Colombia's untapped wonder: The Mavecure Mountains

Sunset casts a warm glow over Colombia's remote Mavecure Mountains, where three towering rock formations rise above the Amazon jungle. John Otis/NPR hide caption toggle caption John Otis/NPR MAVECURE, Colombia – It's barely sunup in the Amazon rainforest but the sound of howler monkeys, parrots and frogs serve as nature's alarm clock. Along with a couple of friends from the U.S., I'm in eastern Colombia, a stone's throw from Venezuela. All around the landscape is green and pancake-flat to the horizon. Or so it seems. For as we start hiking, we spot three massive rock formations dramatically jutting up some 2,000 feet from the jungle floor. These are the Cerros de Mavecure , or the Mavecure mountains. They consist of three massive buttes of sandstone, shale and quartz that are barren and rounded at the top. They remind me of Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, but there's nothing sweet about the name. "Mavecure" refers to the poison-dart blowguns used by the Indigenous groups here for hunting. Our guide, Ignacio Rodriguez, says the site is sacred for the area's Puinave and Curipaco Indians who often climb these ridges to leave offerings to the spirits. As she takes in the view, Marcela Sánchez, an industrial engineer from the Colombian city of Cali, says: "It's divine." Getting to the top of the smallest of the three peaks in the 90-degree heat takes a couple of hours and buckets of sweat. …