The Way to The Tombs, orThe Beauty and The Terror, orThe Time and Place for Justin Bieber

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

No Feeling is Final, Rainier Rilke
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"San Agustin is like Disneyland," Carlos told me, "there are way too many people. If you are interested in archeological sites, go to Tierradentro. There are ancient tombs there. You'll feel like the first person that has seen them. You'll feel like Indiana Jones."

Sitting over breakfast in Cali I reviewed my maps and GPS device - All pointed to a direct route over the Andes into the village of San Andres, located just beneath the mountainous ruins. I asked the hostel owner: "My maps say I can get to San Andres in half-a-day on Ruta 37, does that seem right?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Mas o menos. We don't really use road names here though, so I'm not sure about the road." I eagerly prepared the bike, packed my belongings and left town.
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Ruta 37 ascends from the western farmlands from Cornito up and over Andes, past Nevado del Huila, and down into the village of San Andres. Twisting up into the foothills and through villages, the bamboo forests eventually give way to sparse pasturelands - their perfectly mowed rises specked with cattle and wax palms. The condition of the road gradually deteriorated with the altitude: beginning with an interstate-like superslab and transitioning to asphalt. Potholes then become more and more frequent, eventually the pavement turns to hardpack gravel.

By the time the road reaches 8,000 feet the way is quite challenging. Navigating the steep, deeply rutted roads, covered with football-size rocks, requires a rider to slow to nearly a walking pace. So jarring was the ride that the footpeg bolts rattled out of the frame and fell out entirely, dropping my foot to the road with a start.

Without guardrails, the incredible exposure of the road brought about the strange-though-familiar combination of the jaw-dropping wonderment and incredible sobriety that the route demanded. At about 10,000 feet I entered the clouds and lost almost all visibility. My altimeter read 13,000 feet when I eventually emerged at the pass.

The Andean highlands are a bizarre landscape. The alpine meadows are littered with paramo plants - their thick, bare stocks crowned with tidy spherical ferns. At about 4 feet tall, they bear resemblance to a Dr. Seuss colony. Thousands of them stood scattered, stoically observing my passing. Beneath the meadows clouds drifted through the valleys and the mountain range stretched to every horizon. "Jeez," I thought, "I hope I don’t get a flat up here." It had been over an hour since I had seen another soul.

For an instant the clouds high above the road separated, revealing the unmistakable sheen of glacial ice. "Oh my God," I whispered into the helmet. Nevado del Huila stood before me 17,000 feet tall, robed and shining in the clouds.
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Eventually I descended from my Dr. Suess wonderland and passed a home with a small family, who gave a quizzical look as I passed. Regardless of their unsettling glance, I was eased by their presence. The road had been eerie and I was anxious to return to civilization. Stopping quickly, I look at the maps and found that my destination should only be about 30 minutes out.

Moments later I come over a small rise, slam on the brakes, and skid to a stop. A bog lies in front of me, taking up the full width of the road for a hundred feet. The water is opaque, suggesting that the bottom is muddy. It looks to be a couple feet deep in the center. "I DO NOT want to get stuck in the mud out here," I said to myself as I hopped off the bike. A small foot trail skirted the bog on the downhill side. I followed it, hopeful to find a way around. Beachball sized boulders with mud and undergrowth between: easy enough to hop across, not so much with a 450 pound bike with a hundred pounds of gear. Without too much fussing I got to the other side of the bog and look down the road.

Past the bog the road was entirely impassable. It had been years, if not decades, since this road has been serviced. Fallen trees lay across the road as far as I could see and thick brush congests the space between the barricading trees, wiping away any hope to descend the mountain by this road. It was 4pm, I had about 2 hours of light left to find a route off the mountain.
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"The way is shut!" I shout through my helmet, pointing down the road. The family nods in agreement.

Is there another way?

No, there isn't. Who do you work for?

Huh? I don't work. I'm a traveler.

Dios Mio. Who are you traveling with?

No one, I'm by myself.

Dios Mio. The road is very, very dangerous. Do you have permission?

Huh? Permission? No, I don't have permission.

Dios Mio. Dios Mio. You must go back.

Where could I get permission? I didn't see any office or toll booth.

Dios Mio. Wait here, I will see if I can get you permission.

Leaving her daughter, son, and husband, the woman ran up the hill clutching her cell phone. She stood up there for 10 minutes with her hand on her forehead, talking and pacing. Taking a deep breath, I mustered the courage to ask the man:

Is the way dangerous because the road is difficult... or because there are dangerous people?

There are guerillas.

Oddly, my first reaction is not to panic. Instead, I reach into my tank bag, grabbed a package of coconut cookies, hand them out to the kids, and voraciously devour the remainder. The woman eventually returned with a clipboard and began scribbling something down. She handed me a piece of scrap paper (apparently the permission required to pass) and told me to go back the way I came.

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Needless to say, anxious and fevered thoughts filled my mind in a hurry. The Paramo plants no longer looked benign on the return trip. All the sudden I recalled a story a local mountain guide told me: during revolts locals would chop the ferns off the trunk and put them on their heads, disguising them from intruders.

Within a few minutes back up the pass I realized I needed to calm down: my hands were gripping the handlebars so hard they were beginning to cramp and my jaw was aching from its clenching. “This,” I thought, “would be a great time to listen to that new Justin Bieber album.”

And thus went my return trip through Nevado del Huila pass, standing on the pegs and bobbing my head to Where Are You Now.*
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Arriving back in Cornito at dusk, a group of soldiers stared as I rolled through a roadside military checkpoint. One soldier gave a thumbs up.

Southbound on the Panamerican highway to Popayan in the dark, the anxiety from the mountain pass gave way to a new one. I am driving through Colombia after dark and I don't know where I'm going to sleep. Thankfully, I recalled a recommendation for a camping site that a few Danish guys gave me. I found the GPS coordinates on my phone, entered them into the Garmin, and hoped for the best.

Two hours later I came to a locked gate in the dark. No one in sight, I looked around and found a makeshift door bell hanging from the chainlink fence. After pressing it a couple times a light flicked on in the distance. A man carrying a lamp approached the gate.

You're getting in late.

Yeah, sorry.

Let me show you to a good site.

OK.
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The morning light revealed the incredible place I’d stumbled upon. The campsite sat upon a hilltop garden with rolling farmlands extending in every direction.

Somehow the previous day’s adventures had served only to galvanize the desire to find the ruins. After a quick breakfast and ice-cold shower, I packed my things and headed down Ruta 26, the guerilla-less route to San Andres.

Arriving into town a few hours later covered with dust and sweat, I found an old man sitting on his porch, looking off into the mountains.

I need a place to camp, do you have one?

Yes, $1.50 and you can use our showers.

Perfecto.
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I met an interesting, thoughtful Belgian man, Mohamed, at the only restaurant in town**. I told him of what I’d heard of the Aguacate ruins located on the ridgeline above the city that were still in process of being excavated - many of which had yet to be touched - and my hope to climb up the mountain in the morning to take a look. I said I’d love some company, he said he’d come along.
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The trail winds from the valley floor up 1,500 feet through coffee farms and pastures, with little guidance but for a sign every 30 minutes or so.

Dug into the mountain ridges, 162 tombs (hypogeas) are scattered over 4 square kilometers of the Andean valley. Appearing like massive snake holes, the entrance of the tombs are poked into the hilltops every 20 paces. While some had been restored with concrete platforms, lights, and rooftops, many lay totally untouched, still covered with a thousand years of moss and grass.

Descending the shallow, steep steps and ducking through the entrance, the burial chambers open up, oval shaped with ornate paintings of salamanders and suns cover the walls, images of men in headdresses are carved into the columns.

For a Unesco world heritage site, very little is known about the civilization that created the tombs. They have dated the newest tomb at 900 AD and the oldest at 800 BC. The archaeologists’ investigation has shown no evidence of violence, in fact they were thought to be pacifists led by priests.

This world can be a big, strange place.
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* Puttering back up the mountain I recall several warning signs I could have more thoughtfully considered:

1. The GPS map was inordinately inaccurate, indicating straight roads where there were switchbacks and constantly laying the road 100 yards away from its actual location.

2. Someone working on the road near the end of the pastures shouted something as I passed, which may have been a warning intended for me.

3. There was a barbed wire fence across the road that someone had taken down and pulled out of the way.

Mom, Pop - I promise to take all available precautions to avoid unnecessary risks on the trip.

** Mohamed was an endlessly interesting guy: an avid traveler and energy economist, we had a ton to talk about. We eventually discovered we were both fans of Tim Urban’s Wait But Why blog, which fueled another 2 hours of conversations about Elon Musk, interplanetary colonization, and the Fermi Paradox. Hopefully he and I will cross paths again down south.