The River Of Tombs

Nestled in the Colombian massif in Huila province, the Magdalena River is home to Latin America’s largest necropolis and a lost civilisation shrouded in mystery

- SIMON BROUGHTON

We tethered the horses at a fence, walked along a switchback track and then headed down a metal staircase over the rocks to a small plateau called La Chaquira. The voice of a woman singing hovered like birds on thermals. I looked at the ground falling precipitously to the river surging through a winding gorge hundreds of metres below. There were coffee plantations on many of the slopes, but how people managed to harvest them without slipping down into the river I couldn’t imagine.

Examining the view, it felt instinctively like a holy place. Jorge E Peña, my guide, pointed at a rock overlooking the gorge. There was a larger than life-sized figure carved in relief with staring eyes and arms raised. I felt a bit like that myself, gazing at this landscape with its distant waterfalls and rushing river. This was the largest of the incised figures and, with help, I started to make out other images dotted around – of humans and animals. This was a ceremonial site of the people who had lived here well over 1,000 years ago.

Carved in stone