The site, Colombia’s answer to Egypt’s Luxor or China’s Tang tombs, is almost criminally undervisited - we had it almost to ourselves.
That said, the road conditions offer a good explanation - our journey back taking almost ten hours as we were trapped by successive landslides 5/5
Radiocarbon dating suggests the tombs could be up to 1500 years old, but even this is controversial due to later contamination and potential reuse of the tombs.
Their black and white decoration combines both abstract patterns and images of people - deities? ancestors? - across the pillars /4
There are virtually no records of the people who built the tombs, with theories suggesting they moved away, were wiped out by disease, or buried under volcanic eruptions before the Spanish arrived.
The only clues we have are their silent ceremonial statues sprinkled around the hills /3
The hypogea are burial chambers (or, technical, reinhumation chambers - used for reburying remains), up to 7m deep and richly decorated. Their structure seems to mimic buildings - presumably the communal houses of the people who built them - but that’s about all we know /2
Deep within the Andes, a rough drive from Popayán, lies one of the pre-Colombian Americas’ most fascinating and least known sites - the hypogea of Tierradentro.
Here mysterious chambers are scattered through a remote valley, plundered by grave robbers but only properly excavated in the 1930s… /1
Finishing off rather more prosaically, Popayán’s most recognisable landmark is the clock tower on its central square, a 17th century Jesuit construction.
A little plaque marks an excellent piece of trivia - the clock itself was made in Croydon, England, and shipped over in 1737 6/6
The Morro del Tulcán is an ancient earthen pyramid - likely a ceremonial mound of the Pubenza culture, earth-worked atop a natural hill to perhaps carry out astronomical observations.
Excavations have shown at least the top 30% is artificial - a massive monument looming over the Spanish city /5
Before the Spanish, Popayán was home to its namesake Pubenza people - whose traces are lost under the colonial city.
That is except for one extraordinary site to its north east, recently reappraised after local indigenous campaigns to remove a monument to the conquistador Belalcázar… /4
Popayán’s mansions and churches weren’t built on modest means. Strategically placed on the Andean passes it became a centre for mining wealth, cattle ranching, and trade - gold, silver, and slaves - turning it into one of colonial Colombia’s elite power bases /3
The city was founded in 1537 by Sebastián de Belalcázar, making it one of Colombia’s oldest cities, managing trade between Quito to the south and Cartagena to the north - soon attracting Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits as it grew over coming centuries /2
Popayán, in Colombia’s Andean south west, might not be a UNESCO site (yet), but its series of whitewashed colonial mansions and ecclesiastical architecture is a delight after the heat of Cartagena - and with one very surprising monument tucked away on the outskirts… /1
I've just heard the terrible news that my friend - and friend of many here - Andrew West, @babelstone.co.uk, the incomparably brilliant Sinologist and Tangutologist passed away suddenly but peacefully on 10th July. 1/2
A dark side, the inquisition, was established as one of three tribunals in the Spanish Americas in Cartagena in 1610.
It targeted Protestants, crypto-Jews, foreigners, and African and indigenous paganism, using interrogation and torture in its holy mission /5
Perhaps most important is the 17th century Jesuit Convento de San Pedro Claver - named after the eponymous priest who, arriving in Cartagena in 1610, start a forty year career ministering to the colony’s slaves, eventually dying in the convent’s still preserved infirmary /4
The mid-16th century Iglesia de Santo Domingo is the city’s oldest, with a beautiful lofty interior and massive stone buttresses - as well as a wonky campanile, perhaps due do changes in construction or shifting soil in the early city /3
Begun in 1577, the Catedral de Santa Catalina de Alejandría managed to survive sacks of the city - including Francis Drake knocking in its roof and one of its half finished stone piers - before it was eventually finished almost 40 years later, its over-engineered robustness keeping it standing /2
Within its massive walls, Cartagena thrived as one of the main trade entrepôts of the Caribbean, supporting a network of merchants, trade houses, and fabulous ecclesiastical architecture /1
Today the fort is largely intact, including a vast warren of tunnels underneath the ramparts and through the hill they clad - contributing in no small part to Cartagena’s UNESCO World Heritage status 5/5
The second expansion was triggered by its greatest challenge, when in 1741 Britain sent an attack force of 27,000 men and 186 ships under Admiral Vernon. Cartagena’s defenders - under Blas de Lezo - held firm and turned the tide in one of the greatest sieges of the colonial era /4
The crown jewel, however, is the enormous Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas. Built on San Lázaro hill to defend Cartagena’s landward side, the small fort was greatly expanded in 1657 and 1762 to become an interlocking sequence of ramparts and artillery platforms /3
Growing rich through its trade in gold, silver, and enslaved Africans, Cartagena became a tasty target and was sacked by Francis Drake in 1586 - leading the Spanish to begin a decades long programme of building, resulting in two circuits of almost 11km of walls around the islands of the city /2
Up from Mompós to Cartagena, the great fortress of the Spanish Americas - reinforced with some of the most extensive defences in the world following British and French attacks to become an unassailable bastion of Spanish presence in the Caribbean /1
Mompós played an important role in Colombian independence: according to Simon Bolivia, ‘if Caracas gave me life, Mompos gave me glory’.
Its mansions housed a merchant class keen on liberation; and by the river a collection of warehouses were converted into an ad hoc fort during the struggles 5/5
The cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (mid-16th century) features a pretty coffered nave ceiling above a series of arcades; while the 17th century basilica and convent of San Agustín is filled with gold work beneath its rich wooden beams /4
Mompós is particularly well known for its collection of stylistically unique churches, dating to the 16th and 17th centuries and dotted along the main waterfront axis of the town.
We were struggling a bit with the stifling heat, and inside the closed air was even more oppressive… /3
While serving for hundreds of years as one of the principal riverine trade stop offs between the Caribbean and highlands around Bogotá, the invention of the steamship allowed a shortcut and relegated Mompós to be a quiet backwater - allowing it to resist later development /2
Founded in 1537, Santa Cruz de Mompós is a beautifully preserved Colombian colonial town by the banks of a lazy Rio Magdalena, and is listed as UNESCO World Heritage for its almost unparalleled preservation of pre-independence historic fabric /1
Amid the gold are some stone and wooden statues - representation pensive shamans, pronouncing cures or other mysterious knowledge of the beyond, as well as ancestors from the tomb sites of San Agustin and Tierradentro 5/5
The finest combine tremendous realism with sophisticated abstraction to serve religious conceits and representation, worked with technical precision and regularity which almost feels machine-made /4
Bogotá was originally Santafé until renamed by Simon Bolivar after its original indigenous Muisca, Bacatá.
Some of Colombia’s finest indigenous treasures are honoured in the Museo del Oro, a collection of indigenous gold working from across the country’s pre-Colombian peoples /3
