Gate of the Sun

Within Southeast Colombia's Orinoco River basin, a series of massive rocky sandstone mesas, called tepuis, rise up from the dense humid jungle. Since ancient times the cliffs of these mountains were important cultural sites. They served as shelters, navigational way points, communal gathering sites, and as giant canvases for their rock art, to communicate their mythologies, histories and exploits. One such stretch of these tepuis, La Serranía de La Lindosa, contains some of most extensive and...

Within Colombia's mountainous southwest, high in the Alto Magdalena river basin, are the ancient remains of a network of tribal chiefdoms. Many of the locals in this area still get around on horseback, which is also a great way to travel between the archeological sites. This is a steep, mountainous landscape, of dense jungle checkered with coffee and banana plantations. Through the last century much of the forest has been cleared to make way for this farmland, and in the process dozens of ear...

Although largely unknown to most travelers, one of the most influential ancient cultures of South America is that of Chavín. It served as an important pilgrimage site from roughly 1200-500 B.C.E. As it rose in prominence, artwork bearing its religious symbols began appearing throughout the central Andes and down to the Peruvian coast. This expansion points towards a widespread transformation of the Andean belief system within the archeological timeline, in what's been dubbed the Early Horizon.