From San Augustin I drove deeper into the Cauca Valley. My 2007 Footprint guidebook has the following warning:”Warning Valle del Cauca and Cauca regions have had guerrilla problems recently. There have been violent clashes between indigenous groups and the police (late 2005). Enquire locally before traveling on minor roads.”

I was a little concerned because there aren’t many towns out here. But my understanding is that the disputes in this area are more about local control. So, I didn’t really feel threaten.

However, I was beginning to feel like these guys would never let me leave.

I was told that the roads were good but I had to be careful because there were a lot of curves. Got that right!





Not surprised that this is one of the most accident prone roads in Colombia.







I’m probably the first foreign motorcycle to travel on this new pavement.

Not that there was much pavement yet.


I stopped in the town of La Plata for lunch. It was a very pleasant town; another place I would have stayed the night given more time.

This guy was so impressed that I came to visit that he wanted to give me his hat as a gift. I couldn’t take his hat but asked for a photo instead. He seemed sincerely touched that I was there. The guy with the penguin on the other had just seemed to follow me around.

This huge Ceiba tree was planted in 1901 according to my Footprint guidebook.



Back on the road and around we go.

The unpaved road wasn’t too bad but it was worse than I expected. Then I saw all this road construction and



The road along the river was in bad shape. I thought they were preparing the road to be paved. However, I later found out that an earthquake completely destroyed the road.







I arrived at Tierradentro without incident and the next morning I explored some of the sites. They had a really nice little museum. Unfortunately, my pictures in the museum didn’t come out well.



Only some of the tombs have been escavated because they do not have the funds to ully develop the site.

The tombs are not reconstructed like a lot of other places, San Augustin, for example. You climb down into the tombs just the way they were discovered. There is just certain fortifications to protect the site.