San Agustín is famous for its pre-Columbian archaeological sites. The San Agustín Archaeological Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a main draw to the area. There are also some impressive waterfalls nearby, including the tallest uninterrupted waterfall (400m) in Colombia—Salto de Bordones.
Unfortunately for independent travelers, most of the interesting sites are beyond walking distance, so you need to figure out transportation, which includes walking, horses, buses, and jeep tours.
Salto de Mortiño
The classic itinerary
Many travelers follow some version of this itinerary and hit the highlights:
Day 1: Visit the San Agustín Archaeological Park and possibly explore San Agustín.
Day 2: The standard jeep tour (offered everywhere for 30,000 COP/person). The tour typically includes: 1) Salto de Mortiño, 2) Alto de las Piedras, 3) Salto de Bordones 4) Archaeological Park Alto Idols, 5) Obando Archaeological Park, and 6) Estrecho del Magdalena.
This is a good itinerary. If you enjoy tours, this is a great itinerary.
The second look-out bridge over Salto de Mortiño
The independent traveler’s itinerary
No great adventure ever started with a group tour. I have been on some nice tours, but if I can help it, I prefer doing everything on my schedule (and my wife Sarah’s).
Day 1: Visit the San Agustín Archaeological Park and possibly explore San Agustín. The San Agustín Archaeological Park is only 3km west of San Agustín. You can walk or catch a bus for 1000 COP. The walk to the park is uphill on the way there, so the bus is a good option on the way there. There is a cute little stand selling homemade yogurt (2000 COP, called Yaneth’s yogurt) that is well worth stopping for. Visiting the park takes 3-4 hours, including a small museum near the entrance, a few archaeological sites, and a nice viewpoint/site at the end. Final entry to the viewpoint is at 4pm. We ascended at 3:59pm and nobody hurried us out.
A canopy protects carvings at the Fuente de Lavapatas in San Agustín Archaeological Park.
Day 2: Follow the standard jeep tour but rent a scooter and do it yourself! Caveat: Scooter rental appears almost nonexistent in Colombia. If anyone knows why, please tell me. The roads around San Agustín are mostly paved and traffic is low. The jeep tour route includes some gravel road, but is not particularly daunting if you drive carefully. The tricky part is finding a scooter.
Riding a scooter is so much better than being stuck in a vehicle.
How to rent a scooter
We asked the owners of our guesthouse—Cabañas El Trebol—if we could rent a scooter from them and they said yes. We paid 50,000 COP for five hours, which was about double what we wanted to pay and for a shorter time than we wanted. They also offered to rent us a scooter for 100,000 (COP) for the full day. However, our Spanish is mediocre, and the only option is meeting someone and asking them. Perhaps you can negotiate something better by being luckier, smarter, and/or have better Spanish skills than us. Scooters are the main transportation for locals. Someone is bound to be willing to rent one out. Use Day 1 of your itinerary to ask around or send a message to your guesthouse before you arrive.
We found Cabañas El Trebol on booking.com with a 9.7 rating. Their business card is here if you want to contact them directly and avoid the 10 percent tourist tax:
Why a scooter is better than a tour
Sarah and I visited Salto de Mortiño, Alto de las Piedras, and Salto de Bordones and had each place to ourselves. The scary look-out bridges at the Salto de Mortiño? We were the only ones on them. Alto de las Piedras? Just us and the security guard. We visited the tallest free-falling waterfall in Colombia by ourselves too. Plus, there is a cool trail below the parking lot to get a better view of the falls. If you don’t have to follow a tour schedule, you can walk as far down it as you like. We departed San Agustín at 7:30am, which helped us beat the crowds. Early morning is also better for wildlife. We saw parakeets nesting on the cliffs of Salto de Mortiño, as well hummingbirds and vultures.
Salto de Bordones trailhead next to the parking lot
Unfortunately, we ran out of time, so had to skip the Obando Archaeological Park and the Estrecho del Magdalena. Hopefully this article will help you be better prepared than us (or convince you to take the jeep tour).
Admission Prices
San Agustín Archaeological Park admissions costs 50,000 COP (20,000 for a student) and includes admission to Alto de las Piedras and Archaeological Park Los Idols. I suspect prices changed at the beginning of 2019, because everything written previously shows lower prices (there is no official website). The ticket looks like a passport and is valid for two days.
The passport provides admission to the three sites and includes a checklist with background information on the local archaeological sites (in Spanish).
Salto de Mortiño costs 3000 COP and the Obando Archaeological Park costs 3000 COP. The Salto de Mortiño admission is worth it just for scary look-out. Reading online suggests Obando could be skipped.
Birds and butterflies are prevalent in the park. We almost stepped on this Andean milk snake (not poisonous, but we didn’t know that at the time).
Alternatives
Some of the sites can be accessed by bus. Wikivoyage provides the best information we found online. Jeep tours and horse riding are easy to find. Our guesthouse quoted the same rate for a jeep tour (30,000 COP) as we read online and what we were quoted on the street.
Final shout-out
Assuming you’re staying in San Agustín, the walk to La Chaquira is excellent. The view over the valley is fantastic but takes about an hour to get there—longer than Google Maps predicts due to elevation and an additional 10 minutes of walking after the road ends. There are two waterfalls and an impressive carving overlooking the viewpoint. The path is rocky and a bit steep, so give yourself time to get there and back before dark (unlike us).
La Chaquira
El Tablón, another site along the way to La Chaquira
If you have questions, know why scooter rentals don’t seem to exist in Colombia, or manage to rent a scooter and pull this off better than I did, please let me know in the comments!
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I am Sterling, one of the Two Fish Traveling. I love to travel and live in Polson, Montana with my wife Sarah.
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