Strait, we will go to a coffee farm to learn everything about harvesting and making coffee, from planting coffee beans to picking and roasting. We will learn to select and pick only the ripe coffee cherries, taste them, and evaluate their quality, just like a coffee expert. 

Overnight: San Agustin
Meal Plan: Breakfast

Early in the morning, we will start a journey of approximately 4.5 hours towards the municipality of Inzá, where the archaeological park of Tierradentro is located. This spectacular archaeological park holds the largest concentration of pre-Columbian monumental shaft tombs with side chambers—known as hypogea—carved in the volcanic tuff below hilltops and mountain ridges. 

In the afternoon, we will visit the most interesting tombs in the Alto de Segovia. Some Tierradentro tombs are around 12 meters wide and buried up to 7 meters deep. They were carved directly into volcanic rock. Sadly, many tombs have deteriorated over time due to grave robbers looting in the past, but some still have visible red and black design motifs inside, which are thought to reproduce the internal decoration of houses from that time. They reveal the social complexity and cultural wealth of a pre-Hispanic society in the northern Andes. Sadly, the pre-Hispanic society that built these wonders has disappeared, but these tombs leave an important trace of their everyday life.

The park's main entrance is surrounded by the small Indigenous resguardo of San Andrés de Pisimbalá, where you will spend the night. This resguardo has only one main street, a small church, and a few houses. 

Overnight: Tierradentro
Meal Plan: Breakfast

After breakfast, we will start our journey towards the Tatacoa Desert, the second largest arid zone in Colombia after the Guajira Peninsula. The total journey from Tierradentro is approximately 4.5 hours. We will stop on the way to admire the landscape and drink something.

Tatacoa Desert is located in Villavieja, a small town 45 minutes away from Neiva, the capital of the department of Huila. During our visit, we will see the stunning landscapes of the red desert (Cusco sector) and the surreal, moon-like terrain of the grey desert (Los Hoyos sector). 

The landscape of the red desert is adorned by amazing labyrinths carved by water and erosion. The rock's red colour also indicates its richness in iron. In this area, you can also visit the Three of Wishes (El árbol de los deseos). Local belief says that the person who finds a heart-shaped folded leaf and unfolds it without damaging it will be allowed to ask for a wish. 

When visiting the grey desert with its ashy-coloured stones interrupted by some green specks of vegetation, you will feel as if you were on the moon. In this sector, you will visit the Valley of Ghosts, the name given to the area where the stones have a strange similarity to supernatural entities rising from the soil.

At the end of the tour, we will take you to Neiva's airport.

Note: As the flights are not included, please book a late afternoon or evening flight from Neiva. If you require any assistance, please contact us.

Overnight: -
Meal Plan: Breakfast