Made it to San Agustin!
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 05:12PM
Kaleidoscope of Color

The all night bus turned out to be over 10 hours but wasn't too bad. Actually, it was quite comfortable had it not been for the woman who only bought one ticket for herself & her little girl who wasn't that little. When we all were trying to sleep I kept waking up to occassional jabs from feet, elbows, arms, etc.

Found a rustic hostel (if you could call it that) but it has a great view and the owners are really nice.

They keep insisting that it's safe as long as I don't go near the guerilla areas, but at the same time warn me of thieves who blow some smoke from a devil flower which knocks you out while they rob you. That's considered "safe"?! I can't remember the name of the smoke but it's close to "burramancha".

The guy is telling me that many foreigners come here and go loco snorting up cocaine. Not looking for that myself but he says it's about $5 a gram here. That sounds pretty cheap, but I wouldn't know. I'm also smelling a lot of marijuana in the air as its smoked here more than cigarettes.

There's a huge pre-colombian archeological site near here that I'm told is of the Andaquies people some 3500 before Christ. There's a lot to see so I may take a jeep with some others to cover more ground tomorrow.

It seems I can find ayahuasca here too but I don't want to obsess on it since I already did it twice in Peru & it wasn't that pleasant. May play it by ear & wait to see what Popayan feels like because I don't want to get into such a vulnerable condition in an area where cocaine use is way too prevalent. I like to consider myself adventurous while attempting to not be estupido. ;)


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