STONE BOTHERING

Hidden in the mountains of northern Colombia is an ancient stone city that remained unknown to the outside world until the late twentieth century. It is commonly called the Lost City, but its original name is Teyuna. That name matters, because it tells us that the place was never truly lost. It was remembered by the people who belong to the mountains. Teyuna sits deep in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain range unlike any other in the Americas. It rises abruptly from the Caribbean coast to snow covered peaks in a very short distance. The ecological and cultural isolation of this range allowed a unique civilization to develop here, one that built complex stone cities long before European contact and long before many better known sites elsewhere on the continent. Teyuna is not monumental in the way imperial capitals are. There are no towering walls or grand temples. What makes it extraordinary is how quietly intentional it is. The stones follow the land. The terraces respond to...

Colombia is often imagined as a land of emerald jungles, Spanish colonial cities, coffee fields, and snow-capped peaks. Yet hidden in the rolling green valleys of the Boyacá region lies a place that few travelers visit, though it is one of the most fascinating archaeological sites in all of South America. This place is El Infiernito, a pre-Columbian megalithic complex that continues to puzzle archaeologists, mystics, and indigenous elders alike. El Infiernito, which translates to "Little Hell," is far more than an arrangement of standing stones. It is a place of ancient ceremony, a calendar written in stone, a map of the cosmos, and perhaps even a key to understanding a hidden layer of Andean spirituality. To stand among its pillars is to step into a dialogue between earth and sky, life and death, myth and history. El Infiernito is located near Villa de Leyva, one of Colombia’s most beautiful colonial towns, about 110 miles (177 kilometers) north of Bogotá. The site rests in ...