COCREATION

CONNECTION
CONSERVATION
An Illustrated Handbook
for Cultural Tourism Guides
in Colombia
Project Leaders
Gilberto Salcedo Ribero,
Vicepresident of Tourism,
ProColombia
María José Silva Arango,
Vacational Tourism
Manager, ProColombia

Editorial Committee
Ana María Fríes, General Manager,
Artesanías de Colombia
Felipe Buitrago Restrepo,
Ex Minister of Culture
Germán Rey, professor
and researcher in
communications and culture
Gilberto Salcedo Ribero,
Vicepresident of Tourism
ProColombia
Iván Benavides, musician,
composer, producer y Graphic Designers
cultural manager
Andrés Álvarez Franco
Julián Guerrero Orozco, Ex
Viceminister of Tourism Cristine Villamil Ramírez
María José Silva Arango, Jeisson Reyes Garavito
Vacational Tourism Sarah Peña Garzón
Manager, ProColombia Nicolás Carvajal Prada
Logistics Committee General Editor
Julia Correa Vásquez Fredy Ordóñez Arboleda
Paola Méndez Rodríguez
Copyeditors Ana María Fríes: “Handicrafts,
Editorial Production a handmade country”
Andrea Echeverri Gutiérrez
Puntoaparte SAS Juliana Duque Mahecha:
Ángela Alfonso Botero “Our cuisine”
www.puntoaparte.com.co Paloma Palau Valderrama
John Güecha Hernández Juan Fernando Velásquez Ospina:
Editorial Director Juan Micán González “Sounds, stories, and knowledge” Sebastián Wanumen Jiménez
Andrés Barragán Montaña Juan Carlos Rueda Azcuénaga Sergio Méndez Vizcaya: “Religion, Flor Méndez Linares
Nicolás Sepúlveda Perdomo the basis of our traditions”
Art Director Factsheet support
Pilar Pardo Herrero Tourism regions Andrés Montes Rojas
Mateo L. Zúñiga
The culture guide Javier Ortiz Cassiani: “The
Illustration Director Greater Colombian Caribbean” Head translator
Armando Díaz Londoño Tiziana Laudato
Guillermo Torres Carreño Ana María Arango Melo y
Cross-cultural narratives Juliana Rojas Lugo: “The
Illustrators Colombian Pacific” Translators
Germán Rey: “Territory and Alexander Klein Ochoa
Alejandra Castaño Hoyos culture: gestures of coexistence, Sandra Mendoza Lafaurie:
Andrea Santana Quiñones networks of meaning” “Western Colombian Andes” Camilo Roldán Millard
Andrés Rodríguez Ramírez Carl Langebaek Rueda: Olga Acosta Ossa, Ángela Sosa
Cataño y Lina Martínez Mejía: Sound Engineers
Arturo Gutiérrez González “Fifteen thousand years
of indigenous history” “Eastern Colombian Andes” Iohan Estévez Martínez
Cristhian Contreras Ramos Germán Ferro Medina y David Chebair Jaramillo
Javier Ortiz Cassiani: “No
Diana Londoño Aguilera blacks, no nation” María Fernanda Franco Ortiz: José Restrepo Viana
Felipe Flórez Murillo “The Colombian Massif”
Felipe Buitrago Restrepo:
Iván Cortés Baquero “Institutions, a reflection of our Nelson Ortiz Amézquita, Podcast Voice-over artists
cultural and ethnic diversity” Alejandra Salazar Molano y Lidia Esther Borrero
Laura Hernández Botero Mateo Molano: “The Colombian
Michael Cárdenas Ramírez Brigitte Baptiste Ballera: Amazon and Orinoco” Kateryn Mendoza Sabogal
“Biodiversity, another way to
Sofía Londoño Martínez travel and meet through culture” Database
Podcast Researchers
Steven Pinzón Rodríguez Clara van der Hammen Malo María Fernanda Barragán Jaime
Amelia López López
and Elcy Corrales Roa: “Lakes,
Head Designer rivers and seas, a culture Juan Fernando Velásquez Ospina ISBN
Jerson Siabatto Moreno that flows with water” Liliana Guerra Ospina 978-628-7526-08-2

The material published here, and also published on the www.colombia.travel.co website, including but not limited to
illustrations, articles, photographs and the general information contained in this Illustrated Handbook for Culture Tourism
Guides in Colombia, is protected by the intellectual property laws of the Republic of Colombia. The declarations and/or
opinions expressed here and the additional materials included in this handbook are the author’s personal opinions and do
not reflect the views of the National Government, ProColombia or the other entities that participated in this project. None Creative Commons Attribution-
of these will assume liability for any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential, punitive, special, derived and/or other NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
types of damages that may result from the views expressed here. International Public License
COCREATION
CONNECTION
CONSERVATION
An Illustrated Handbook
for Cultural Tourism Guides
in Colombia
Prologue
P
roColombia has doubled its efforts to pro-
mote our country as a reliable, sustainable,
and high-quality destination for interna-
tional tourists.
Two of the most outstanding attributes that are
key to reactivating the industry and the economy
in general are Colombia’s biodiversity and its
magnificent cultural richness. Aware of these
advantages, and together with the Colombian Vice-
Ministry of Tourism, we launched: COntemplation,
COmprehension, COnservation. An Illustrated
Handbook for Nature Tourism Guides in Colombia.
The end product fills us with pride. It has been
well regarded by the most important players in the
industry and has become an essential reference for
nature lovers.
One of the legacies of this document is the con-
firmation that our country’s natural diversity frames
our vast Colombian cultural wealth.
The territory we inhabit and its biodiversity give
rise to many manifestations of Colombian culture
that are reflected in our rhythms, traditions, lan-
guages, handicrafts, culinary customs, and, not
least, in the work of Nobel Prize winner, Gabriel
García Márquez, according to UNESCO, one of the
most widely translated authors in history and the
creator of magical realism.
Those of us who have delved into Gabo’s fascinat-
ing trajectory have undoubtedly found the countless
references to our Colombian identity. His ingenious
and passionate narrative captures the customs and
traditions of an entire nation, which, in turn, is cap-
tivating in itself through its culture.
A similar manifestation of our cultural riches is
the Barranquilla Carnival, for which I had the honor
of being queen. The carnival is a centennial cel-
ebration that makes our country proud as it brings
together the city’s inhabitants around music, dance,
and amazing symbolism, and which was declared a
UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Colombia is home to hundreds of musical
rhythms, through which we have evolved our cul-
ture, transmitted our knowledge, and woven our
future in our handicrafts. All of these manifestations
have marked our history. So much so, that we are
the stars of Disney’s 60th animated film based on
our cultural diversity: Encanto.
These expressions are what paved the way to
writing COcreation, COnnection, COnservation. An
Illustrated Handbook for Cultural Tourism Guides in
Colombia, a sequel of sorts to the manual for nature
tourism guides.
We had good reasons to adopt these three concepts:
COcreation, because we strive to include all the
actors in the tourism chain to build and strengthen
ties, exchange knowledge, and jointly highlight our
cultural diversity through authentic, unique, and
enriching tourism experiences.
 COnnection, because it is in Cocreating joint
experiences that a close bond is formed between
the guide and the traveler, and between locals and
foreigners.
And COnservation, because having cocreated
and connected our culture, we decided that it was
time to admire it, embrace it, and protect it.
We advocate exchanges between human beings,
conferring meaning to the tourist experience and
converting the adventures offered by a destination
into a physical, inner, memorable, and transforma-
tional journey.
Ranking fifth in Latin America and the Caribbean
in terms of the number of UNESCO designations —
after Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Argentina—, we have
all we need to take advantage of our full potential
as a cultural tourism destination. Colombia has
nine tangible heritage of humanity sites and nine
intangible cultural heritage assets, three creative
cities of music, three creative cities of gastronomy.
We have two more cities —Ibagué and Pasto—
that recently joined the UNESCO Creative Cities
Network, and 19 designations of origin for our food
and handicraft products.
With such riches, we cannot but extol Colombia’s
cultural diversity, promote respect for culture and
the development of sustainable tourism around it,
and provide tools for tourism guides and new actors
in the value chain of this tourism segment.
As Colombians, we encourage others to experi-
ence what we are through of our cultural diversity,
but also because we are continually transforming
and evolving thanks to our resilience.
Of course, this new manual is part of a strategy
that supports cultural tourism, which includes a
new policy intended to establish guidelines and
adopt measures to make it sustainable, among
many other actions.
Convinced that this work will lead to greater com-
petitiveness for the sector, job creation, and foreign
exchange for the country’s regions, we are pleased
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
to release this new publication as the product of
rigorous research carried out by a multidisciplinary
team of the highest quality. It fills us with proud and
is a true treasure, a faithful reflection of the amazing
Colombian culture.
I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this manual.
Flavia Santoro Trujillo
4-5
President of ProColombia
COCREATION · CONNECTION · CONSERVATION
A word from the
editorial committee
W
e can talk about many aspects of
Colombian culture: Its diversity, for
example, and the fact that it has been
inhabited by 105 native peoples; its 85
native languages, along with two Creole languages
and Spanish, an eloquent sign of an extraordinary
linguistic richness.
We could also mention that Colombia is a coun-
try of persistent innovation in the symbolic sphere
or that it is a territory inhabited by very different
groups and includes several regions with marked
individual cultures but which, nonetheless, are in
constant fruitful dialogue with each other. The
Colombian cultural panorama is so rich and so
diverse that cultural tourism constitutes a tremen-
dously fertile opportunity for the country.
Cultural tourism has recently been shifting away
from the notion of having to travel from one place
to another to look at buildings or monuments, to
encouraging a more personal and intimate quest
for connections with human beings from the pres-
ent or the past and more transformative experi-
ences. Such experiences are forged by narratives,
which give them meaning, and by their storytellers,
who bring impact and remembrance.
Cultural tourism guides are, in essence, our sto-
rytellers. It is they who take on the task of showing
the world the diversity of our artistic expressions
and the richness of our legacy, and this manual is
nothing but a pleasant repository of data, stories,
and references to nourish their narrative arsenal.
H e n ce t h e i m p o r ta n ce of CO c rea t i o n ,
COnnection, COnservation. An Illustrated
Handbook for Cultural Tourism Guides in Colombia.
This is a textual and illustrated repertoire of sto-
ries that narrate the country’s culture in new ways
and thereby strengthen its tourism potential to
the maximum.
This project was conceived as a tool to empower,
not only cultural tourism guides, but all Colombians
in light of this great narrative-tourism exercise.
Who better than we Colombians ourselves, to
understand, know, value, and transmit the values
and benefits of our culture?
This project inherits the editorial principles of
COntemplation, COmprehension, COnservation. An
Illustrated Handbook for Nature Tourism Guides
in Colombia, and, as such, constitutes a platform
of rigorous, aesthetic, and accessible digital and
printed contents.
The two manuals —culture and nature— are like
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
twin brothers: The two have always been separate,
but they are perfectly connected and one cannot
exist without the other. This is impeccably illus-
trated by our indigenous communities for whom
culture is intrinsically connected to nature.
Thus, besides the narrative objective, the manu-
als can make and promote the necessary connec-
tions between nature and culture to benefit our
country and its tourism industry.
As members of the editorial committee, we are
grateful to ProColombia for the opportunity that it
has offered us to provide added value to Colombia’s
tourism sector and to strengthen its position as a
singular destination in which visitors can be part
of authentic, sustainable cultural experiences that
have a positive impact on the country’s regions and
6-7
their inhabitants.
Reading guide
ABOUT THE EDITORIAL
PROJECT IN GENERAL
COcreation, COnnection, COnservation.
An Illustrated Handbook for Cultural
Tourism Guides in Colombia is an
editorial project led by ProColombia,
and supported by the Ministry of
Commerce, which gathers information
on Colombia’s cultural heritage and
presents it in a didactic, aesthetic, and
accessible format.
To this end, it offers the following:
• An evocative, memorable, and
clearly comprehensible narrative
style.
• An infographic language that links
data, illustrations, and text, without
sacrificing readability.
• Impressive, colorful, and eclectic illus-
trations that respond to the great
diversity of the country’s artistic and
aesthetic styles.
• Texts written with historical rigor, but
in a pleasant and accessible prose.
• Easily downloadable editorial content
from the website.
COcreation, COnnection, COnservation
is based on the editorial guidelines
of COntemplation, COmprehension,
COnservation. An Illustrated Handbook
for Nature Tourism Guides in Colombia.
Like its predecessor, this project
includes three sets of editorial content
with complementary information, as
follows:
1. A 300-page book in Spanish and
English (available in both digital
and printed versions).
2. Fifty podcasts.
3. 100 summary card images.
COcreation, COnnection, COnservation
was conceived for three types of readers.
1. The cultural tourism guide who is
eager to expand her knowledge with
accurate and reliable information.
2. The national or international visitor
who is interested in learning more
about local cultural destinations.
3. The general public.
The editorial work, managed by
Puntoaparte Editores and supervised
by the editorial committee, required
three working groups focusing on
different areas of editorial work: a
graphic group including designers,
cartographers, and illustrators; a
text group consisting of proofread-
ers, editors and translators; and a
research group including academics,
researchers, and writers from different
cultural fields. Sound and audiovisual
production teams were involved for
the complementary pieces.
All in all, the team was made up of
more than fifty professionals.
As well as providing continuity
to the manual for nature guides,
COcreation, COnnection, COnservation
is intended to serve as a starting
point to spark conversations around
Colombian culture and celebrate its
richness. Fully aware of the limitations
inherent to an exercise of this magni-
tude, we chose a multidisciplinary and
diverse team to reflect the country’s
cultural richness and proposed an edi-
torial approach that would favor both
a narrative perspective focusing on
the tourism regions and a cross-cut-
ting view of culture. This approach was
adopted to offer readers a more holis-
tic and relatively fresh look at cultural
phenomena that have been explored
in greater detail elsewhere, and a fer-
tile dialogue with illustrated elements
to provide a reading experience that is
both exciting and instructive.
Beyond the rigor and experience of
the over twenty researchers who par-
ticipated in the project, this manual,
along with its audio and digital files,
does not respond to strictly academic
guidelines. It is, above all, an editorial
exercise of dissemination with primar-
ily narrative and didactic purposes.
ABOUT THE BOOK
The overall objective of the book is to
gather rigorous and comprehensive
information on Colombian culture and to
express it through illustrations of great
visual impact and accessible narratives.
This is intended to offer a solid concep-
tual framework and an aesthetic dis-
course that will enable tourism guides,
visitors, and readers in general to build
their own reflections on Colombia’s
immense cultural richness.
In particular, we hope that tourism
guides will find more conceptual tools
to offer travelers and visitors mean-
ingful narratives —and therefore expe-
riences— during their stay. As part of
this goal, the first chapter of this book
presents some key considerations con-
cerning the profession.
The following two chapters offer
integral perspectives on Colombian
culture with a view to exposing its com-
munication channels and its richness.
To this extent, the second chapter
gathers the voices of different experts
who succinctly reflect on the particu-
larities of our territory: the country’s
black character; the indigenous legacy
still in force; the role of institutions in
shaping the government’s vision of
culture; the inestimable wealth that
constitutes our biodiversity; the role
of rivers and seas, the sustenance they
provide, and the transits they enable;
the patient and exemplary work of
artisans; the ample gastronomic offer
that nurtures the Colombian spirit;
the inexhaustible musical repertoire
in which we recognize ourselves; and
our devotions and religious festivities.
Finally, Chapter Three explores the
country’s artistic and cultural expres-
sions within the framework of six tour-
ism regions: the Greater Caribbean,
the Pacific, the Eastern Andes, the
Massif, the Amazon and Orinoco, and
the Western Colombian Andes.
According to the World Tourism
Organization, Colombia has one of the
 The six tourism regions Definitions of cultural tourism

Urban culture. This includes those artistic and cultural expres-

sions that have found special resonance in urban environments
in specific cities.

Towns with heritage. This covers the country’s towns or

municipalities that are characterized by their distinctive archi-
tecture, indigenous culture and artistic expressions, and for
being repositories of a part of Colombia’s history.

Gastronomy. This includes those cultural expressions related

to food, including the processes entailed in obtaining or
cultivating food, preparation techniques and traditions, and
consumption rituals.

Archeology. As a country that has been the stage for millenary

cultures, Colombia offers an important archeological legacy
The Greater Colombian Caribbean that includes historical sites and places, and the ceramic and
goldsmithing objects obtained from them.
The Colombian Pacific

The Colombian Western Andes Living culture. This refers to those artistic expressions that
involve direct contact, often in situ, between artists and the
The Colombian Eastern Andes public. For the purposes of this project, handicrafts were
The Colombian Massif included in this category.

The Colombian Amazon and Orinoco

fastest growing tourism industries in
South America. As a result, we had to
propose a way in which to organize
its territory that would create value
for the country and the inhabitants
of each of the tourism sites. Defining
these six tourism regions was based
on a strategic reflection resulting from
surveys and interviews with the main
buyers of the twelve most important
international markets and active dia-
Fairs and festivals. This includes all those events, fairs, and
popular festivals in which Colombians celebrate their identity
through different artistic expressions on specific dates.
Religious and spiritual tourism. This includes architectural
monuments, temples and artistic and cultural manifestations
of faith or spirituality that, over time, have become icons of
religious tourism and local festivals or rites.
The synthesis texts, in turn, include Nuestra Señora de Las Lajas, a bas-
a main text and secondary ones, which ket of buñuelos, a maloca, a Llanero
offer additional data or complement music group, and the poporo quim-

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

logue with associations, companies,
and Colombian citizens in workshops
and periodic meetings. Establishing
these tourism regions has made it
possible to detect their individual
strengths in international markets,
reduce the negative impacts on natu-
ral resources and local ecosystems,
and enhance quality of life for their
host communities.
Several texts are included for each
of the tourist regions: an initial one
that serves as an introduction, followed
by others that summarize different
aspects of their culture and which,
depending on the theme, fall within one
the existing information.
However, and given the country’s
immense and complex cultural rich-
ness, this book enables readers to also
explore these regions through maps
and illustrations. Thus, each text is
supported by cartographic information
to enhance readers’ comprehension
and assimilation of the information.
These include topographic maps, and
maps showing the whereabouts of fes-
tivals or indigenous communities, etc.
The illustrations, on the other
hand, provide a clear review of the
country’s cultural imaginary: the wall
surrounding Cartagena, a couple
baya, among many other examples.
Although the narratives of these tour-
ist regions are constantly intertwined
and there are countless connections
between them, each has its own cul-
tural expressions, resulting in part
from its particular geographic and
historical characteristics.
In short, this book is an invitation
to travel through Colombia as fully
and completely as possible: through
its stories of the past and present, its
images of the sacred and the profane,
the configuration of its territory and
the very diverse ways in which its
people cocreate, connect, and con-
8-9

of the definitions of cultural tourism. of salsa dancers, the sanctuary of serve through culture.
Content

Prologue  4
A word from the
editorial committee 7
Reading guide  8

Recommended
reading  294
Credits  298
CHAPTER 1

The culture guide  12

Introduction  14
The interpretation of heritage in cultural tourism  16
The creation of a cultural tourism product  18

CHAPTER 2

Cross-cultural Narratives 20

Territory and culture: gestures of coexistence, networks

of meaning 22
Fifteen thousand years of indigenous history  24
No blacks, no nation 26
Institutions, a reflection of our cultural and ethnic diversity  28
Biodiversity, another way to travel and meet through culture  30
Lakes, rivers and seas: A culture that flows with water  32
Handicrafts, a handmade country  34
Our cuisine  36
Sounds, stories, and knowledge  38
Religion, the basis of our traditions  40

CHAPTER 3

Tourism Regions 42

The Greater Colombian Caribbean  44

The Colombian Pacific  86
The Western Colombian Andes  126
The Eastern Colombian Andes  168
The Colombian Massif  210
The Colombian Amazon and Orinoco  252
COCREATION
CONNECTION
CONSERVATION
An Illustrated Handbook
for Cultural Tourism Guides
in Colombia
 CHAPTER

Tourism Regions
The Greater Colombian Caribbean  44
The Colombian Pacific  86
The Western Colombian Andes  126
The Eastern Colombian Andes  168
The Colombian Massif 210
The Colombian Amazon and Orinoco  252
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The Greater Colombian

Caribbean Providencia

SAN ANDRÉS,
PROVIDENCIA AND
San Andrés SANTA CATALINA

Gastronomy » 48

Fairs and festivals » 54

Urban culture » 64 Panama

Towns with heritage » 68

Living culture » 76
ANTIOQUIA
Archeology » 82

Religious and spiritual tourism » 84

 caribbean
sea

LA GUAJIRA

Riohacha
Santa
Marta
Barranquilla

MAGDALENA
ATLÁNTICO
Valledupar
Cartagena Venezuela

CESAR

Sincelejo

SUCRE
Montería

BOLÍVAR
CÓRDOBA
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian
Caribbean

INTRODUCTION

The fiesta as
national identity
It was the historical connection
with the Caribbean Sea, the
different ways of life of its joyful
inhabitants and their refusal to
bow down to authority, plus its
rich cultural diversity that gave
Colombia’s Caribbean its identity
as a singular region.

An expert in the region’s colonial his-

tory said that Urabá was a school for
conquistadors. Nothing could be more
true. The Spaniards made early con-
tact with the territory known today as
the Colombian Caribbean, and Urabá
and the Darién were the scene of the
plunder, pillage, enslavement, and the
deaths of thousands of indigenous
people. The region had not even expe-
rienced the first stirrings of the great
administrative systems that would be
built in the territories of the Aztecs,
Mayas, and Incas —and that inspired
the founding of the Viceroyalties of
New Spain and Peru— when rumors of
tragedy first started to be heard across
the region, from Cabo de la Vela at the
northern tip of the Guajira Peninsular
to the confines of the Darien on the
border with Panama.
That this should have been the
case is due, among other reasons,
to geographical and social dynam-
ics that had been established long
before the arrival of the Spaniards.
These include the fact that the local
Caribbean space belonged to the Sea as a key environment), in which
great circum-Caribbean region (the pre-Hispanic relations —interrupted
Antilles and continental coastal areas by the arrival of the Europeans— were
of South America, Central America documented. If the Caribbean was
and North America with the Caribbean the first point of contact from which

its historical vocation as an imperial
territory was defined, the Colombian
Caribbean would have been part of
that dynamic.
It was in the Colombian Caribbean
where the first cities were estab-
lished. In 1502, Alonso de Ojeda
founded Santa Cruz, in La Guajira,
which lasted barely five months,
and in 1510 Vasco Núñez de Balboa
founded Santa María la Antigua del
Darién, a city in the middle of the jun-
gle with 3,500 inhabitants. Despite
these cities’ ephemeral nature, a few
years later Santa Marta was founded
in an attempt to establish a more
organized system of colonial admin-
istration in a territory characterized
by extensive plains, important rivers,
large swamps and the Sierra Nevada
de Santa Marta, which stands impos-
ingly as the highest mountain range
on earth situated near the sea.
In any case, the Spaniards never
gained absolute control over these
territories. The Wayuu and Chimila
indigenous groups offered resistance
and continued to challenge the sover-
eignty both of the colonial state and
its modern republican successor. The
absolutist Bourbon monarchs spent
much of the 18th century engaged in
administrative reforms in efforts to
control the scattered, isolated, popu-
lation that lived beyond the reach of
the church bell. Furthermore, from the
moment the first slaves were disem-
barked in the port city of Cartagena de
Indias, many palenques —independent
settlements established by escaped
slaves— were founded across the
region, and the geographical realities
meant it was ideal smuggling territory,
a practice that was engaged in with
no shame whatsoever. In spite of its
climatic and geographical character-
istics. the Colombian Caribbean did
not fully resemble the Caribbean of
the islands: there were no large plan-
tations, so the systems established
there to control the labor force were
less stringent.
This society, less marked by for-
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
mal systems of social control, bred
the conditions for a culture rooted
in the experiences of former slave
communities that then spread to the
large urban centers. Music, dance,
food, oral traditions, world views and
lifestyles emerged in a region where
tragedy was never allowed to banish
enjoyment and where even misery has
been expressed in playful and creative
ways. It was this region –which always
remained in contact with the Greater
Caribbean– that gave birth to cultural
manifestations that ended up being
adopted by the whole nation as fun-
46-47
damental parts of the identity of the
Colombian people.
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian Gastronomy
Caribbean

The gifts of water

Water defines the territorial identity of the
Colombian Caribbean and with it, its cuisine.
The region has always lived to the rhythm of
water, and the cuisine that best represents
it comes from the generous Caribbean Sea,
and its rivers and marshes.

The Colombian Caribbean as a region

is defined by water. Both the indig-
enous settlement and the territorial
control and demographic dynamics
imposed by European colonization
used water as a guiding reference,
while the culture was defined as it
preened itself in the mirrors of water.
Its cuisine is no exception and was
also inspired by the sea, the rivers,
and the wetlands.
It’s hard to imagine the local cui-
sine without the protein extracted
from the region’s water sources. The
bocachicos (Prochilodus magdalenae)
taken from the rivers and marshes
(that can be fried, stewed, smoked,
steamed with vegetables, or stufed),
lots of freshwater fish (coroncoros,
bream, catfish, sea bass, moncholos,
pacoras, barbels...) and a variety of
species that come from the depths
of the sea (shads, lebranches, jacks,
snappers, sierras, lobsters, shrimps,
snails, crabs, crayfish...).
Taking new routes across the
Atlantic Ocean to evade the Moors, the
Spaniards reached America bringing
with them wine and nutmeg, pepper,
cloves, cinnamon, and ginger among
many other spices unknown to these
new shores. At first, they wanted to
impose their own diet over the prod-
ucts that grew here, but they soon
“I hunger for neither tobacco/ nor food...,”
says one of the boatmen through the pen
of Candelario Obeso in his poem “Canto del
montaraz” (part of “Cantos populares de mi
tierra” [1877]). These people, who angered
those who planned a nation according to the
precepts of civilizing modernity, survived by
rowing on the river, and by growing manioc,
corn, and bananas, and catching fish without
much effort, which is what eventually
cemented the region’s culinary identity.
realized that it made no sense to do
so. Perhaps because their own cuisine
had been heavily influenced by foods
 caribbean
Enlarged
area sea
Riohacha
Santa Marta
LA GUAJIRA
colombia Barranquilla
ATLÁNTICO
Cartagena Valledupar
de Indias
MAGDALENA

Tolú
CESAR
Sincelejo

Montería SUCRE

Venezuela
CÓRDOBA BOLÍVAR
Turbo
Panama

SEAPORTS AND
ANTIOQUIA ARTISANAL FISHERIES

Seaports
Medellín
Artisanal fisheries

Rundown (Rondón)
This classic dish of the islands, can be made
with an array of fish or snail. It is usually cooked
outdoors in a lidded casserole on an open fire of
palm fronds, husks, and dried coconut tow.

Rundown (Rondón)
San Andrés and Providencia

2 liters of coconut milk 1/2 lb (250 g) sweet potatoes,

peeled and chopped

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

from the Arab world, they ended up 2 lb (1 kg) fish (or snail)
adopting the local ingredients, includ- 1 lb (500 g) salted pork (pigtail
1/2 lb (250 g) breadfruit,
ing them into their own dishes. peeled and chopped
or any other piece)
The main urban centers of the 2 green plantains, peeled 8 dumplings
Colombian Caribbean had their pan- and cut lengthwise 2 tablespoons of chopped
try not in Europe, but in the land 1 lb (500 g) manioc, peeled and chopped fresh basil and oregano.
resources of the coastal provinces and,
1 lb (500 g) yam, peeled and chopped Salt and pepper to taste
above all, in its waters. The Colombian
Caribbean has always been defined
Pound the snail until soft, boil for 10 minutes and then chop it up. Boil the pork
by spaces of autonomous practices
for 10 minutes to get rid of the salt, throw away the water and chop the pork up
despite any pretensions of political
into small pieces. The washed fish goes directly into the Rondón. Cook the snail
and administrative control. To a great
and pork in coconut milk for 15 minutes. Add the plantains, manioc, yam, and
extent, this autonomy was possible
sweet potato. Once they are soft (after about 25 minutes), add the breadfruit,
thanks to access to food resources and
dumplings, salt and pepper (if using fish, you should add this now) and leave to
the consolidation of a cuisine of their
cook for 20 minutes over a low heat. Add the herbs 5 minutes before serving.
48-49

own. It was their hearths that defined

their cultural freedom.
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian Gastronomy
Caribbean
Growing and preparing food was closely
linked to autonomy and freedom. Black
women prepared food, sold it on the roads

Mixing and
and accumulated an income that allowed
them to buy their freedom and that of
their families, as well as to participate in

blending flavors
the territories’ commercial dynamics.

Colombian Caribbean
cuisine today is an
amalgam of indigenous,
African, European, and
Arab products and flavors,
combined by people
who, while experiencing
freedom and struggling
for subsistence, created
the recipes that would
define the region’s
culinary identity.

Franciscan friar Juan de Santa Gertrudis

arrived in Cartagena de Indias at 1756,
after a long voyage across the Atlantic
Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. He was
surprised to see a considerable number
of black women selling all kinds of food-
stuffs to blacks and forced laborers who
were leaving to work in a fort on the
island of Bocachica. In his travel reports,
the friar paid special attention to how
to prepare cazabe, made from manioc
using a technique that was adopted
early on by the local black population.
Growing manioc is a pre-Columbian
tradition and a fundamental tuber in
the diet of the indigenous population [The manioc] is cleaned and cut into pieces,
of the Caribbean. They drank juices and soaked for three days until soft. Then
made of corozo, loquat, mamey, pine- it is pressed to remove the juice, leaving a
apple, and guava, and cooked plantains white mass. This is toasted into a lumpy
in many different ways. They also ate flour, which is then mixed with lukewarm
peanuts, fish, corn and manioc buns, water and no yeast, and made into patties.
arepas, and tamales, and used coco- These are toasted in a pot-like plate called a
nut in many of their recipes. They had callana, which is placed directly on the fire.
jams, preserves, and coconut sweets, This is how they make their bread.
yams brought from Africa, and wild-
growing guama. They also ate a vari- “How to make cazabe,” Fray Juan de Santa
Gertrudis, Maravillas de la naturaleza.
ety of wild animals such as armadillo,
 Sancocho [is the name given to] stew with plantains
or manioc. There are two kinds of sancocho. For the
first, they put three fingers of water in a pot, and cover
it with a few sticks to make a grill. Then they add the
tasajo, and cover it with the plantains or maniocs
or one and the other. They cover the pot with a piece
of banana or achira leaf, and cook it over a low heat
with the steam from the water. The other is: they shred
the green plantains, or manioc, not sliced with a knife,
because the slices become mushy; they put them in the
pot with pieces of tasajo, add water and some chilies,
and cook these with broth, covered in the same way.

Jorge Artel, “El sancocho y la metafísica,”

El Fígaro, Cartagena, August 26, 1940.

Today this African-influenced cuisine can be

enjoyed across the Caribbean region both in

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

gourmet restaurants that have specialized in
haute cuisine versions of peasant food, and
street food stalls, market squares and the
home kitchens of the Colombian Caribbean’s
working-class neighborhoods.

other vegetables that they grew and

rabbit, tapir, Lowland paca, red-footed
tortoise, Central American agouti, wild
boar, deer, duck, dove, partridge, high-
land guan, rufous-vented chachalaca,
When Pedro de Ursúa was com-
missioned in 1556 to stop the black
maroons from raiding the roads, the
Crown’s soldiers found huge “plantain
plantations that these slaves had made
and cultivated for their sustenance,
sowed for food.” Freedom smelled of
food. Ursúa managed to control the
maroons, but, some time later, they,
along with their crops, were already
bearing new fruit. At the end of the
18th century, Antonio de la Torre y
Miranda said that Palenque de San
Basilio based its diet on “rice, corn,
manioc, plantains, peanuts, sugar
50-51

and wild guan. with corn, manioc, sweet potatoes and cane, and some livestock.”
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian Gastronomy
Caribbean

Paradise in a pot
Young people of my age used to gather near the
fritter stalls selling arepas, caribañolas, and
buñuelos on the hillock near the San Nicolás
church [Barranquilla] from six o’clock, after
dinner and until eight.
The fat used to fry foods in the Pbro. Pedro María Revollo, Mis memorias, 1882.
Caribbean was an essential component
in the diet of the black peoples. Fried
foods gave them the sustenance they
needed to endure the daily grind, but
very soon these products became an
important component of the cuisine
for the entire population.

The African cauldrons and frying

pans and their fried food tradition
were ideal for the peninsular tradi-
tion’s use of lard. So it was that one
of the most popular culinary practices
of the Colombian Caribbean began to
take shape on its stoves and to the
rhythm of the boiling pan. Practically
every street corner, square or park on
the Caribbean coast has a food stall
selling egg-filled arepas; caribañolas
or carimañolas; empanadas; cowpea,
plantain, or corn fritters; and stuffed
potatoes. Travelers who passed
through Colombia in the 19th century
wrote that plantain slices or fritters
eaten with fried eggs, cheese, and
chocolate, were a staple at breakfast
in the region.
This confirms the importance of the
plantain in the Caribbean diet and of
the patacón or plantain fritter as a key
ingredient in the regional diet. Given
how popular bananas are in what is
now the department of Magdalena
(Zona Bananera), patacones are also
made with green bananas.
Fried food is found throughout the
Colombian Caribbean and is a street
food alternative in popular neighbor-
hoods, and an essential ingredient at

the regional carnivals and festivals,
including the Festival de la Leyenda
Vallenata, the Barranquilla Carnival,
and many other popular celebrations.
Some of these celebrations are even
held exclusively in honor of this tradi-
tion. For example, the Festival del Frito
To brotherhood of life in this immediate heaven.
or Fried Food Festival in Cartagena
de Indias - linked to the Fiestas de
la Virgen de la Candelaria of colonial
origin - and the Festival de la Arepa de
Huevo in the town of Luruaco, in the
department of Atlántico.
The beauty of the wheat in the trough,
its tumescent gift, its express intention.
And the litany of garlic and almond
that annul the banal mother-of-pearl.
Savor, warrior,
this meeting of lands. [...]
The cabbage founds its penitentiary garb.
And the onion, like love,
does not fear its faults.
But here comes the quibbe, men of God.
On your knees, brothers.
“Receta de cocina de Victoria Chagui,”
Jorge García Usta, El reino errante,
Poemas de la migración y el mundo árabe.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Arabs in the
gastronomy of Macondo
The symbol par excellence of the integration
of the Syrian-Lebanese migration of the
late 19th and early 20th centuries to the
Colombian Caribbean is the quibbe. This
traditional culinary delicacy made from ground
meat, onion, mint, Arabic pepper and bulgur
(dried, pre-cooked wheat) is found all over the
region, and everyone here knows that quibbe
52-53
is as much from Lorica, Sahagún, Corozal, and
Montería as it is from the Middle East.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Greater Colombian festivals
Caribbean

Caribbean music,
rhythm of the nation
In the 1940s, the nation was taken
over by the traditional music of the
Colombian Caribbean. Alongside
culturally liberal ideas that placed
folklore at the heart of national
identity, and the development of the
recording industry, the Colombian
Caribbean got the nation moving
and it has not stopped since.

José Barros, a musician born in El

Banco (department of Magdalena)
and creator of La Piragua —perhaps
Colombia’s most representative song—
originally only recorded tangos and
the popular corridos and rancheras.
But in August 1942, when he arrived
in Bogotá to claim royalties for one
of his tangos, Jack Glottmann, a rep-
resentative of the RCA Victor label,
asked him to write one or two porros
(a Caribbean rhythm similar to the
cumbia) and suggested he wander
around Plaza de San Victorino and
listen to the music emanating from
the coin-operated gramophones found
there. “That stuff was all you could of Bogotá´s main thoroughfares— into
hear,” Barros said. a stage where they played the ener-
In the 1940s, the music of the getic tones of porros and fandangos
Colombian Caribbean coast began to in improvised fiestas recalling their
make journey to the interior of the native region.
country, and came to embody the The music of the Colombian was that the vernacular music of the
nation’s musical identity. The same Caribbean, performed by Lucho grasslands, patios, roads, mountains,
year that José Barros became aware Bermúdez, Pianeta Pitalúa, Santos rivers and ciénagas of the Colombian
of this change, Manuel Zapata Olivella Pérez, Joaquín Marrugo and many Caribbean coast were taking over the
wrote a melancholy piece, Genio y others, began to warm up the “lady nation. The cumbia, the bullerengue,
figura that appeared on the March 1, of the mists,” the nickname Zapata the mapalé, the chandé, the porro
1942 issue of the magazine Diario de gave the grey city of Bogotá. This and all the other rhythms that had
la Costa, published in Cartagena de had not been an act of exhibitionism, framed the daily lives of the Caribbean
Indias. The text described the way in the writer pointed out, “but the heart peoples since the 19th century, were
which people from the Caribbean coast and the blood burning with the fire making themselves felt both nationally
had converted Carrera Séptima —one of nostalgia.” What was happening and internationally.
 5 Classic Colombian
Songs from the colombian caribbean
“La piragua” by José Barros
“Colombia tierra querida” by Lucho Bermúdez
“La gota fría” by Emiliano Zuleta Baquero
“Se va el caimán” by José María Peñaranda
“La rebelión” by Joe Arroyo
Circumstances were favorable to
the emergence of this phenomenon.
The country was enjoying a moment
of liberal attitudes to its popular cul-
ture, with emphasis on its complex folk
roots. Colombia was taking its first
steps towards industrialization and, as
a result, beginning to see the traditions
of the countryside as the repository of
the “national soul.” Peasant life was
simplified and idealized in a process
that identified its music, dances, and
oral traditions as the “pure” expres-
sions of national identity. In 1942, the
Ministry of Education decided to con-
duct a national survey of its folklore.
Teachers were asked to interview chil-
dren, parents, and local researchers in
the hope of tracing the fundamental
features of Colombian identity. More
than a thousand interviews were held
and though they were never analyzed
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
and the results never published, the
mere fact the initiative existed speaks
of the Colombian State’s vision of
popular culture at the time.
In addition, the influence of West
Indian rhythms on the Colombian
Caribbean, the development of the
recording industry, with the founding
of the radio station Emisora Fuentes
and of the record shop Discos Fuentes
in Cartagena de Indias, along with the
appearance of big bands, revolution-
ized the way traditional Caribbean
songs were performed, making them
54-55
available to be enjoyed by the nation
and the rest of the world.
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian
Caribbean
What is it about the
Carnival of Curramba?
The Carnival of Barranquilla is not important just
because it takes place at the same time as carnival
celebrations in other places, in all of which the world
is turned upside down. It is of particular significance
because it condenses the diversity and richness of
the fiesta culture of the entire Caribbean region.
1829
First known report of the carnival celebration
written by a U.S. traveler.
1865
The Bando del Carnaval (opening “manifesto”
of the year’s carnival) is read for the first time.
A catchy merengue by the musi-
cian Cuco Valoy, from the Dominican
Republic, that people danced too
enthusiastically in the Colombian
Caribbean during the early 1980s,
asked just what it is that makes the
Carnival of Barranquilla so special. In
response, the song narrated a series
of events and occurrences such as the
symbolic death of Joselito Carnaval,
Fairs and
festivals
1872
First appearance of the salones burreros -
meeting places where people joined together
to enjoy music, dance and alcohol. The
name comes from the donkeys that were the
standard form of transportation at the time
and that were usually tied up outside.
1888
The figure of Rey Momo (King Momo), whose
satirical and mocking spirit has its origins in
Greco-Roman tradition, appears for the first time.
its personification, which brings it to
a close, and the collective frenzy that
envelopes the city during the entire
carnival season. Despite the musi-
cal virtuosity and grace of the lyrics,
1899
The Carnival Committee and the position of
president are created.
1903
The first Batalla de Flores (Battle of Flowers)
is organized, linked to the trauma generated
throughout the country by the Thousand Days
War (1899 – 1903) and the attempt to find
symbols of national reconciliation.
the song failed to identify the depth
of its origins. In truth, the Carnival of
Barranquilla is much more complex
than this because, beyond the spe-
cific space and time afforded by the
Colombian Caribbean’s largest and
most modern city, it condenses the
diversity and the multiplicity of cultural
expressions of the entire region.
When the so-called Congos parade
the streets with their painted faces
and multicolored feathers, they come

1918
The Carnival Queen is elected for the first time.
1967
Inauguration of the Gran Parada (Great Parade),
showcasing the traditional dances of the
Colombian Caribbean: the Danza del Paloteo,
Danza del Torito, Danza del Congo and the
Danza Son de Negro.
1969
The Festival de Orquestas (Festival of the
Bands) is created as part of the Carnival.
with centuries of collective memory
and a journey of thousands of kilome-
ters and nautical miles from the king-
doms of the Congo and Manicongo in
Africa. These African cultural expres-
sions first emerged in Cartagena de
Indias during the Colonial period with
the establishment of the so-called
Cabildos de Negros, meeting places
where inhabitants who traced their
origins to these African nations met
for purposes of entertainment and
solidarity. The Congos marched from
the neighborhoods of Getsemaní and
San Diego, singing and dancing in a
1974
The first modern Guacherna (nocturnal parade
on the night before Carnival) is organized by
Esther Forero, a composer known as La novia
de Barranquilla (the bride of Barranquilla).
1992
The Barranquilla Carnival Foundation is created.
game of syncretic disguise, to the hill
of La Popa above the city, where an
Augustinian monastery stood, home
to a famous image of the Virgin of
Candelaria In time, these expressions
lost strength in Cartagena, finding in
the Carnival of Barranquilla a place to
keep alive the importance of Africa
in the creation of the culture of the
Colombian Caribbean.
Clearly, Carnival is like a sea on
which the cultural rivers of the region
converge. Specifically, the cultural
tradition of the Magdalena River, the
Canal del Dique and the Ciénaga of
Zapatosa flow into carnival to provide
a reminder of the cultural makeup of
the region. There we see the influence
of the cumbia of El Banco (depart-
ment of Magdalena), the tambora of
Tamalameque and the playas de amor
(beaches of love) of Chimichagua in
the department of Cesar; the songs,
dances, and representations of the
2001
Carnival is officially recognized as a part of the
nation’s Cultural Heritage
2003
Carnival is declared a Masterpiece of the Oral
and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
mestizo population of the entire
Momposina depression in the depart-
ment of Bolivar; and the music and
dance of black communities of the
Palenque region comprising Mahates,
the Montes de María and the Canal
del Dique.
Barranquilla, a city that was born on
the cusp of modernity, was destined to
become the showcase for everything
that Carnival represents. It was where
modernity —with its noisy development
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
and its convulsive rhythms— encoun-
tered a perfect place for a marriage
between the love of fiesta and the
inventiveness of the people of the
Caribbean. Historians view carnivals as
moments in which people are given the
freedom to turn the world upside down,
they represent a process of desacral-
ization before a return to the fold. But
in the Colombian Caribbean, carnival
transcends this confinement in space
and time, because the way people live
their daily lives recreates the forms of
carnivalesque performance and, for a
short period each year, Barranquilla
56-57
is its stage. This is what the Curramba
carnival is all about.
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian
Caribbean
Taking on the devil
with an accordion
The world is full of stories about virtuoso
musicians who defeated the devil himself.
In the Colombian Caribbean, two accordion
players confronted the lowest of the low: one
defeated him and the other struck a deal
with him in exchange of fame and fortune.
1 1968
Alejandro Durán, El Paso, Cesar.
Francisco, sitting comfortably on a don-
key and looking elegant, was on one
of his usual trips through La Guajira. It
was night time, there was a moon, and
he was busy playing melodies on his
accordion with a row of keys and two
basses that people in the region had
christened tornillo e’ máquina (screw
of machine). Every time he rehearsed
a tune, someone, from a distance,
would respond with a more elaborate
one. There was no minstrel unwilling
Fairs and
festivals
2 1969
Nicolás Elías ‘Colacho’ Mendoza, San
Juan del Cesar, La Guajira (twice: 1969
and Rey de reyes in 1987).
to duel, so Francisco went to meet his
rival, playing and following his rival’s
tune, not imagining that he was deal-
ing with the devil himself. The moon
stopped shining, the night became
dark, and there was a long duel. In
the end, Francisco Moscote Guerra
defeated the devil with his virtuoso
accordion playing and his backwards
intonation of the Credo; surrounded by
sulphury fumes, he left, exhausted, and
his father rescued him as he slept on
his donkey.
3 1970
Calixto Ochoa, Valencia de Jesús,
Valledupar, Cesar.
They say that the man, not the
legend, was born in the village of
Galán, near the city of Riohacha, on
April 14, 1849. He was the son of José
del Carmen Moscote and Ana Guerra
Melo, and it was his father who taught
him, when he was young, to play the
accordion. He spent his childhood and
teenage years helping in the fields and
cultivating melodies. He composed
several songs, many of which remain
unpublished; loved several women, as
was customary for globetrotters of
his lineage, and died in poverty aged
104, almost as old as the devil himself,
on November 19, 1953 in the village of
Machobayo (La Guajira).
Pedro Nolasco Padilla, like the good
cowboy he was, rode not on a donkey
but on horseback along the smugglers’
road that connected Maracaibo with
La Guajira. He entertained himself
by playing melodies on his beautiful
accordion, a double row of keys and
Kings Riohacha
LA GUAJIRA

of the Leyenda Santa Marta

Vallenata Festival Barranquilla
ATLÁNTICO 2 4
6
Cartagena 3
de Indias
Venezuela
caribbean
sea
MAGDALENA

1
Tolú
5 CESAR
Sincelejo Enlarged
SUCRE area

Montería BOLÍVAR
colombia

CÓRDOBA

ANTIOQUIA

4 1973
Luis Enrique Martínez Argote, Fonseca,
La Guajira.
5 1974
four basses, which had been brought Alfredo Gutiérrez, Paloquemao, Sucre
from Curaçao to Riohacha. Suddenly (three times: 1974, 1978 and 1986).

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

the devil appeared as an accordion
player. They were not there to tell each
other stories, what they had to tell
each other they would do by singing
and playing the accordion. They were
locked in a long duel that lasted eight
days and eight nights. In the end, there
was no winner, so they decided to
come to an agreement: Pedro Nolasco
sold his soul in return for being able to
play the accordion better than anyone
else in the world. Thus, Pedro Nolasco
joined the brotherhood of mythical
musicians who squandered talent and
wealth by paying with their own souls.
Brugés Carmona in a story published
in 1940 in El Tiempo— was actually
6 1984
called Pedro Nolasco Martínez, and Orangel ‘El Pangue’ Maestre, Villanueva,
was born in El Paso, then a town in La Guajira.
Magdalena, in 1881. He was an out-
standing cowboy and foreman at
Hacienda Las Cabezas, where the It’s suffocating
accordion player Alejo Durán —his in the evening and in the morning
disciple— also worked. He was known I met the evil one
for his grace in playing merengue son in the Ceibita pass.
with the accordion. He died where he
was born in 1969, claiming to have had Pedro Nolasco has to pray
a musical duel with the devil, but that And the devil is coming to play
I pray the creed to him and he goes away
58-59

The man, not the legend —recreated his soul was intact enough for him to
by the writer and journalist Antonio sing the verses of this merengue: and an Our Father and nothing else...
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Greater Colombian festivals
Caribbean
The entire Colombian Caribbean region has
been filled with music festivals to confirm
the itinerant tradition of the accordion, and

The trail of
in 2015, traditional Vallenato music was
inscribed on the List of Intangible Cultural
Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

the accordion
Panama
Europe never imagined that this
vulgar instrument, considered
a child’s toy, would become
a cultural privilege in the
Colombian Caribbean and end
up defining a genre of music
that in its traditional version is
considered world heritage.

As with all facts that confirm territo-

ries’ cultural vanity, there is no con-
sensus on the exact moment and place
where the first accordion entered the
Colombian Caribbean. The reference
that seems to make the most sense
places the event in the second half
of the 19th century on the port of
Riohacha, in La Guajira. But there is
also mention of the port of Sabanilla
or Puerto Colombia, near the city of
Barranquilla, and some venture to say
that it could have been somewhere
along the coast of the current depart-
ments of Sucre and Córdoba.
In 1869, when the French physicist
and botanist Charles Saffray arrived dance in Riohacha: “Around 8 pm,
in Santa Marta, he recalled being three musicians come to lean against
greeted by the sound of an accordion. the pole, one man with an accordion,
However, this is a vague reference, another with a drum and another play-
because it is not clear whether the ing Guacharaca,” said the traveler.
accordion was played by a local sailor, In transit from Europe to these
a dock worker, one of his fellow pas- territories, the accordion bellows
sengers or a foreign crew member. learned to breathe the harsh winds
The most precise reference to its use, of the Caribbean, and when they
associated also with the caja and the settled on the continent, they adopted cease to be a European wind instru-
guacharaca —which together with the the region’s musical maroonry. No ment, and turn into something differ-
accordion would form the instrumen- doubt Cyrill Demian, the Austrian of ent. It had begun to build a different
tal trilogy of vallenato music in the Armenian origin, piano and organ memory. At first, it was used to play
second half of the 20th century— was builder, who patented the accordion waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, dances,
made by another French explorer, in Vienna on May 6, 1829, never imag- and contradances but its identity was
Henri Candelier, between 1890 and ined that, shortly after arriving on soon defined by its incorporation into
1891 when he described a cumbiamba these shores, the accordion would the popular musical repertoire of our
 MAIN VALLENATO FESTIVALS
caribbean LA GUAJIRA
sea Riohacha 2 IN THE COLOMBIAN
CARIBBEAN REGION
Santa Marta
Festival Nacional del Son Tigre de la Montaña
Barranquilla 1
(Ariguaní, Magdalena)
ATLÁNTICO
3 Festival Francisco El Hombre
Cartagena 2
MAGDALENA (Riohacha, La Guajira )
de Indias
4
Festival Cuna de Acordeones
3
(Villanueva, La Guajira)
Venezuela
1
Festival de la Leyenda Vallenata
5 4
Tolú (Valledupar, Cesar)
CESAR
Sincelejo Festival Pedazo de Acordeón
5
(El Paso, Cesar)

Montería SUCRE Enlarged

area
BOLÍVAR
Turbo CÓRDOBA
colombia

Magdalena River up to the town of

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Caribbean and what came out of its
bellows would be linked to the tradi-
tional transhumance of minstrelsy.
Local sound artisans began to dig
deep into its entrails to modify it and
with the growth of the recording
industry and the first recordings of
accordion music, the mid-20th cen-
tury witnessed the emergence of a
proposal to consolidate the cultural
identity of a territory that would later
become a proposal for political-terri-
torial administration.
In 1950, Antonio Brugés Carmona
defined the cultural region of the
Upar Valley, rooted in colonial times,
between the valleys of the Cesar
Plato, the Ariguaní River valley, parts
of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta,
the foothills of the Serranía de los
Motilones and the narrow corridor
between these two mountain com-
plexes that connected with La Guajira.
In the sixties, a political proposal was
imposed and the Upar Valley region
was defined on the basis of the impor-
tance of Valledupar, which eventually
became the capital of the new depart-
ment of Cesar created in 1967. Its
identity was shaped by what became
known as Vallenata music, with the
accordion as the main instrument and
the establishment of the Festival de la
60-61

extract unthinkable melodies. Along River and the Mompox branch of the Leyenda Vallenata in 1968.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Greater Colombian festivals
Caribbean

Proximate drums
The African diaspora never forgot its
rhythms. The drum was present ever
since the first landfall of the slaves,
marking joy, celebration, and sadness.
The musical richness of the Colombian
Caribbean is a product of the constant
reiteration of that memory.

Drums were a means of communica-

tion and solace. This explains why the
Spanish authorities had to handle them
with care. Although the letters written
by bishops and authorities are full of
bitter passages complaining about the
frenetic music the black communities
played late into the night, most slaveo-
wners avoided the risk of denying their
drums to the enslaved.
It is known that in Cartagena de
Indias the Congo, Mina, Arara, Luango,
Jojó and Carabalí cabildos (societies
of people tracing their roots to the
same African nation) were free, during
carnival and religious festivals, to play
drums and to dance in the city, in open
spaces, on the way up to La Popa, and
in surrounding areas. Music specialists
believe that it was in these encounters
that the musical form that would later
be known as cumbia emerged.
But drums did not only serve as
companions during the long days
of work and slavery, not only as an
opportunity for slaves to meet with
each other and, sometimes, even with
the free black population or with the
inhabitants of the Cimarrón, Palenque,
or Rochela settlements established by
escaped slaves in a bid for freedom.
In the Colombian Caribbean, drums
defined the rhythm of life in these
independent communities. They
enlivened celebrations, satisfied the
body’s need to dance, sent messages
in times of conflict with the vice-regal
authorities, and announced the deaths
of loved ones.
A few minutes away from Cartagena,
in Palenque de San Basilio, the
pechiche drum still sounds when there
is a death and the deep lament of the
funeral songs can still be heard. This
is the lumbalú, a ritual to open up the
pathway for the dead on their journey
to the afterlife. Every year Palenque de
San Basilio organizes a drum festival
to commemorate and perpetuate the
memory of resistance and to remind communities into settlements) also
the country that a major part of the found scattered populations of blacks
region’s tradition and identity —includ- along the banks of the Magdalena,
ing the love of the fiesta— emerged Sinú, Cauca and San Jorge rivers, in
from the daily life of the drums and the inland delta of La Mojana and in
their music. Groups from Santa Lucia, the province of Darién, whose lives
Mahates, María La Baja, Montes de responded to the rhythm of the drum
María, Cartagena and the whole of the rather than the clang of the church
Canal del Dique region meet in San bell. These regions gave birth to a
Basilio to reaffirm this history. tradition of sung dances and bulleren-
In the 18th century, congregadores gue rhythms, celebrated today in the
(officials who were responsible for bullerengue festival held in the town of
concentrating dispersed indigenous Puerto Escondido in the north of the
FESTIVALS caribbean
sea
Festival de Tambores
1
(Palenque de San Basilio, Bolívar) Riohacha

Festival María La Baja Santa Marta

2 LA GUAJIRA
(María La Baja, Bolívar)
Barranquilla

3 Festivals in the Afro-Colombian parts of the

ATLÁNTICO
department of Antioquia
(Necoclí, Antioquia) Valledupar
Cartagena de Indias
Enlarged
Festival de Bullerengue 1 area
4
(Puerto Escondido, Córdoba) 2
MAGDALENA

Tolú colombia
CESAR
Sincelejo

Panama
4
SUCRE
Montería
BOLÍVAR
3

CÓRDOBA
Turbo
Venezuela

ANTIOQUIA

Medellín

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

department of Córdoba, on the shores

of the Caribbean. Alongside similar
events celebrating the same tradition
in the Afro-Colombian parts of the
department of Antioquia (in Necoclí)
and in María La Baja (department of
Bolívar), this festival keeps the tradi-
Caribbean. It has also provided the
stage that launched the careers of
famous singers such as Etelvina
In recent years,
Maldonado, Irene Martínez, Emilia an interesting fusion of Afro-Colombian
Herrera, Petrona Martínez, Ceferina
62-63

musical styles and younger rhythms such

tion of the drum alive in the Colombian Banquez, and Martina Camargo. as hip hop and champeta has emerged.
 Tourist region Urban
The Greater Colombian culture
Caribbean

Champeta or
ancestral body
memory...
Born in the shantytowns beyond
the Colonial walls of Cartagena de
Indias, champeta is an example of the
historical links between the Colombian
Caribbean and Africa. It illustrates an
ancestral memory of bodies, rhythms
and movements that seems to resonate
with contemporary technologies.

There must be something that links

the San Francisco neighborhood, on
the slopes of La Popa in Cartagena de
Indias, with Soweto on the west side
of Johannesburg, South Africa. This
is the only way to comprehend how
the same cadence of the human body
that accompanied the celebration of
the liberation of Nelson Mandela in
February 1990 is reproduced every
weekend in the picó dances that take
place in the outskirts of Cartagena,
more than six thousand miles away.
A memory remains that has not been
erased by the centuries that have
elapsed or by the hustle and bustle of
endless days of work.
In the 1960s and 1970s, in addition to
jíbara music, rumba, plena, tamborito,
bolero, the rhythms that would come Guadeloupe became familiar. These
to be known as salsa, and other Afro- were joined by other rhythms such as
Caribbean rhythms from across the highlife from Nigeria and Ghana, suk-
Spanish-speaking Caribbean, the huge ous from Congo, and mbaqanga from did not know exactly where in Africa
sound systems known as picós also South Africa. the records they were listening to
began to play music from the English In Cartagena de Indias, at least, it came from, or the names of the
and French-speaking Caribbean. Thus, was as if people’s bodies were cling- groups —because for business reasons
versions of Haitian compás, Jamaican ing to a remote memory they were the picó owners erased the credits and
reggae, soca from Trinidad and Tobago, already familiar with and whose return destroyed the cover art— the emo-
kadans from Martinique, and zouk from they were waiting for. Although they tional connection was immediate.

The black neighborhoods of
Cartagena were associated with the
small machete —the champeta— used
in the kitchen and by market trad-
ers, and the people who went to the
picó dances became known as cham-
petúos and the music they listened
and danced too as African champeta.
With time, local musicians began to
produce their own versions of the
music, fitting their own lyrics to the
African tracks. Things evolved and,
inspired by the sounds of Africa and
of the Caribbean, musical groups from
the Colombian Caribbean began to
record entire champeta tracks rather
than adapting the music of others,
and the phenomenon became known
6 Champeta
Artists
Anne Swing (Viviano Torres)
Charles King (Carlos Reyes)
El Sayayín ( John Jairo Sayas)
El Afinaíto (Sergio Liñán)
El Jhonky ( Jhon Eister Gutiérrez)
Mr. Black (Edwin Antequera)
as champeta criolla (“criolla” is a term
inherited from the Colonial period,
which meant “born in the Americas”
and in this case means “home grown,”
“Colombian,” “ours”).
In the late 1990s and early 2000s,
champeta was at its peak. Several local
groups recorded with the famous Sony
Music label and sold well. After record-
ing two albums, the label demanded
exclusivity but, accustomed to the
informal recording culture of the picós,
the singers refused to accept this and
returned to the old ways of producing
music. Champeta is not only a musi-
cal rhythm, it is an aesthetic commit-
ment, with its own evolving language,
fashion, ways of arranging meetings,
and a form of dance that, despite the
transformations it has undergone,
never loses its erotic charge.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Although the rapid growth of com-
munications networks means that
more references are now available
to all, there is no doubt that the fact
Cartagena de Indias —once the most
important slave port in the Americas—
became the most significant point of
entry for African music and the most
important producer of champeta, dem-
onstrates its historical connections
with the African diaspora. There is a
kind of ancestral memory, which also
explains why artists from San Basilio
de Palenque, the town established
by people who escaped slavery, have
64-65
played such an important role in the
production and diffusion of this music.
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian
Caribbean
Roll up for the
Sound Academy!
A tradition of building huge sound systems
known as picós is the confirmation that
music and the crowds that gather whenever
it is played it are a central part of the vital
energy of the Colombian Caribbean.
In the Caribbean, music is so important
that it is blasted out in the streets from
enormous sound systems known as
picós. The name comes from the first
radiograms to arrive in the region’s
cities - in particular Barranquilla and
Cartagena: cabinets containing turn-
tables and often a radio. These were
also known as pick-ups, hence the
name picós. Sound engineers and cabi-
netmakers adapted these radiograms
to create much more powerful sound
systems, which fitted in very well with
Urban
culture
the extravagant life and culture of the
Colombian Caribbean.
The picós provided the soundtrack
for dances, verbenas (as picó dances
are known in Barranquilla) and casetas
(lean-tos or huts selling snacks, drinks,
cigarettes and the like and that acted
as a magnet to people in the street).
Their owners gave the picós names
linked to the spread of Caribbean
music, in particular boleros and other
island rhythms, musicians and song
titles, or allusions to events or places
mentioned in the lyrics. Over time —
especially in the sixties and seventies—,
the picós played an important role
disseminating salsa music. Rivalries
about who played the best music or
had the best sound system led to the
emergence of distinct identities that
revolved around the picó that had to
do not only with their names but also
with the extravagant decoration of
the amplifiers and speakers and with
processes of self-promotion involving
the recording of advertisements in
 Piconema
This term refers to the old tradition whereby the owners of picós gave
new names to the songs they played, which had nothing to do with the
official title. These were usually created by taking some phrase or word
from the original language —often using onomatopoeia— to create a
Spanish-language title. This also ensured that the music played on each
picó was exclusive, because when the picoteros obtained a record they
often erased the original title to make it harder for the competition
to get hold of it. This was particularly common in the case of music of
African origin or from the English- and French-speaking Caribbean.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

which the distinctive voices of the dee-
jays —or picoteros— proclaimed their
superiority. In the world of the picó,
these advertising spots are known as
placas: “Roll up, rrroooll up for the
Sound Academy!!”.
The music played in the picós has
always been linked to the broader
Caribbean region and to Africa. First
it was salsa; then Afro-Caribbean
rhythms such as calypso, soca, and
highife from Ghana and Nigeria, benga
from Kenya, mbaqanga from South
Africa, and makossa from Cameroon.
In the Colombian Caribbean these
rhythms came to be known as cham-
peta, and inspired local musicians to
make their own music and the picós
became the most important channel
for it to reach the public.
Today, there are picós that have
evolved away from the original deco-
system that uses the latest technol-
ogy, plays music for large crowds, and
uses complex lighting systems.
However, more recently a cultural
movement has emerged in cities such
as Cartagena, Barranquilla, and Santa
Marta, marked by a certain nostalgia
for the old picós. This current has been
developing a new esthetic approach,
and some groups and a number of
deejays have been sampling and quot-
66-67

mento; and African rhythms including rated sound systems of the early days. ing musical elements that originated
soukous from Congo, jùjú from Nigeria, Now a picó might be a powerful sound in the picó culture.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Greater Colombian heritage
Caribbean

The walls reborn

Nothing defines Cartagena de Indias better
than its fortifications, demonstrating the
important role of a walled city built for
military purposes. But once the need to
perform this task had disappeared, the
use the walls were put to reflects the story
behind today’s complex city.

The greed of Spain’s enemies and the

suspicious natures of royal officials
produced a memory carved into the
stone of Cartagena de Indias, replac-
ing the older story of mud huts and
palm-thatched huts, indigenous
communities, and animals. For four
centuries, generations of architects,
artisans, master builders, stonema-
sons, and blacksmiths carved the city
in high relief.
Many years later, in a fit of charac-
teristic genius as he sat by the sea,
the writer, businessman, musician and
poet Daniel Lemaitre Tono, a native of
Cartagena, coined its truest and most
celebrated nickname: “El corralito de
piedra” (the little stone corral). Later,
the writer and painter Héctor Rojas
Herazo, who had an intense relation-
ship with each and every one of the
city’s alleys, streets and hallways,
described it perfectly as a “block of time and of war. There is much grace Fortifications
carved stone facing the sea.” And in this remote roughness, which has
when, in May 1948, Gabriel García then been smoothed over the years
of Cartagena de Indias
Márquez arrived from Bogotá fleeing by the caress of countless hands. The The complex of fortifications of Cartagena de
the bogotazo —the riots that had dev- entire complex of walls is a solemn Indias are testimony to the function that the
astated the capital a month earlier— he signature, the seal of a mighty empire city once fulfilled and that —together with the
said that to recover his sense of calm that speaks of the desire to protect its activities proper to a commercial port and
“it was enough simply to step inside inhabitants. But once the walls have entrythe enslaved people— shaped its social
the walls” and to see Cartagena “in all been imagined and used in ways that dynamics. Construction began in the 16th
its grandeur in the mauve light, at six go beyond the military, they become century, and in the years after independence,
o’clock in the afternoon.” the recipient of the everyday memo- at the beginning of the 19th century, they still
From a distance, the walls look like ries of the city’s inhabitants. Now they had not been finished.
a smooth skin covering the city. But preserve not only the insults of war
when you get closer, you realize that but also, in their folds and crevices, The end of the war meant other
it is the weathered, deformed hide of the secrets of the people who live in memories had to be made. When the
an old warrior that bears the marks of their shadow. walls lost their military function, the
 The Castillo de
San Felipe de Barajas
If the images on the coins that the Englishman
Edward Vernon had minted in 1741 and with which he
prematurely proclaimed the capture of Cartagena
never circulated as legal tender, this was due to the
Castillo, or castle, of San Felipe de Barajas. This fort,
considered the most sophisticated work of Spanish
military engineering in all the Americas, was built
on the hill of San Lázaro in 1697.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

inhabitants of Cartagena had to find
other uses for them, other ways of
understanding them. And to do this,
they had to sharpen their senses. They
learned to distinguish signs, feelings,
and possibilities that they had never
before imagined, let alone seen. One
day someone stopped in front of a
bastion and rather than focusing on
its martial majesty reflected on the
shape of the shadow it casts at a
certain time of the day. And then this
An inclusive city understands that
its people deserve squares and music
to dance to. Rather than walls intended
to divide its inhabitants or separate
them into categories at the service of
authority, the walls of Cartagena de
Indias should be watchtowers which
everyone, without exception, can climb
to gaze at a more lovely horizon. It is
the people, walking along the walls
and touching them, that endow them
with memory. Perhaps, one fine day,
while walking along the fortifications,
someone will be surprised to discover
a strangely-shaped stone or a texture
Maybe that person will dare to
imagine that the detail they have just
noticed has existed ever since their
architect, the military engineer Antonio
de Arévalo, first carved the city in high
relief. Or perhaps they will think it was
created at the whim of a black crafts-
man who decided of his own free will
to leave his mark, as a way of showing
that he was here and that, in his own
way, he too was part of the project.
At that moment the curious walker
will enter the memory of the city, and
because of their questioning mind,
their silent observant gaze, their cre-
68-69

person absorbed this image into their that has nothing to do with their origi- ative imagination, they will build their
mental map. nal military function. own experience, jointly, with the wall.
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian
Caribbean
Beyond the walls
Despite being a walled city, Cartagena de Indias
gave birth to many of the aspects of popular
identity that today are central to the city’s
cultural allure.
The protagonist of the poem Walls,
by Konstantinos Kavafis, bitterly
laments the fact that “great and high
walls” have been built around them
without their having realized it. Now,
in despair, he realize he is missing out
on everything he could have done
outside. The construction of the walls
of Cartagena de Indias would hardly
have gone unnoticed. Legend has it
that they were so expensive to build
that one King of Spain wanted to see
them from his palace in Madrid. But no
wall was capable of limiting the playful
and creative ways of life that emerged
in the towns of the Caribbean.
Outside, there was always a world,
and the city permanently found ways
of relating to it, even during the times
that church bells rang to mark the
closing of the city gates at nine o’clock
at night. Many of the first enslaved
people brought to the city jumped the
walls and created free settlements
known as palenques on lands near the
Towns with
heritage
Bay of Cartagena or, further inland,
and despite an official policy of perse-
cution, the city did not completely lose
contact with them.
Outside the walls too, were many
of the orchards, looms, quarries, lime
and brick kilns and furnaces used
for smelting metals. These produced
everything necessary for the growth of
a city that required walls, yes, but also
houses, churches, convents, barracks,
warehouses, customs houses, and gov- church for the veneration of the Virgin
ernment buildings. Outside the walls of Candelaria. Once this had been built,
rose a hill, shaped a like the stern of a the people began to climb the hill as
ship – a shape that explains its name, la an expression of their faith, and to
Popa (poop or stern). And it was here give thanks. The sailors would climb
that an Augustinian monk, following a la Popa in gratitude for having arrived
vision he had in the desert, was given home safely after a long ocean voyage,
the task of building a monastery and a and the cabildos (societies of black
 Baseball in Cartagena
The most widely accepted theory about the arrival
of baseball in Cartagena suggests that at the end
of the 19th century groups of young people from
the city began to bring baseball equipment back
from Cuba and Panama. It is suggested that a first
exhibition match was held on July 20, 1897, in a
field in what is now the neighborhood of El Cabrero.

informal games emerged famous

This devotion, which was more a
festive and civic communion than
a religious one with its hierarchical
dances, became a point of reference
Cartagena’s pregones
baseball players and words that were
lent to the everyday language of the
people. The same thing happened with
boxing. The hustle and bustle of daily
work and daily life forged the aesthet-
ics and cultural references of the city.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Pregones (literally, proclamations, or
announcements) are the way traditional street
vendors advertise their products. They are an
outpouring of musicality and language that the
people of Cartagena have been aware of for
centuries and that continues today: Bollitos,
bollos sabrosos, / con coco, azúcar y anís, /
prefiéranme a mí, muchachos, / que vengo de
Gimaní (Buns, tasty buns, / with coconut, sugar
and aniseed, / choose me, boys, / I come from
Gimaní) (Daniel Lemaitre Tono).
inhabitants) would ascend dancing
and singing and inventing the rhythms
that would later be appropriated by the
for the foundation of the surrounding
towns and the future neighborhoods
of Cartagena. The city also expanded
in the wake of the music of the locomo-
tives that plied the Cartagena-Calamar
railroad, inaugurated in 1894. These
neighborhoods created their own
music in the form of son music and
the pregones of the street vendors,
without which the walled city could not
ever be imagined in the future.
Inhabitants of the Cartagena of the
poor, outside the walls, took advantage
of any empty land on which they could
play baseball —in this sense, more
closely connected with the Caribbean
An example of this is provided by
the Bazurto market. More than a mere
source of food for the local population,
this market is a universe of colors,
smells, touch, sounds and flavors that
require all the senses to experience
it in all its glory. It is a place where
popular music is produced, champeta
dances are prepared, publicity posters
made, and the stoves are never extin-
guished, because they produce incred-
ible culinary delights prepared using
the riches of land and sea. Bazurto is
the repository of popular culture and a
clear example of the importance of the
Cartagena that, from the start, was
70-71

whole region and the future nation. than with the US— and from these built beyond —or in spite of— the walls.
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian
Caribbean
Mompox: the
enlightened
trade
Having enjoyed prosperity in
colonial times, Mompox was
abandoned at the dawn of
the Republican Era when the
Magdalena River changed course.
Recently it has begun to recover
the glory of its colonial past and to
relive the memories of resistance.
In 1840, the author and philologist
Rufino José Cuervo published the
first book of customs to mention the
bogas or free black boatmen. He wrote
that they grew happier as they drew
close to Mompox in their flat-bottomed
boats known as champanes, because
for them this city represented “a true
Paris.” Mompox had been founded in
1537. It lies in the midst of the wetland
area known as the Mompox depression
and because of its location, Mompox
played a fundamental role in the trade
of the region from the earliest days of
the Colonial Era.
Since vice-regal times, Mompox
had been home to a significant num-
ber of blacks, zambos, and mulattos
Towns with
heritage
(racialized terms used during the
Colonial period to describe people
of mixed African and indigenous
and African and European heritage
respectively), who were central to the
movement of people and goods along
the Magdalena River. The bogas pro-
pelled their boats using long poles and
provided the most reliable means of
transport to be found in the territory
then known as the Viceroyalty of New
Granada.
In 1801, Alexander von Humboldt
described the bogas as individuals
“who drip sweat daily for thirteen
hours,” but that they inspired no pity
because they were “free, insolent,
indomitable, and joyful.” Several
Champanes
Much of the commercial splendor of Mompox
in colonial times was down to the use of the flat
bottomed boat known as the champán. These
boats were first used in the mid-16th century
to ply the Magdalena River, at the initiative of
the captains Alonso de Olalla and Hernando de
Alcocer, who saw the opportunity to use river
transport to maximize the profits derived from
their status as encomenderos of the towns on the
banks of the Magdalena, which gave them control
over the indigenous communities of the region.
years later, a distinguished black
intellectual, and native of Mompox,
Candelario Obeso, would reflect the
importance of the culture of the
bogas in his collection of poems
 caribbean
sea
Enlarged
area
Barranquilla
ATLÁNTICO
colombia
Tolú
Sincelejo
Panama
Montería
CÓRDOBA
Turbo
ANTIOQUIA
“Cantos populares de mi tierra,” pub-
lished in 1877 and still considered a
classic of Colombian literature.
Thanks to this feverish trade,
Mompox became the residence of
choice for a number of noble families
who continued to amass their fortunes,
and who were granted titles by the
Spanish Throne: the Marquisates of
Torrehoyos and of Santa Coa. However,
Mompox did not merely receive goods,
but also ideas and enlightened think-
ing. On August 29, 1809, the Colegio
Universidad de San Pedro Apóstol —
later the Colegio Pinillos— was founded.
This was one of the first educational
establishments in the territory of what
is now Colombia to proclaim in its stat-
utes that it accepted students of all
social classes and racial origin: “Rich
and poor, whites, mulattos, artisans
and apprentices of all trades, and even
barefoot boys, shall be admitted.”
Riohacha Simón Bolívar and Mompox
Santa Marta The so-called Simón Bolívar Memorial Stone, built into
LA GUAJIRA
one of the walls of the albarrada (waterfront) of Mompox
records that the national hero, the “Liberator” Simón
Valledupar Bolívar visited the town eight times, and details the
Cartagena de Indias
dates. In one of these visits, he uttered a phrase that
MAGDALENA the people of Mompox still treasure: “If I owe my life to
Caracas, it is to Mompox I owe my glory.” In his novel The
General in his Labyrinth, Gabriel García Márquez engages
CESAR
Mompox in a fascinating reflection on the parallels between the
lost commercial splendor of the town and the weakening
spirit of Bolívar, assigning to the Liberator the following
SUCRE
phrase: “Mompox does not exist, sometimes we dream
about her, but she does not exist.”
BOLÍVAR
Venezuela
Mompox was also privileged among
the cities of the Viceroyalty of New
Granada to have played a leading role
in the struggle for independence from
Spain, at the start of the 19th century.
To the rhythm of the frenzied and
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
lucrative smuggling that dominated
during the early years of the Republic,
a political elite was formed, whose
members even came to participate in
the revolutionary movements of other
nearby territories. However, Mompox
lost the commercial power it had
enjoyed during the colonial period, in
part because its branch of the river
began to silt up, making navigation silver filigree work and the alluring
more difficult, while the Loba branch, harmony between natural landscape
centered on the new port city of and architecture, Mompox is one of
Magangué, remained free-flowing and the principal tourist destinations in
came to dominate trade in the region. the Colombian Caribbean. In 1959, its
Today, because of its history and historic center was declared a national
architectural splendor, its Easter cel- monument and, in 1995, UNESCO
72-73
ebrations, its tradition of fine gold and declared it a World Heritage Site.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Greater Colombian heritage
Caribbean

caribbean

The allure of
sea
Riohacha

Santa Marta
LA GUAJIRA

the river towns Barranquilla

ATLÁNTICO
Aracataca

Valledupar
Cartagena de Indias

MAGDALENA
Lorica and Aracataca, though geographically
distant, have in common that they are towns
defined by water. Sea, ciénagas, and river CESAR
Tolú
helped to build two economic realities from Sincelejo
Lorica
which today’s rich heritage was forged.
SUCRE
Montería BOLÍVAR
Water defined the ways of life in Lorica
(department of Córdoba) and Ciénaga
(Magdalena). The former ranges along
the banks of the Sinú as if seeking CÓRDOBA
Turbo
space to gain maximum enjoyment of
the river as it flows on its way to the
sea. The latter built its destiny on the
basis of salt pans and sun in a loca-
tion bathed by the twin waters of the
Caribbean Sea and the enormous shal-
low lake known as the Ciénaga Grande
de Santa Marta. Both had been centers
of the indigenous population of the ANTIOQUIA
region. Their role as Colonial popula-
tion centers emerged as the result of
the continual process of foundation Medellín
and re-foundation promoted by the Enlarged
area
Spanish Crown during the 18th cen-
tury in the context of reforms of the
absolutist Bourbon monarchs: Ciénaga colombia
was founded during the expedition of
José Fernando de Mier y Guerra in 1751
and Santa Cruz de Lorica in 1776 by
the congregador Antonio de la Torre
y Miranda. The capital
Once in its history, Lorica was the
point of articulation between lands of
of Magical Realism
the Sinú River valley, the breadbasket of One day in 1913, moved by the banana
the port of Cartagena de Indias, which boom, Ramón Vinyes, the future literary
did not stoop to such lowly activities patron of Gabriel García Márquez, who the
because of its status as a great for- author immortalized in One Hundred Years
tress. At some point in the 18th century of Solitude as the “wise Catalan,” arrived
Lorica was the third largest city in the in Ciénaga from Barcelona. Nicolás Ricardo
Caribbean by number of inhabitants, Márquez Mejía, García Márquez’s grandfather,
surpassing even Santa Marta and ced- also lived in Ciénaga before moving to
ing its status only to Cartagena and Aracataca, while, according to the novel Love
Mompox. During the 19th century it was in the Time of Cholera, Fermina Daza was
at the center of one of the country’s born in the town of San Juan de la Ciénaga.
Venezuela
most important cattle-raising regions,
a wealth that in the early 20th cen-
tury led ranchers with lands between
Cartagena and the rich lands of the
Sinú River valley to consider creating a
proyect that would transport refriger-
ated meat to international markets in
order to satisfy increased demand dur-
ing the First World War.
By then, the Sinú River had become
a significant commercial thoroughfare
and was the backbone of trade between
the departments of Antioquia and
Bolívar. Lorica was its principal port.
Cargo and passenger steamers arrived
frequently, and from time, to time the
seaplanes of the Colombian-German
airline Scadta landed there too. The
town had also already received an
influx of Syrian and Lebanese migrants
from the Ottoman Empire, who exerted
a powerful influence, establishing the
Republican-Mudejar style of architec-
ture found in its historical center, imbu-
ing it with a vibrant commercial spirit
and influencing its culinary culture.
Ciénaga was also an important town,
presiding over commercial exchange
between the Provinces of Cartagena
and Santa Marta. Nearby was found
one of the most important slave haci-
endas of the Colonial Caribbean, Santa
Cruz de Papare. This hacienda produced
sugar, cocoa, rum, and honey, and later
turned to banana production. Indeed, in
the late 19th and early 20th Centuries,
Manuel Zapata
Olivella and David
Sánchez Juliao
These two illustrious authors were also
born in Lorica and much of their literary
work involved putting down on paper the
allure and wealth of the popular culture
of the region to which they were born.
bananas would determine the economic
destiny of Ciénaga, its built environment
and its prominence in the region – all
because of one of the most notorious
incidents in the history of social struggle
in Colombia: the Banana Massacre.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
The arrival of the United Fruit
Company and the banana boom it ush-
ered in, not only introduced locomotives
(colorfully described by Gabriel García
Márquez as resembling “kitchens drag-
ging a town”) to the area but also a
significant number of migrants, along-
side the architectural eclecticism that
today characterizes the historic center
of Ciénaga. The wealth generated by
the banana industry paid for Italian and
Catalan architects, who left their mark
on the city. Bananas would also create
other memories, amplified by the mas-
terful pen of Gabriel García Márquez,
whose stories have come to form a part
74-75
of the heritage of the people of Ciénaga.
 Tourist region Living
The Greater Colombian culture
Caribbean

Macondo: reinvented
by literature
Literature is nourished by place and,
sometimes, as a reward, words return the
favor by inventing a marvelous world that
imbues that place with new meaning. Gabriel
García Márquez dedicated his whole life to
finding the perfect marriage between events
and his precise prose, and gave life to the
fictional village of Macondo in the process.

Macondo was built as a manifestation of

failure. Its founders settled on its loca-
tion “so as not to have to take the road
back,” following a long and exhaust-
ing journey of 26 months led by the
patriarch José Arcadio Buendía, which
involved a group of families carrying all
their belongings across the mountains
in search of an elusive sea. Fatalism nes-
tled in their trunks, alongside naphtha
balls to keep the moths away. Although
there were times when the marvels
announced by the gypsies, and the
bonanza of the banana boom with its
eternal soundtrack provided by the fes-
tive music of the cumbiamba, seemed
capable of preventing Macondo’s tragic
destiny, in the end it was consumed in
an apocalyptic uproar.
But none of these things happen in
the real Macondo. It is only the reality
created by literature that saves it from
the apocalypse. Today, it is impossible
to understand the territory of the towns
of Sitio Nuevo, Pueblo Viejo, Ciénaga,
Zona Bananera, Aracataca, El Retén,
Fundación and Santa Marta without
the narrative seal provided by the
Colombian Nobel Prize winner. This
Macondo is real
is its attraction: Macondo is a liquid Although fictional, Macondo is a tangible, physical,
world of ciénagas, rivers and the sea, space, with distinct environmental, geographical
but it is also the Sierra Nevada de and cultural characteristics, and its greatest
Santa Marta with its four indigenous distinction is that one of its most illustrious sons
peoples -the Arhuacos, Kogui, Wiwa and became its most distinguished publicist.
 THE TOWNS OF MACONDO ARE

Sitio Nuevo 1 El Retén 6

Pueblo Viejo 2 Fundación 7

Ciénaga 3 Santa Marta 8

Zona Bananera 4 Sincé 9

Aracataca 5 Galeras 10

Sucre 11
caribbean
sea

LA GUAJIRA
Riohacha
Ciénaga Grande
de Santa Marta
8
Barranquilla Sierra Nevada
1 2 3
4 de Santa Marta
ATLÁNTICO 6 5
Cartagena Valledupar
de Indias 7
MAGDALENA

CESAR
Tolú
Sincelejo 9
Ciénaga de
10
la Mojana
Montería 11
SUCRE
Venezuela
CÓRDOBA BOLÍVAR
Turbo

The town of Galeras (department of Sucre) is

ANTIOQUIA
host to a tradition that has been included in
Colombia’s Representative List of Intangible
Cultural Heritage: the living paintings, or prehistoric eggs, hosts of yellow but- Medellín
human tableaux in which participants remain terflies, the overwhelming tranquility of Enlarged
motionless for a long time to recreate scenes its plains cloaked in banana plantations, area

reproducing an old religious painting or a the Caribbean Sea meeting the Ciénaga
modern work, a famous photograph or scenes Grande de Santa Marta to form an envi-
from everyday life. Every year during the able ecosystem through which Simón colombia

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Algarroba Festival Galeras turns its streets into
an open-air art gallery filled with live paintings.
Kankuamo- that travel its vertiginous
paths. Macondo smells of ripe guineo
bananas and the cayeye mash made
from them; it breathes daily the nostal-
gia for a punctual train that resembled
a “kitchen dragging a village behind it”.
Macondo is also the scene of the lonely
retirement of the old colonels who had
left war behind them and dedicated
themselves to making golden fish, while
waiting for a pension that never arrived.
Here are the rivers of diapha-
nous waters that flow down from the
Bolívar traveled, a general, this one, who
did have someone to write to him, but
who died in the solitude of the labyrinth
of his own glory. It also has the beauty
of the stilt villages that suddenly appear
like apparitions in the middle of the liquid
immensity.
But Macondo also exists at the other
end of the Colombian Caribbean, in the
sub-region of La Mojana. In 1939, the
García Márquez family arrived in the
town of Sucre, from Sincé, and Gabo, as
Gabriel was known, spent a good part
of his childhood and teenage years. In
those fertile lands of rice production and
a similarly fertile oral tradition, Gabo
significant part of his literary production.
It was in Sucre that, in 1951, two brothers
murdered a provincial womanizer they
believed had defiled the honor of their
sister, and it was here that, in moments
of heightened political tension, people
used to go to bed with their hearts in
their hands, praying they would not wake
up the following morning to find their
names in some defamatory pamphlet.
Both these situations were portrayed by
Gabo, the former in Chronicle of a Death
76-77

mountains across beds of stones like found the raw material he required for a Foretold and the latter in In Evil Hour.
 Tourist region Living
The Greater Colombian culture
Caribbean

Santa Marta

Sing me that dance Barranquilla

ATLÁNTICO
Canal del
Dique area

Cartagena de Indias
MAGDALENA
Bullerengue and porro are two of the
Cartagena de Indias CESAR
most representative musical genres coastal areas and islands

of the Colombian Caribbean. Their

development shows how, while some Tolú

genres remained true to their original Sincelejo

matrix, others evolved to reflect the caribbean

diverse realities of the region. sea

SUCRE
Montería

From the beginning it was a free BOLÍVAR

panama
music because it was born among the CÓRDOBA
maroons or cimarrones, former slaves Turbo
that had managed to escape. A prod-
uct of the encounters between free
black men and women, bullerengue
was the way in which these commu-
nities maintained their relationship
with the African lands from which Antioquia’s Urabá and the
Department of Córdoba
their ancestors had come. Linked to
the rituals of women’s transition to ANTIOQUIA
puberty and the flirtatious play of
signals between the main singer and Enlarged
the drummer, bullerengue consists of area
SANTANDER
improvising verses over a responsorial Medellín
chorus, the execution of the alegre colombia
(female) and llamador (male) drums,
and the playing of palmas or tablitas
in what is known as bailes cantaos—a BOYACÁ
sung dance.
This musical expression spread CALDAS
throughout the lands of the maroons RISARALDA
in the Darien region, through the Manizales CUNDINAMARCA
present-day departments of Bolivar, Despite certain traditional patterns,
Pereira
Sucre, and Cordoba. It is thought to in recent years more and more men TOLIMA
have expanded to the area of Urabá are seen as lead singers and women Bogotá D. C.
Armenia
Antioqueño, through the Atrato as drummers. Ibagué
River and linked to the celebration Bullerengue comes in three aires QUINDÍO
of Catholic saints, in the eighteenth or moods: sentao, chalupa, and fan-
century. Although in recent years, at dango. The bullerengue fandango is
the juncture of Afro heritage and iden- also known as porro, and although
tity, bullerengue finds more and more the association is not very clear, it
young singers with trained voices, the must have some relation with the
essence of bullerengue is still associ- rhythm called porro, also typical of
ated with the singers who learned the the Colombian Caribbean, specifi-
art by family tradition, improvising cally of the current departments of
verses while washing laundry at the Córdoba, Sucre, and Bolívar. Purists
river, hulling rice, or shelling corn. locate its origin in the indigenous gaita
 Riohacha
LA GUAJIRA
Valledupar
Venezuela
NORTE DE
SANTANDER
Cúcuta
Bucaramanga
groups, to which the African rhythm
was added later and, like bullerengue,
it was also played with drums and
accompanied by clapping and singing.
The word porro in fact derives from
the porra or manduco with which the
drum was beaten, or to a small drum
called porro or perrito.
Influenced by European marching
bands, wind instruments, such as the
euphonium, trumpet, clarinet, and
trombone were later added to porro
along with other percussion instru-
ments such as the snare drum and
cymbals that lend it the flavor for
which it is known both in Colombia
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
and abroad. Depending on its form,
it is classified as porro palitiao and
porro tapao. In the nineteen forties
and fifties, porro had moments of
splendor, played by large orchestras
such as those led by Lucho Bermúdez
and Pacho Galán.
Today the tradition is kept alive
by events such as the National Porro
Festival, held in San Pelayo (Córdoba),
the National Encounter of Bands
in Sincelejo (Sucre), the National
Encounter of Porro and Clarinet
Bands in Carmen de Bolívar (Bolívar),
and the Porro Cantao Festival in San
78-79
Marcos (Sucre).
 Tourist region Living
The Greater Colombian culture
Caribbean
Apüshana o Walepúshana

The Wayuu
The friends of united blood

Vulture: samüt

universe Epieyú

The natives of their own home

Turkey vulture: autaoropo

The Wayuu consider themselves Siijuna

a nation that does not always The brave sentries of their tribe
coincide with modern countries’ Wasp: ko`oi
idea of nationhood, but their
defense of their customs and Paüsayúu
sovereignty, despite the daily The jealous of their home
hardships they face, speaks of Repelón
their resilient character.

Their cosmogony says that they were Wuliana

born of the union of Iwa —the spring
rain— and the traveling wind of Cabo
de la Vela, but Keralia —the moving
fire of the nights— was always lurking
and that is why they are a people of Ipuana
the sea, the breeze, and salt, but also Those who live on the stones
of suns, deserts, and droughts. The
Wayuu see themselves as a nation Hawk, karikare
whose territories go beyond the bor-
ders of modern nation-states, and so
they share territory with their brothers Uliyuu
who live in the neighboring country of Those of serene gait
Venezuela, where their space extends
as far as Lake Maracaibo. In Colombia, Ant eater: walit
they live in the northernmost part of
the country, on the peninsula of La
Guajira, where they have subsisted Uraliyúu
on cattle herding, agriculture, fishing, Those of plumed bravery
salt mining, and trade. In recent times,
they have also grown extensively as Rattlesnake: ma´ala
craftspeople.
They are the most numerous eth-
nic group in Colombia, representing their customs and cultural dynamics, occupied by clans, or lineages, and
19.42% of the country’s total indig- reflecting their capacity for resilience. they commonly live in rancherías or
enous population. Although 98.03% Their language, Wayuunaiki, piichipala in matrilineal societies in
of their population lives in the resguar- belongs to the large family of Arawak which maternal uncles are of funda-
dos in the department of La Guajira, languages; the vast majority are mental importance. They usually play
small groups inhabit the departments bilingual (speaking Spanish and traditional music on flutes, canutillas,
of Cesar and Magdalena. Despite their Wayuunaiki), but some of the inhabit- and drums at their festivities and
historical closeness to the often con- ants of the middle and upper Guajira ceremonies. Their most important
flicting white and mestizo worlds, they speak only their mother tongue. ceremonies are the rituals surround-
have been very zealous in preserving The territory is divided into spaces ing death —when two funerals are held:
 WAYUU CLANS, SYMBOLS,
Uriana AND THEIR MEANINGS
The stealthy-eyed
Clan or cast
Tiger, cat, and rabbit
Meaning

Totem
Juusayú

The meek of fierce haughtiness

Savannah snake: kasiwanot

Jaya´aliyú

Those who always look ready

Fox, dog: apüche and erü

Pushaina
The hurtful ones, the ones with
fiery blood
Wakiros, ko´oi

Jirnúu or Jinúu

The bushy-tailed

Fox

Woluwoouliyúu

The whitish-colored

Partridge

Waliliyúu or Wouliyúu

The light-footed

Crepuscular birds

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Ulewana

The meek trackers

Lizard

Epinayú

Those who hit hard on the roads

one at the time of death and a second Deer, King vulture

two years later, when the remains are
exhumed, removed, venerated, and
reburied— and marriage.
In 2010, UNESCO recognized the
Wayuu normative system applied
Intangible Heritage of Humanity. palabreros as important figures in han-
By doing so, it recognized the set of dling these codes, through which the
principles, procedures, and rites that logic of reparation and compensation
80-81

by the Pütchipü’üi (palabrero) as govern the community and the Wayuu between the clans is maintained.
 Tourist region
The Greater Colombian Archeology
Caribbean

Teyuna: the foundations

of the region’s
ancestral identity
In the mid-nineteen seventies, the
foundations of an ancient city in the middle
of the jungle taught the nation of the
importance, wisdom, and social complexity
of the indigenous peoples that inhabited and
still inhabit the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

It was never lost. The less durable

materials were consumed by time
and the stone foundations were cov-
ered by earth, mud, and weeds after
the indigenous people who inhabited
it —called Tayronas by the Spaniards—
abandoned it in the seventeenth
century. Teyuna, which after its resto-
ration came to be known as the Lost
City or Buritaca-200, was a city built
1,200 meters above sea level, on the
northern side of the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta in the ninth century AD.
No one knows exactly why the city
was abandonned, but experts say
that it continued to function after the
Spanish conquest as part of a complex
of cities connected by stone roads The Black Line
and bridges scattered throughout the
Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Most
or Sei Shizha
likely, it was affected by the diseases It is an imaginary line that determines the
that ravaged the region with the area of ecological and cultural influence of
arrival of the Spaniards. It is estimated the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada the site and officially began the pro-
that the city was home to between de Santa Marta in connection with their cess of restoring the area. There were
2,000 and 8,000 people. principles of the origin of life. It was officially 200 structures altogether: circular
In the nineteen seventies, rumors recognized by Resolution No. 2-1973, issued houses, plazas, ceremonial areas,
began to arrive in Santa Marta of by the Ministry of Government. food storage sites, and roads that
the existence of a stone place that formed a complex of terraces con-
guaqueros or treasure hunters from the then Colombian Institute of nected by stone stairways.
regularly visited to look for gold and Anthropology (ICAN) ascended the The restoration process took place
objects to trade. In 1976, a group of sierra with the help of two guaqueros between 1976 and 1982, and in 1981
anthropologists and archaeologists who acted as guides. They arrived at the Lost City archaeological park

opened to the public. Teyuna —which
means “origins of the peoples of the
earth”— had been the ceremonial
and economic center of the Tayrona
people. The four indigenous groups
that today inhabit the Sierra Nevada
de Santa Marta —the Kogi, Arhuaco,
Wiwa, and Kankuamo— have always
known of it and consider it the center
of the earth. It is one of the sacred
1200
stone steps
lead up to the site of
Teyuna. 216 terraces have
been found to date; 211 are
circular and 4 are square.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
places along what they call the Black
Line, which defines the perimeter of
their ancestral territory.
In 1979, the Sierra Nevada de Santa
Marta was declared a UNESCO World
Biosphere Reserve, and in 2002, the
Lost City was recognized as a World
Heritage Site. In the memory of its
indigenous peoples, it is a city that was
never lost, and Teyuna represents the
82-83
most solid foundations of the region’s
ancestral identity.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Greater Colombian spiritual tourism
Caribbean

The colors of faith

One of the religious events that arouses most
fervor in the Colombian Caribbean is the cult
of the Miraculous Christ of San Benito de Abad.
However, the expression of faith in the Colombian
Caribbean is more social and cultural than it is
explicitly religious, and contribute fundamentally
to the region’s identity.

Fiestas de la Virgen
de la Candelaria
Cartagena de Indias, February

Semana Santa en Mompox

Sometimes, religious faith manifests
itself in interesting ways. Nothing
that arrives in the region remains
unchanged. After centuries of
exchange with the Arab world, and in
spite of the controversies this entailed,
the religious expressions that arrived
from the Iberian Peninsula were
already the product of a syncretic pro-
cess that had emerged from the reali-
ties of re-conquest and colonization.
A significant number of these expres-
sions are central to the identity of
parts of the Colombian Caribbean, as
they have gone beyond the exclusively
Se
Mompox, Holy week
religious and been transformed into
social and cultural phenomena.
History says that in 1678, a statue
of Christ was brought from La Coruña
(Spain) to the town of Villa de San
Benito Abad de Tacasuán, founded
in 1669 to contribute to the fight
against paganism. Since then, the has
been venerated every September 14
(the Day of the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross) and every Sunday during Lent.
Faith and legend, on the other hand,
Fiesta de la Virgen de los
Remedios (“La Vieja Mello”)
Riohacha, February
say that there were three different
Christs and that one fine day three
men arrived in the region, mysteri-
ously stayed in an inn without eating
or drinking anything for three days
and that the only sounds that emerged
from the room were those of hammer
blows on wood.

Procesión del
Santo Ecce Homo
Valledupar, Holy Monday (Holy week)
On the fourth day, the proprietor
decided to break down the door
and when she entered there was no
trace of the three gentlemen. But
she did find three figures, each in its
own drawer, and each with a name
inscribed on it: Villa de Mompox, Villa
de Zaragoza, and Villa de Tacasuán.
The Christ of Mompox was white. The
color of the Christ of Zaragoza is not
specified, but the legend does say
that when it was taken to the town a
Fiesta del Corpus Christi
Atanquez (Cesar), June
madman broke one of the ribs of the
statue and replaced it with wood from
a maquenque palm, which occasionally
bled once it had become a part of the
body of the Savior.
The Christ of Villa de San Benito
Abad de Tacasuán was black and
remained in the town. Its miraculous
nature soon became the talk of the
region. Since then, in a tradition that
continues today, pilgrims from all
over the Colombian Caribbean have
descended on this town in the San
Jorge region to ask this black Jesus
for a miracle or to thank Him for those
already granted. On the days the Christ
is taken from the church and processed
Fiesta de San Agatón
Mamatoco (Santa Marta), February
through the streets a frenzy of prayer,
proclamation, votive candles, and fies-
tas takes over the town.
Long ago, traders —some of whom
came from the interior of the coun-
try— took advantage of these faithful
pilgrims, organizing fairs and markets
to deprive them of their money. The
same happens today, but perhaps less
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
extravagantly. Excursions are orga-
nized from the principal cities of the
Colombian Caribbean, and locals line
the roads that lead into town hoping to
benefit from the charity of the faithful
who in turn have been helped by the
statue of Christ. During this period of
the year, street food and jewelry sales
are a constant, by day and by night.
There is a popular vallenato song
that has the singer say that his heart
is like a village fiesta. There can be no
doubt that when he wrote this song he
was thinking of the religious festivals
of the villages of the Caribbean, where
84-85
faith transcends religion and cements
the bonds of cultural identity.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The Colombian
Pacific
Malpelo

Fairs and festivals » 90

Religious and spiritual tourism » 98

Archeology » 104

Living culture » 108

Gastronomy » 114

Towns with heritage » 120

Urban culture » 122

 Panama

Quibdó

CHOCÓ

VALLE DEL
CAUCA
pacific ocean

Cali

Gorgona
CAUCA

NARIÑO

Ecuador
 Tourist region
The Colombian Pacific

INTRODUCTION

Land of contrasts
and resistance
Heavy rains and intense sun fall on the jungles of the
Pacific throughout the year. The thunder rumbles
inclemently, and the downpours seem to announce a
kind of end. But then comes the morning breeze, which
serves as a prelude to a sun that will scorch the skin of
those who toil in the mountains and rivers. The climate is
intense, as intense as the laughter and voices that drift
across the villages, and the guayacanes that support
the palafitic houses, the lamentation and sadness. Just
as intense is the hand that beats the drum that makes
bodies and memories rumble.

The Colombian Pacific —Chocó, Valle

del Cauca, Cauca, and Nariño— encom-
passes the territory of the Western
Cordillera of the Colombian Andes with
the mountains and jungles bordering
the Pacific Ocean. It is crisscrossed by
rivers that rise in the mountain range
and flow into the sea. The forests
and more than 200,000 hectares of
mangrove are home to an immense
biological wealth that makes this terri-
tory one of the most biodiverse places
in the world.
Faced with the rebelliousness of the
native populations and the impossibil-
ity of the Spanish colonial company to
subdue the indigenous communities
that populated the lowlands of the
Colombian Pacific, and in the face of
multiple clashes and the burning of
the Spanish settlements, the invaders
found it necessary to ask the Crown to
import manpower from Africa. during the slave trade and in response
Thus, Afro-descendant communities to the demand for labor to obtain gold
arrived in the Pacific at the end of the from the gold deposits. And so it was
17th and beginning of the 18th century that, beginning in the 1690s, the Chocó

territory, in the north-eastern corner
of Colombia, south of Panama, began
to be populated by mining crews of
enslaved Africans distributed from
Cartagena or from other enclaves of
the colonial slave trade, such as the
settlements bordering the Cauca River.
The Afro-descendants of the
Colombian Pacific suffered immense
losses due to colonial domination
strategies, which continued until many
years after the abolition of slavery in
the mid-19th century. Despite this and
the Catholic Church’s indoctrination,
both Afro-descendants and indigenous
people preserved their cultural prac-
tices by resisting in many ways. They
also redesigned and reinvented many
of the scenarios of Catholic doctrine,
which, today are seen as symbols of
their resistance.
But there are many more aspects
that define the Colombian Pacific:
its archaeological remains, whose
epicenter is in Santa María la Antigua
del Darién; the indigenous communi-
ties that populate the mountains and
jungles, and the worldviews that shape
and preserve their territories; the
festive and spiritual universes of the
Afro-descendant populations, charac-
terized by the close ties that bind their
community together.
We also have the city of Cali, rec-
ognized as the capital of the Pacific,
whose economic growth was accom-
panied by the emergence of a working
class that quickly made West Indian
culture the hallmark of the city. This
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
did not, however, prevent the cultural
expressions of the coastal peoples —
their music, their cuisine, their aesthet-
ics— from being inserted, at the end
of the 20th century, through settings
such as the Petronio Álvarez Festival.
Finally, the Afro-descendant dias-
pora has developed most extensively
is the municipal capitals of the Pacific:
Buenaventura, Quibdó, Tumaco, and
Guapi. Cinema, urban dance, hip-hop
culture, and emerging musical genres
such as salsa choque have provided a
space of expression in which locals can
narrate their tradition, and construct
88-89
new narratives in an environment linked
to poverty, conflict, and exclusion.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Colombian Pacific festivals

A land of saints
The black communities of the
Colombian Pacific appropriated
their saints from the Church,
and made them their allies,
friends, and accomplices.
The festivals in which they
celebrate them became acts of
struggle and resistance to the
symbolic universe that came
with the conquest.

The patron saint festivals in the vil-

lages mark the cultural scene and
the calendar of the Colombian Pacific
coast. You might think that these
festivities that revolve around saints
point to the Afro-Pacific populations’
assimilation of a Catholic culture, but
in truth, they are one of the most
interesting examples of symbolic
struggle and transgression in the his-
tory of Latin America.
Every village, hamlet, and town has
its own patron saint, and the day on
which it is celebrated divides the year
into a before and after. It is around
this day that partnerships are forged,
young people are introduced to soci-
ety, the “scattered family” gathers,
myths of origin are revived, and the
stories that identify and unite the com-
munity are passed on to the children.
These fiestas, celebrating saints or the
virgin, include various aspects: lighting
candles, parades, and balsadas or boat
parades, mass services, and dances.
When devotees gather to light
candles —one of the most special cel-
ebrations— they sing and pray all night
long in front of an altar, decorated
with candles and flowers. There are
processions that begin and end at the
church, and boat parades carrying the
saints in processions along the river or
in the sea.
The parades are made up of differ-
ent aspects, including the alborada:
a route that the parishioners take at
five in the morning and during which
musical pieces are performed in the
most emblematic parts of the town.
In the south, the saints are honored
with drums, maracas, or guasás; in
the San Juan and part of the Atrato
rivers, the musicians play the chirimía;
in Bajo Atrato and Baudó, sextets play
the bongo drums, charrasca, tambora,
requinta, bells and cymbals. If only
percussion instruments are available,
the melody is left to the singers, who
warm up their throats with viches,
balsamicas, and curadas.
The priests are in charge of the
mass services, and if there are no
priests, it is up to community members
to perform the services. Finally, there
are the dances, where the people from
Indigenous musicians, often gather on
the coasts of Nuquí, Bajo Baudó, Juradó,
and Bahía Solano to play their aluminum
or PVC flutes —formerly made of reed—
accompanying candle-lighting celebrations
and processions with their melodies.
the headwaters, the villages and the
most remote rural areas dress up in
their best clothes and show off their
golden garments to dance the night
away.
The history of the saints is closely
linked to the economic and political
events surrounding mining, enslave-
ment, manumission, and the aboli-
tion process that ended up closing
the royal mines in the jungles of
Chocó. This is the case of Santo Ecce
Homo de Raspadura, an oil painting
with the image of a suffering Christ

(probably from the 17th century) and
whose sanctuary attracts more than
50,000 pilgrims every year; with heal-
ing mass services held every Sunday.
Parishioners bathe in holy water, light
their candles, walk around the saint,
touch the image with cotton wool
soaked in holy water, bow down, and
walk on their knees in front of him,
fulfilling their mandates and making
new promises.
The people of the Pacific consider
the link with their saints to be a privi-
lege that will allow them to care for
and revitalize the social fabric. The cel-
ebrations preserve the oral tradition,
the songs, the playing of instruments
with typical ensembles, ancestral
drinks, sweets, and traditional dishes.
And such is their importance, that
Balsadas or marineras
These consist of a wooden platform that
joins two boats that hold the patron saint,
often with a thatched roof to protect the
singers from the sun and rain while they
sail along the river, performing their songs.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
these festivities have been embraced
by Afro-Pacific migrant populations in
cities such as Cali, Medellín, Bogotá,
and Pereira, where the colonies have
the opportunity to reconnect with the
territory and maintain family unity in
90-91
the midst of new contexts.
 Tourist region
The Colombian Pacific
San Pacho, of
the people and
for the people
Besides being one of the longest lasting
celebrations in the country, the feast of San
Francisco de Asís in Quibdó has become a
recreational and religious reference for the
region’s other municipalities and townships.
September 3
Announcing the approaching celebrations.
The feast of San Francisco de Asís in
Quibdó may seem like a carnival for
its revelry, dances, and color, but it is,
in fact, a religious festivity that is more
than 300 years old and commemorates
the arrival of the Franciscan missions
that came to catechize the indigenous
peoples of the Province of Citará. It
became San Pacho when a group of
neighborhood leaders, led by matron
Raimunda Cuesta, decided to “snatch”
the saint from the church and, since
1926, consolidated its own celebration.
In the early hours of the morning
on September 3rd, amidst gunpowder
and chirimías, the dawn announces the
upcoming celebrations. The next event,
known as El Bando, is held on September
19. On a float along the Franciscan route,
a town crier announces the “rules” for
the celebrations to the beat of a drum.
Fairs and
festivals
September 19
El Bando, a town crier announces the opening
of the festivities on the following day.
September 20, the “day of the
flags,” is the official start: different
troupes in colorful costumes called
cachés, and accompanied by chirimías,
form a long parade led by the twelve
presidents who proudly carry the flags
of their neighborhoods, the president
of Fundación Fiestas Franciscana with
the baton of command, and the mayor
of the city.
The Franciscan quarters begins
festivities on September 21. Every day,
the neighbourhood in charge puts on
a mass service in the morning, and at
noon they go out in their costumes or
comparsas, with chirimías, and with the
president holding the baton and the
September 20
The “Day of the flags,” marks the official start.
neighborhood’s flag. The evening brings
the verbena with music and dances, and
the neighbors turn the evening into a
pretext to eat and drink typical regional
food with friends and strangers.
On October 2, the last neighbor-
hood comes out and on October 3, all
the neighborhoods come out together
to be admired by the townsfolk and
those that come from neighboring
towns. The balsadas are also out on
that day, a beautiful spectacle of boats
traveling down the Atrato River to the
sound of gunpowder and chirimías.
 Cultural Heritage The Franciscan
Quibdo’s San Pacho celebrations, neighborhoods
the city’ most important Enlarged
area
symbolic event, have been on
the UNESCO Representative
colombia
List of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage of Humanity since 2012.

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Cristo Rey, César Conto,

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El Silencio, Roma, Alameda

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Reyes, Yesca Grande and Yesquita

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COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

October 4
The Gozos begin at 3:00 a. m.
The event commemorates the arrival
of Fray Matías Abad in 1648, with the
painting of St. Francis of Assisi.
At 3:00 a.m. on October 4, the
Gozos begins. The St. Francis of
Assisi band leaves the cathedral with
the faithful and the members of the
church behind it, and passes through
the altars prepared by the religious
committees of the different neighbor-
October 5
The celebrations end wit the “lowering of the flag.”
have already joined the procession to
reach the cathedral and listen to the
mass. At noon, the faithful wait at the
cathedral for the departure of the
Patron Saint to begin the Procesión
Mayor, in which the neighborhoods
await San Francisco, the band and
the faithful, with huge arches and
street installations that recreate
The disfraces
These floats are among the most
emblematic elements in the neighborhood
parades, recreating scenes of social and
political protest to the problems affecting
the department and the nation.
hundreds of believers arrive at the
Cathedral to attend the High Mass. On
October 5, the festivities come to an
end with the lowering of the flags, and
the announcement of the results for
the different contests: costume, floats,
92-93

hoods. At dawn, thousands of people scenes depicting the saint. At the end, arches, and street decorations.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Colombian Pacific festivals

El Barrio Obrero
and Juanchito

Identity, music, Are key when it comes to talking about

the city’s dance halls and meeting

and celebration in
places for music lovers. El Chorrito
Antillano, La Nellyteca, El Habanero and
Alalaé, in Alameda Park, are temples of
guaracha and guaguancó.

the heart of salsa

It is said that Cali, besides being
a branch of heaven, is the world
capital of salsa and has built its
identity around listening, dancing,
and playing West Indian music. But it
is also the capital of the Colombian
Pacific, where the people of the
jungles, rivers, seas, and mountains
that border the coast come together.
Its festivals, trades, and exhibitions
are an example of this.

While the social, economic, and cul-

tural history of Cali in the twentieth
century can be read in light of its
strong connection to the Caribbean,
the twenty-first century has been
profoundly marked by its connection
to the Pacific. The Afro-descendant
peoples who have migrated from their
ancestral territories to the city have,
in just a few decades, transformed the
city’s sonorous, gastronomic, and fes-
tive landscapes.
The old Antillean music, son, dan-
zón, guaguancó, guaracha, mambo,
chachachá and pachanga marked Cali began by imitating Cuban dancers, but soon
musical life in the first half of the forged its own style, la salsa caleña, characterized
twentieth century; after the sixties, by elaborate steps and complex acrobatics.
salsa from New York and Puerto Rico
brought a real revolution to the city. haciendas there was a majority black
Caribbean music had a great impact on population, and from 1940 to 1965, the
the construction of Cali’s identity for city went from having 100,000 inhab-
several reasons; one of them is that its itants to having 600,000. In 1950,
popular narrative did not have its own Cali assumed a modernizing project lovers, and cabaret theater— were
music, but, above all, because with in which the cultural industry —radio, allies and witnesses of the emergence
mining exploration and agricultural literature, dance companies, music of a new social dynamic that found in

the black presence, and the lifestyles
derived from the sugar industry, a fer-
tile ground for the influence of West
Indian culture.
From social dances, family par-
ties, verbenas, and quota parties, Cali
began to produce great events, funda-
mental for the positioning of the great
salsa performers. It was thus that salsa
in Cali became a hallmark, allowing it
to narrate itself, promoting trades, and
giving rise to or strengthening festivi-
ties and scenarios such as La Feria de
Cali, the Festival Mundial de la Salsa,
and the Encuentro de Melómanos y
Coleccionistas, among others.
La Feria de Cali was launched in 1957
as a key event for the positioning of a
booming economy around sugar cane
(in fact, La Feria de Cali was originally
La Feria de la Caña or the Sugar Cane
Fair. Its main stages were the Plaza de
Toros and the Reinado. Subsequently,
casetas —which would later underpin
the city’s salsa identity— appeared,
In 1968, Richie Rey and Bobby Cruz began to
add to the legacy of songs dedicated to Cali by
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
the greatest salsa performers.
along with its epicenters, Juanchito
and Barrio Obrero. An example of the
importance of Cali in the building of
a memory around salsa is the Salsa
Museum, with more than 50 years of
history and more than 40,000 pho-
tographs of the great performers of
the genre.
The eighties in Cali witnessed the
emergence of a new musical dynamic in
which musicians from the Pacific, such
as Jairo Varela, Yuri Buenaventura, and
Alexis Lozano, stole the hearts of Caleños
94-95
with songs like Cali Pachanguero, and
Oiga, mire, vea among many others.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Colombian Pacific festivals

Petronio Álvarez:
the jungle comes
to town
While the second half of the twentieth century in
Santiago de Cali was marked by a cosmopolitan
cultural life revolving around Antillean rhythms,
cabarets, and salsa orchestras, the twenty-first
century unveils a new cultural field in which the
territories of the Pacific coast are recognized
for their sounds and aesthetic universes. Bodies
dancing and resonating, downing viche drinks and
encocados, pursue their black heritage, configuring
from there the emergence of an identity.

Santiago de Cali, known as the capital

of the Colombian Pacific, is the city
that has received the largest number
of migrants from the western part of
the country. In the mid-nineteenth
century it had a population of no more
than 20,000 inhabitants and a society
based on servitude and a conservative
mentality built on the “good customs”
of the local elite. In the twentieth
century, the modernization project
consolidated with the construction of
the port in Buenaventura, made Cali a
strategic city in the national economy, strong migration from rural regions Some of the musical groups have to travel for
with a labor force made up, mainly and municipal capitals of Nariño, up to three days by canoe, speedboat, and
of the descendants of the old sugar Cauca, Chocó, and Valle del Cauca. bus, while others arrive by plane. In truth,
hacienda employees and mining crew This brought new residents to the city although at the beginning the groups that
slaves. Popular music, then, reflects who reproduced the festive dynam- participated in the festival came from coastal
the feelings of a working class, and ics, spirituality, and traditions of their municipalities and towns, Petronio later
the rhythms and lyrics of the West peoples with their marimba and chir- became a showcase for other popular and
Indies were quickly appropriated by imías music, the old bambucos, jugas, academic musicians who decided to approach
the city. bundes, and currulaos, mixed with previously unknown genres of an enigmatic
However, towards the end of the pachanga, guaracha, and guaguancó. and foreign region. The open competition
twentieth century, another social In the midst of the cultural scene, allowed jazz, rock, salsa, and reggae to merge
phenomenon changed the soundscape the Afro-Pacific population found with abozaos and currulaos, thus providing a
and cultural dynamics of the city: the a space for the recognition and pretext to celebrate diversity.

Turbans
Turbans became a symbol of the festival.
During the five days of the event, women from
various parts of the country wear colorful
turbans that recall a history of enslavement
and subjugation —but also of resistance— of of
Afro-descendant women.
reaffirmation of their identity: dance
groups in universities, bands that
fused vernacular music with popu-
lar music, and seafood restaurants
became the main agents that would
announce a new cultural agenda that
the Petronio Alvarez Pacific Music
Festival continues to headline. Petronio
was born in 1996 at the initiative of
Germán Patiño, who was the depart-
mental secretary of culture and knew
how to read the new dynamics in the
social fabric of the city. Patiño under-
stood that there was a population that
in part longed for places to gather, but
above all, it longed for recognition in
a city that regarded itself as mestizo,
even though it was profoundly black.
Grupo Bahía, La Contundencia, Saboreo,
Canalón de Timbiquí, ChocQuibTown,
Herencia de Timbiquí, Los Balanta, Pichindé,
Rancho Aparte, Zully Murillo, Nidia Góngora,
Esteban Copete, Hugo Candelario González,
Marquitos Micolta, and Baudilio Guama are
some of the artists and groups that have
been vaulted to national and international
recognition at Petronio.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
That is how Petronio became one of
the most important cultural events in
the country, with its marimba, chirimía,
Cauca violin, and open competitions.
The festival is a stage where the
cultural manifestations and aesthetic
values of the black people of the
Colombian Pacific circulate and are
transformed. Hairstyling, fashion,
food, and drinks accompany the musi-
cal performances and further enliven
audiences as they dance and celebrate
96-97
the African roots of a country and an
entire diaspora.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Colombian Pacific spiritual tourism

Saying farewell
to the dead, and
accompanying
the living
The alabaos and gualíes or
songs of praise that are sung in
the funeral rites of the Pacific,
connect the community, remind
us that there is a collective that
supports us, and turn the sounds
into a place for consolation.

The alabaos are an encounter

between the Hispanic and African
heritage in which a crier narrates a
story, and the choir responds again
and again, making the funeral rite a
space for building bonds and a sooth-
ing balm for grief.
It is musically characterized by the
psalmody accent typical of Christian
exaltations and the musical scale that
evokes plainchant. Its texts come
from ancient repertoires of Spanish
ballads that recreate biblical episodes
and are mixed with stories of daily life
in the jungles and rivers. Sometimes
they combine passages referring to
the life of the deceased and mysti-
cal exhortations. In recent decades
and with the worsening of the armed
conflict in the territories, the alabaos
ceased to serve exclusively as funer-
ary songs, and turned into a way for
the black populations to express their
social denunciations.
The gualí, or chigualo is sung at
wakes for children under eleven or
twelve years of age and celebrates the
return to a world without suffering or
The alabaos
Have been divided into two groups: major
and minor praises. The major alabaos are
dedicated to God and Jesus Christ, and the
minor alabaos to all the saints and all kinds of
profane matters.
slavery. The songs —mostly romantic
or bundes— are accompanied by per-
cussion while the singers make jokes
and play games that encourage the
accompanists to join in the ritual. At
the same time, they allow them to
demonstrate their improvisation skills
and storytelling abilities. The altars
are decorated with candles, flowers,
wreaths, and ribbons to guide the
souls of the deceased to eternity for
nine days. The raising of the grave
is at dawn on the last day, when the
chants and prayers start up again,
and family members, friends, and
neighbors once again feel the pain of
the departure.
In recent decades, these ritual
practices have been lost through
social changes and the assimilation of
new ways of life in the territories. To
safeguard the tradition, alabaos and
gualíes were included on the National
Cultural Heritage List in 2015, thanks
in part, to the Encuentro de Alabaos,
Gualíes y Levantamientos de Tumba
in Andagoya, the municipal capital of
Medio San Juan.
 COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The Encuentro de Alabaos, Gualíes y

Levantamiento de Tumba is an important
event for cultural exchange, attended by
people from different towns and villages
that come to the event to sing and pray. It is
not a competition, but a space for sharing
and recognizing each other. The meeting
is held every year at the Primero de Mayo
Theater in Andagoya (Chocó), one of the
98-99

most important pieces of architectural

heritage of the Colombian Pacific.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Colombian Pacific spiritual tourism

The city’s natural environment is one of its great

Religious faith
attractions. Páramo de Las Hermosas National
Natural Park —the largest tropical dry forest
reserve in the Cauca Valley— and the Sonso and

conquers
Calima lakes, among other attractions, speak of
the territory’s rich biodiversity.

the páramo
In the center of Valle del Cauca lies
Guadalajara de Buga, renowned for
its basilica and cathedral, the city’s
culture, and the biodiversity of its
surroundings. It is one of the oldest
cities in Colombia and currently the
only Pacific municipality that is part
of the network of heritage towns.

Guadalajara de Buga’s original loca-

tion was very inconvenient. The
moorlands above the mountain range
lacked land for livestock and agricul-
ture. And its geographical position
was far from the trade routes of the
time. The choice of this site can only
be explained by military strategy; the
Spaniards made it a center for the
conquest of the numerous indigenous
tribes that populated the territory.
They soon overpowered and destroyed
the native population to expropriate
their lands, and then founded the city
on the moors.
Ten years later, the city was moved (which at the time gave the city its Beginning the middle of the 16th century,
closer to the riverbanks where it was name: Guadalajara de la Victoria). The Buga’s town council attended all the
warmer and the land was better suited waters of the river gave birth to the celebrations organized in the parish
to cultivation and livestock raising; city’s people’s devotion to the miracu- church, today the Cathedral of San Pedro
this is where Buga is today. Located in lous Christ, which laid the foundations Apóstol, and the processions. On Maundy
the foothills of the Central Cordillera, of the Catholic faith among the indig- Thursday, it was customary to release a
on the right bank of the Guadalajara enous and peasant population and prisoner and the chapter ordered that all
River, which crosses the city from east led to the construction of the basilica. those in discord had to reconcile or face
to west, the city has been celebrating Today, Buga is one of the few cities severe punishment in the main square.
Holy Week since the mid-16th century. in the world to have both a cathedral
It is the so-called Ciudad Señora of and a basilica. Perhaps because it is one of the oldest
Colombia, chosen to build the cathe- But popular religiosity has not cities in the country, Buga’s history
dral, under the patronage of Nuestra only molded the architecture, it has is also manifested in the number of
Señora de la Concepción de la Victoria also shaped people’s everyday lives. legends and popular beliefs created

pacific
ocean
Buenaventura
NARIÑO
The story goes that an indigenous woman who
was washing in the river found a small crucifix.
The crucifix grew bigger and bigger after the
bishop of Popayán ordered it to be burnt at
the beginning of the 17th century. It is said
that, among the embers, the Christ became
brighter and grew in size. This is why the
Miraculous Christ is one of the most faithful
emblems of resistance in the nations’ popular
spirituality. Every year thousands of pilgrims,
nearly three million visitors from all over the
world, flock to the basilica in Buga, whose
construction began in 1907.
to lead its inhabitants away from the
path of evil and bringing their spirits
closer to the path of Christ.
Quibdó
CHOCÓ
VALLE DEL
CAUCA
Buga
Cali
CAUCA
Popayán
Enlarged
area colombia
Although it is now identified with
intense religious activity, Buga had
a golden age: in the 20th century,
when the idea that religion could be
a tourist resource was still distant,
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
the city was known for its important
agro-industrial development, the
celebration of popular festivals, the
preparation of typical dishes and
music, which, between 1915 and 1950,
was so important that it made Buga
the musical center of the region.
The consolidation of religious tour-
ism is relatively recent. Today, the
hotel sector and the sale of religious
articles are two of the main sources of
income for many families. With a well-
preserved colonial architecture and
republican buildings, this municipality
today preserves more than 440 years
100-101
of history and significant samples of
its colonial past.
 Tourist region
The Colombian Pacific
Indigenous
spirituality, between
the jungle, the river,
and the mountain
One aspect of the resistance of the
native groups of the Pacific lowlands
to colonial rule was their ungovernable
character, based on care for the land,
respect and understanding of the beings
that inhabit it (plants and animals), and
the persistence of their traditions.
The indigenous peoples living in
the Colombian Pacific are the Cuna,
Wounaan, Eperara Siapidara, Awá,
Embera Dobidá, Katío, Eyabida, and
Chamí. Each of these groups belongs to
different linguistic families, has its own
forms of governance, and, although
they are no longer nomadic, they have
all found a way to preserve their culture
by moving to more distant territories.
For indigenous peoples, territory is
the mother, so their greatest struggle is
to defend the land, especially its sacred
sites. The survival and harmony of all
that exists depends on these sites and
the beings that inhabit them. This is
how we understand indigenous spiritu-
ality, daily life, and economy, which are
sustained by the rites of passage, the
construction of tambos, and the use of
genipa and other medicinal plants.
The spirituality of the indigenous
peoples of the Pacific is centered on
the figure of the Jaibaná or shaman,
who works to balance animate and
inanimate beings. Through songs,
knowledge of plants and the preserva-
tion of myths of origin through words,
Religious and
spiritual tourism
the Jaibanás (traditional sages) keep
the worldview alive and strengthen the
link with their territory.
However, each indigenous group
expresses its spirituality in different
ways, with its own rituals and cus-
toms. The Awá (people of the moun-
tain or people of the jungle), who live
between the departments of Nariño
and Putumayo, reflect their worldview
in their weaving. Their baskets are an
expression of family unity and spiri-
tual strength.
Their main instrument is the
marimba, which is played in healing
rituals and at community gatherings.
The Embera Eyabida-Embera Katío
(people of the forest) inhabit parts of
Chocó, Antioquia, Córdoba, Risaralda,
and Quindío. The basis of the Katío
world revolves around the word, and the
elders and the tabarau are in charge of
giving others the word.
The Tambo
It is the home and meeting place of the
Embera people of the Pacific. It symbolizes
family, unity, and fertility. It is the main setting
for spiritual life.
Through words, they manage
their conflicts and achieve a balance
between the three worlds: the world
above, the human world (where the
Embera live), and the world below
(where the Jaibaná originate).
The Embera Dobidá (river people)
live mainly in Chocó. Ãkore and Phapha
(father and mother) created the
Embera from the heart of the okendo
tree. And to the first elder brothers,
Karagabi, Thruthruika and Phãkore,
they left the mandate of relationship
between men and nature so that all
beings could live in harmony.
 caribbean
sea Tolú Venezuela
Sincelejo

SUCRE
Panama
Montería INDIGENOUS GROUPS

CÓRDOBA The Embera Eyabida-Embera Katío

Turbo Enlarged
area The Embera Chamí
colombia
The Cuna

The Wounaan

ANTIOQUIA The Eperara Siapidara

The Embera Dobidá

Medellín

Quibdó

RISARALDA CALDAS
CHOCÓ Manizales
pacific
Pereira
ocean Armenia
QUINDÍO

Buenaventura VALLE DEL

CAUCA TOLIMA
Cali

CAUCA Neiva
Popayán
HUILA

Tumaco
NARIÑO

Pasto

Ecuador

The Kipará

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The Jaibaná (man or woman) plays a
central role in maintaining the Embera
cultural identity. Jaibanismo is practically
integrated into all daily activities: hunting,
fishing, and agriculture, among others.
The Embera Chamí (mountain dwell-
ers) have found their main strategy to
remain united in the midst of the many
difficulties of remaining united to be
the preservation of language, oral tra-
dition, and Jaibanismo.
The Eperara Siapidara are in Nariño,
Cauca, and Valle del Cauca and their
spiritual chief, and the traditional
health authority is headed by the
so-called Jaipana, equivalent to the
Jaibaná of the Embera groups.
The Wounaan are located in southern
Chocó and Valle del Cauca. Maach Aai
is considered to be the elder father and
creator of the world. He originated in a
lagoon and, as he grew, he took shape,
moved like a child, and created the
earth, the sea, the mountains, the moon,
and the sun. In their weavings —the
wuérregue above all— the Wounaan dis-
play figures that relate to their heroes,
By painting representations (with Jagua
and Bija) of nature beings on their faces
and bodies, indigenous peoples turn their
bodies into a symbolic place through
which to connect with the territory.
The Cuna (or Tule or Guanadule),
the people, live in northern Chocó
and southern Panama. They have two
dialectal varieties (from the Chibcha
linguistic family): daily and ceremonial.
Paptumat is the creator of the world and
the spiritual leaders, whose songs medi-
ate between the people and the spirit
world, are called Absoguedi. The molas
102-103

native language is epérã pedée (or beings with whom they twin in daily life are their writing system and the way
pede). Tachi-nawe is the mother and to maintain balance in the territories. they narrate their origin myths.
 Tourist region Archeology
The Colombian Pacific caribbean Tolú
sea

Sincelejo

The first city

Panama SUCRE

Montería

founded on dry
Santa María la
Antigua del Darién CÓRDOBA

Turbo
Serranía
del Darién

land in America

Atra
ANTIOQUIA

to
iveR
r
Santa María la Antigua del Darién, pacific

the first city founded by the Spanish ocean CHOCÓ

in America, represents the complex

encounters between two worlds.
Although the settlement lasted no
more than fifteen years from the
date of its founding, archaeological
remains preserve the memory of
the cultural clash with the Spanish RISARALDA

conquistadors in the 16th century.

QUINDÍO

Although at the beginning it was

believed that this site had been home
only to a Spanish settlement, several
VALLE DEL
archaeological studies revealed that CAUCA
this region was occupied (between
the year 100 and 1200 AD) by diverse
populations that shared a kind of lin-
gua franca that allowed them to trade.
The Spaniards are estimated to
have arrived in 1504, but Santa María
del Darién was only founded in 1510
(where pre-Hispanic settlements already
existed), when Martín Fernández de
Enciso and Vasco Núñez de Balboa
arrived in the territory and built a cha- Subsequent excavations have been presence of iron hinges and nails,
pel dedicated to the Virgin of Antigua. relatively recent, mainly due to difficult which is why very few structures were
The city disappeared in less than fif- access to the area, which in the end found, but there was a great wealth of
teen years, due to the power struggles meant that most of the archaeologi- artefacts (swords, coins, pots).
between Indians and Spaniards, and its cal traces were preserved in excellent Located in the village of Santuario,
location was hidden for more than four condition. As we know from Oviedo’s in the municipality of Unguía (Chocó),
centuries. We learned about it thanks chronicles, Santa María la Antigua did Santa María la Antigua del Darién was
to the chronicles of Gonzalo Fernández not have time to become a city of brick declared an Asset of National Cultural
de Oviedo (which led to the excava- or stone, and the houses were built in Interest in 2015. In 2019, the archaeo-
tions —financed by King Leopold III of wood with thatched roofs. The houses logical park and museum were inaugu-
Belgium— that resulted in the discovery of the Spaniards were distinguished rated with a large number of artefacts,
of the remains of the cathedral). from those of the Indians only by the covering an area of fifty hectares,
 Enlarged
area
colombia
On July 10, 1515, the King of Spain granted
Santa María the title of “the first city of
Tierra Firme” and assigned it a coat of arms,
which depicts the sun (civilization arrives
on the continent), a castle (the wealth of
the New World), a tiger (the intrepidity of
the Spaniards), and a crocodile (the land’s
fidelity to the Crown).
which contain both the traces of the
passage of indigenous communities
and the artefacts that tell the story
of their encounter with the conquista-
dors. This makes it the first park of the
Colombian Institute of Anthropology
and History (ICANH) that speaks of
this initial contact and adds to the list
of the country’s four archaeological
parks that currently exist.
This tourist destination stands out
for the inclusion of communities in the
process of recognition and interpreta-
tion of archaeological data, includ-
ing descendants of the Cuna people
who confronted the Spanish; some
Embera groups from the upper and
middle parts of the Atrato River and
the Baudó River basin who arrived
in the 17th century; Afro-descendant
populations who arrived from central
Chocó and the Atlantic in the mid-19th
century due to the boom in timber
Santa María
la Antigua del Darién
is located in the last branches of the Serranía
de Darién (a small mountain range located
in the Darién Gap), next to what is today
Colombia’s border with Panama, and close to
the western coast of the Gulf of Urabá.
exploitation; and people from Cordoba
and Antioquia who arrived in the mid-
20th century. However, migration to
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
this part of the country has remained
relatively low.
The journey to the Archaeological
Park of Santa María la Antigua del
Darién involves getting to Turbo, in
Antioquia, from where visitors have to
take a panga (a traditional small boat
from the Pacific coast) to the port of
Tanela, and then on to Santuario, the
closest settlement to the park, by land.
This route is a unique journey through
the natural ecosystem of the Gulf of
Urabá, at the end of which, visitors will
discover the vestiges of the cultures
that lived there and the contradic-
104-105
tions of the Spanish Conquest in the
Americas.
 Tourist region
The Colombian Pacific
From treasure
hunting to
conservation
The archaeological remains of the Calima
culture, characterized by a prodigious
production of handicrafts, including
pottery and gold and silver work, constitute
one of the most fascinating discoveries of
pre-Hispanic societies in Colombia.
The Calima culture includes a group of
peoples who, although not simultane-
ously, occupied the territory, today
known as Valle del Cauca, a region of
gentle hills, abundant water, and fertile
land. It is estimated that settlement in
this area dates back to 8,000 BC, when
it was first inhabited by small groups of
hunter gatherers. Three other groups
occupied these territories after these
societies: the Ilama, the Yotoco, and
the Sonso, names that are also used to
refer to the three Calima periods.
These three groups were joined
by the Malagana culture, whose
discovery in 1992 marked a turning
Archeology
point in Calima studies. Until then,
it was believed that the Calima cul-
ture was confined only to the higher
parts of the Western Cordillera and
the central zone. However, according
to the remains found, the Malagana
culture (1000 BC to 500 AD approx.)
was located in the vicinity of the Bolo
River in the present-day municipality
of Palmira. Given the characteristics
of the gold plates and ceramic pieces
found, it is known that it coexisted
with the Yotoco culture.
The archaeological site was found
by chance. One day in 1992, one of the
workers of the hacienda that gave its
Calima
Archaeological Museum
Established in 1981 by Víctor Manuel Patiño
Rodríguez, it was the first regional museum
founded in southwest Colombia. The museum
has more than 1,800 objects that belonged
to the cultures that populated the territory
of Valle del Cauca before the arrival of the
Spaniards, as well as a research center and a
library. The museum’s gardens also contain
replicas of pre-Hispanic dwellings.
name to the culture was working on
a tractor. The weight of the machine
caused the ground to open up and the
The remains Quibdó

of ancient Malagana sites and the tools

found there reveal a high level of engineer- CALDAS
ing knowledge and specialized techniques for
Enlarged
agricultural development. This culture under- area RISARALDA
colombia Manizales
stood the cycles of agriculture, the seasons,
and rain, and which soils and positions were Armenia
best for crop cultivation.

er
Riv
Pereira
CHOCÓ

uc a
Ibagué
QUINDÍO

Ca
pacific
ocean
Museo Arqueológico
Calima
TOLIMA
Buenaventura

VALLE
DEL CAUCA
Museo Arqueológico
Cali de Palmira

Neiva

CAUCA HUILA

Popayán

melted down or sold to collectors, and

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

man fell into a hole. This turned out to
be a sinkhole that housed an ancient
indigenous tomb full of gold objects
and ceramic pots.
Within days, the site was overrun
by treasure hunters or guaqueros and
businessmen eager to dig up and buy
the treasures that lay beneath the
ground. The “Malagana gold rush,”
as it later became known, played its
Some of the most emblematic objects found in
the Cauca Valley have been anthropomorphic
vases with representations of women seated
on their heels with their hands resting on their
legs. These figures are usually associated with
small tables and are also often accompanied
by crystals placed between their legs.
societies that inhabited Valle del
Cauca. It is estimated that almost four
hundreds of tombs were destroyed in
the process. It was not until January
1993, five months after the discovery,
that the authorities were alerted to
the looting at Malagana.
Although several studies have
been carried out in the area, the cul-
tural richness of these pre-Hispanic
communities and their forms of social
organization remain unknown.
Banco de la República bought
several objects from the guaqueros
and traders, and today much of the
material found in the area is housed
in Bogota’s Gold Museum, the Calima
106-107

part in the lack of knowledge that tons of valuable pre-Columbian arte- Archaeological Museum, and the
still exists about the pre-Hispanic facts were stolen from the site to be Palmira Archaeological Museum.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian Pacific culture

Ancestral sounds,
colonial resistances
The sounds of the Pacific, both assimilate and resist
the Catholic indoctrination and social structures
resulting from the enslavement of the Afro-
descendant population. While the chirimía performs
an 18th and 19th century salon repertoire with
band instruments, the marimba, drums, and rattles
that accompany it are associated with ancestral
memory, the jungle, and the beings that inhabit it.

The marimba or currulao dance is one
of the most enchanting of traditional
Colombian music. The responsorial
chants make all those present join
in, while the dancing and the viche
accompany these songs and end up
creating a collective trance in which
everyone loses track of time and
space. Among the genres performed
by the marimba ensemble are the juga,
the patacoré, the bambuco viejo, the
berejú, and the pangó, among others.
The marimba ensemble is made
up of a marimba (a xylophone with
resonators of 18 or 24 sheets of
chonta), played by two musicians; the
tiplero for the high register, and the
bordonero for the low. The other idio-
phone is a tubular rattle called guasá,
and is played by the female singers.
Two types of membranophones com-
plete the ensemble: the cununos and
the bombos. The former are conical in
shape, have a closed bottom, a single
The lullabies always feature a crier who is in
charge of singing the verses and improvising
on them, while the choir responds repetitively
to the main phrase. This repetition is
accompanied by vocal games and melismas.
skin and a wedge tensioning system.
The bass drums are cylindrical drums
with two skins.
The instruments that make up the
marimba ensemble are a legacy from
the African continent. The marimba

is a type of xylophone with resona-
tors made of chonta wood keys, but
it has its origin in the majimba, limbu,
or linda (suffixes from the Bantu
language meaning musical object or
instrument).
The cununo is another instrument
of African origin, with its tension
system being quite typical in many
regions of Central Africa. The same is
true of the guasá, whose most likely
origin is an instrument from Guinea.
The bombo, or tambora, is a legacy of
the Spanish band ensemble of the 17th
and 18th centuries.
The songs that accompany the
marimba have different motifs, but
the most common corresponds to
characters from the Catholic religion.
The lyrics of the songs performed by
the marimba ensemble are usually
octosyllabic verses interspersed with
adages. Another characteristic of
these songs is the presence of verses
improvised by the glosadores, who,
nowadays, are less frequent, leav-
ing the female singers in charge of
the vocal part of the pieces used for
marimba or currulao dances.
Marimba music is found mainly in
Nariño, Cauca, and Valle del Cauca
and, alongside its instruments, is
related to African forms in the color
and tonal scale of the singers’ voices in
The responsorial singing
is one of the most outstanding elements
in the devotional lullabies, as it allows
whole communities to participate. When
the main singer gets tired, another
singer usually appears to replace her. But
these voices seldom get tired. Ancestral
drinks like curadas are the best means to
maintain a lullaby that, with its resonance
of the combos and cymbals, can last
over thirty minutes. These voices need
to be resistant and strong so as not to be
drowned out by the percussion.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
People sing these lullabies —responsorial
chants accompanied by drums, cununos, and
guasás— in the street to honor the saints. On
the day of the Virgin and the most important
saints —San Antonio, Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
the Immaculate Conception, Las Mercedes or
Candelaria— women come out at three in the
morning to gather, sing, resist, and safeguard
the social fabric, accompanied by their curadas
(ancestral drinks). According to some scholars, it
is these rites that preserve the worldview of the
Bantu and Yoruba cultures in terms of how these
communities of the Pacific relate to their saints.
their performance of funeral songs —
108-109
velorios and chigualos— and traditional
secular songs.
 Tourist region Living

Chirimía
The Colombian Pacific culture

ONE
PH
XO
ensemble

A
S

Chirimías,
cumbanchas,
and tamboritos
When African slaves arrived
on the American continent,
they were stripped of

M
IU
everything but their PH
ON ET
stories, their songs and a IN
EU

R CYM
A BA
CL LS
rebelliousness embodied in
the depths of their hearts
and their sounds. Music and
dance are, for people of
African descent, a physical
and spiritual movement
that connects them to a lost
territory and allows them to
SN

celebrate life and death.

AR

DR
E

UM

At the end of the 18th century, European

instruments began to circulate in the
different camps and colonial centers of
UM
Chocó, which explains why the depart- DR
S
ment’s most representative instru-
S
BA

mental format is named after one of

the aerophones played by minstrels to
accompany civic and religious events in
the Hispanic settlements: the chirimía.
Chirimía music is played using the
snare drum, bass drum, and cymbals
on percussion, and clarinet, eupho-
nium, and saxophone on the winds.
In the past, the reed or millet flute
was played as a melodeon instru-
ment, instead of the clarinet. Initially,
these flutes or whistles accompanied
and embellished the sung melodies
but, later, they took over the melody,
imposing themselves on the other
existing styles.
Having started their musical work in the
salsa universe and gained recognition in the
industry, some musicians from Chocó recorded
works with traditional Chocó repertoire with
an instrumental and sung chirimía ensemble:
Alexis y su Banda and La Contundencia were
some of these groups.
Chirimía can include different genres,
which can be classified into autoch-
thonous and influenced rhythms. The
autochthonous ones are abozao,
aguabajo, saporrondón, bunde, porro
chocoano, and son chocoano; the influ-
enced include mazurca, jota, danza,
The Marimbula ensemble
The main instrument is the marimbula, a
harmonic bass accompaniment of African
origin consisting of a wooden box with a
resonance area inside, a circular hole in the
front and small metal reeds at the base of the
hole which produce deep bass sounds when
they are plucked. The other instruments used
in this musical genre include the bongos,
claves, maracas, guasá, and the singing voice.
 caribbean
sea

Enlarged
area
er

Turbo
Riv

Panama colombia
rato
At

Juradó

Bahía Solano

pacific Baud
ocean óR
iv
er San Pacho
Nuquí
Quibdó

Bajo Baudó
iver

CHOCÓ
an R

The cumbanchero sextet

S an J u

This is a rural genre played in Colombia’s

Pacific and Atlantic regions that served as
a basis for experimenting with the melodic
and percussive foundations of what is
today known as the chirimía genre. The
foundations of Afro musical expression
involved drums such as the tambora (a
membranophone with deep roots and
ancestral tradition), the bongos, the

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

maracas, the clave, and human voices.

contradanza, polka, and pasillo, among
others. The chirimía is the instrumental
music that accompanies all the parades
and most important moments in the
San Pacho festivities. At the end of the
20th century, this celebration became
the paradigm for the other patron saint
feasts, and, thus, the chirimías began
to become a fundamental part of the
festivities throughout Chocó.
Chirimías are similar to Afro-
American jazz and other styles used to
play traditional music, and considering
that the performer sets out a theme
it, just like jazz, the chirimía allow her
much freedom to create new style.
Besides the chirimía, very common
in the San Juan and Atrato regions,
Chocó’s Pacific coast is home to
other genres such as the tamborito
ensemble and the cumbanchas: poly-
phonic singing, and percussion groups
from Nuquí, Bahía Solano, Juradó,
and Bajo Baudó. The Bajo Atrato had
Marimbula ensembles, and most of
the department’s territories feature
the instrumental sextet style, which is
very common in social gatherings and
110-111

in the performance and improvises on rural and neighborhood festivities.

 Tourist region Living
The Colombian Pacific culture

Guardians of
knowledge,
protectors of life
In the communities of the
Colombian Pacific, midwives or
comadronas continue to receive
babies. Midwives are considered
to be wise and to understand the
territory and its powers. Their
knowledge has been passed
down through generations,
and they bear the enormous
responsibility of accompanying
women in childbirth and
protecting new life.

Midwifery cannot be understood out-

side the concept of living well and
caring for the body. The therapeutics,
sowing, the cuisine, and ancestral
drinks of the Colombian Pacific are
interwoven with the knowledge of “the
assistants of the miracle of life” - as
the indigenous and Afro-descendant
midwives of Chocó call themselves.
Pregnancy and birth are both natu-
ral and extreme experiences. They
are the feminine territory, that of the
instinctive mother; they are the space
for the transmission of knowledge that
has been developed over centuries.
The plants, the ancestral women and
the Our Lady of Mount Carmel are
fundamental allies in caring for the
pregnancy, childbirth, and the baby
once it is born. For black and indig-
enous communities, using their pow-
ers allows them to connect with the
territory, cultural resistance through
the positioning of local knowledge, and
the maintenance of hierarchies based
on traditional social organization, in
which midwives occupy a very impor-
tant place.
Midwives, usually women, have
inherited this craft from their ances-
tors and have made a great effort to
preserve this heritage and serve their
community. They are in charge of pre-
paring the younger mothers, initiating
them into motherhood and guiding
them in the special care they should
take of their babies. Midwives support
them with their knowledge, but also
with their emotional comfort.
Knowledge about the powers of
plants is fundamental to the profes-
sion. Planting the plants (in the home
gardens) allows the midwives to
Home gardens
These are plants grown in the courtyards and
front gardens of houses and that, arranged
on terraces, in pots or directly on the
ground, require special care. One of the most
important aspects of caring for them is the
revitalization of social ties. Exchanging the
plants along with medicinal and therapeutic
knowledge strengthens the community’s
networks and solidarity strategies.
prepare their medicinal drinks such as
infusions and traditional viche-based
drinks: cured in the south and balsamic
in the north of the Pacific. Afro-Pacific
ancestral medicine is based on the
search for a balance in body tempera-
ture. A healthy body should be neither

too hot nor too cold. With their drinks,
midwives seek to regulate body tem-
perature and thus help women, both in
pregnancy and postpartum, to ensure
the newborn’s well-being.
Midwifery is part of the heritage of
Pacific women. This recognition has
led to the consolidation of events such
as the World Summit of Midwives in
Buenaventura and the annual meet-
ings of traditional midwifery, in which
people from different parts of the
country and the world share their
knowledge about dignified birth and
the recognition of women’s ancestral
the relationship of the men and women of the
knowledge.
The knowledge associated with
Afro-Pacific midwifery has been
part of the Representative List
of Intangible Cultural Heritage
in Colombia since 2016. This
recognition was the result of a
long process led by midwives,
researchers, and experts
who, through the Asoparupa
movement and the Network of
Midwives and Midwives of Chocó,
fought for the legitimization of
their profession.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
The ombligada ritual
Is one of the most important rituals for
Afro and indigenous communities. As the
umbilical cord falls out, the midwife, mother
or grandmother places a vegetable, animal,
or mineral substance in the navel that will
symbolically mark the infant’s life and give it
special gifts. The part of the umbilicus that
falls out is planted in the earth to represent
112-113
Pacific coast with their territory.
 Tourist region Gastronomy
The Colombian Pacific

Food, communion,
and food sovereignty
In the Colombian Pacific, the kitchen is where
people show their love and affection for
others, and it provides the opportunity to
share experiences as a community. Mealtimes
bring big families together to strengthen ties,
to talk about problems, and to receive advice.

People talk about their lives, relieve

tension, and show their love in the
kitchen. Any celebration combines the
cultural expressions of the occasion,
and provides the opportunity to share
dishes and preparations.
Gastronomy, then, becomes a fun-
damental lens through which to grasp
the region’s symbolic and cultural
world. The way food is prepared in the
Pacific unveils the relationship of the
communities with their biodiversity
and how they control the body using
certain foodstuffs for medicinal pur-
poses. How people eat is a synthesis
of social organization, as it reveals
the roles in the division of labor. It is
mainly women, grandmothers, who
have learned to grow, age, grind, and environmental assimilations. For
smoke, salt, sweeten, flavor, and sea- example, much of the knowledge about
son every morsel from their ances- the domestication and use of certain
tors. And, just as they learned, they plants, and the techniques used to
will pass this knowledge on to the new make certain artisanal oils, such as
generations. coconut and milpesos, comes from the
Cooking is also about experiencing African continent. Queso costeño, a
the territory and suggests a journey local cheese and everyday ingredient,
through its landscapes, jungles, rivers, on the other hand, dates back to the
and seas. The Pacific coast is a territory colonizers and owners of the old min-
of indigenous and Afro ethnic groups, ing facilities that came to the Pacific
a cultural richness that is reflected in between the mid-nineteenth century
the diversity, ingenuity, and flavor of and the early twentieth century. fauna. It has traditionally cultivated
its dishes. Its gastronomy combines The different preparations are also plantain (its main food), malanga,
the roots of African, indigenous, and the result of the natural resources and rice, manioc, yam, and sugar cane, as
European culinary traditions, and species from the region’s rich ecosys- well as fruits such as cocoa, bananas,
therefore preserves the memory of tems. The Pacific is a biological cor- borojó, almirajó, bacao, pineapple,
exchanges, adaptations, and cultural ridor with a great diversity of flora and guama, oranges and coconuts.

Piangua is a small mollusk with high levels
of high- and low-fat proteins. It is usually
prepared in ceviche, stews, tamales,
empanadas, and rice. The piangua is
normally extracted by women and is an
important economic activity among Afro-
descendant communities in the region, as
it is estimated that more than 11,300 rural
families live off this resource.
The sea and rivers are the main
source of protein, with fish, crabs, igua-
nas, piangua, clams, oysters, piacuiles,
and choras being among the species
that are part of the region’s cuisine.
Mangroves —from which mollusks
are extracted— are also particularly
important in the Pacific diet, as the
amphibious forest ecosystems cover
an area of almost 237,000 hectares,
approximately 85% of the country’s
total mangroves. In the river, tapao,
bocachico, doncella, sardine, and den-
tex are much more common, while for
communities living by the sea, it is
much more common to eat stews made
of coconut and fish such as snapper,
darter, snoek, and tuna. As communi-
ties move away from water sources,
aquatic species are replaced by pigs,
poultry, deer, pacaranas, tapir, pecca-
ries, and armadillo.
Some of the most characteristic
Pacific preparations are arroz atollado,
a Colombian-style pork risotto; rice
The Pacific’s
native population
Has known how to take advantage of the
generous supply of resources provided
by the palms, both as food and as an
input for the manufacture of construction
materials, tools, utensils, and ceremonial
objects. The peach palm, for example, is an
emblematic food in the region and has been
fundamental in the diet of the communities.
with chontaduro or peach palm juice;
free-range chicken stew; bone stew;
cheese soup; breadfruit juice; chicken
broth; pineapple colada; chicha, a fer-
mented drink; frijol empedrado, made
of rice, beans, and a meat or fish ingre-
dient; wrap; stewed bocachico fish;
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
borojó juice; and ripe plantain cake.
Traditional Pacific cuisine hinges
on respect and food sovereignty.
Although it is true that its inhabitants
are not large-scale farmers, they do
sow and cultivate what they are going
to eat, because their relationship
with the land is different from that
of Western culture, which is based
on exploitation. The Pacific farmer
respects the land and gives it time to
rest. They maintain the natural bal-
ance by planting crops of different
species, so that the nutrients and the
sap are kept alive. This is how they
114-115
conceive their way of life and strive to
protect their food sovereignty.
 Tourist region Gastronomy
The Colombian Pacific
Terraces are usually elevated on wooden
structures or canoes that are no longer in
use, to protect the plants from animals and

Wood fires
floods. The herbs that are sown may be
used for seasoning or healing (or in magic-
religious rituals) and are often placed in jars,

and home-
baskets, plant pots, bottles, or saucepans.

grown herbs
Two characteristic
elements of Pacific
cuisine are the wood-
burning hearth and home-
grown herbs. Both are
fundamental in ensuring
that the dishes take on the
aromas and flavors typical
of this territory. The
hearth is usually located
at the back of the house,
together with an elevated
wooden structure called
the paliadera.

Terrace or home gardens, found in

both rural and urban areas, are an
essential element in Pacific cuisine,
where people grow basil, onion, long
coriander, paisa coriander, mint, oreg-
ano, and pennyroyal, among many
other herbs that give their dishes a
characteristic flavor. These terrace
gardens are also a crucial part of the
communities’ knowledge of traditional
medicine. Basil, for example, helps to
ward off the cold, and pennyroyal is
good for relieving respiratory ailments.
The hearth is made up of a wooden
platform or table covered with mud.
On top of this is the roof-hung barbe-
cue used to dry bush meat. For some,
it is this fire that gives the meat its
flavor, because “everything tastes
better on a wood fire.” However, given
the impacts on the territory’s forests
and mangroves (as a result of logging)
and on people’s health (caused by the
smoke), the wood-fire hearth has
gradually been replaced. One of the
most popular alternatives among the
communities has been the ahorraleña
stove, which preserves flavors while
reducing the amount of firewood used Next to the kitchen, or sometimes
in traditional stoves. The communities integrated into it, is the paliadera, which
have also taken on the task of building is a platform where dishes and pots are
nurseries to grow firewood gardens to washed, and animals are scaled and cut
replace what is extracted. up before they are cooked.
 Tourist region
Gastronomy
The Colombian Pacific
Fish cooked in coconut milk is very
popular in communities living by
the sea. It is prepared mainly with

Fish, meats, and

coconut milk and with home-grown
herbs such as basil, coriander,
pennyroyal, and oregano.

rice dishes
Of the rich gastronomic variety in the
Colombian Pacific, the way in which meat
and fish are prepared and cleaned, and the
emblematic and traditional arroz atollado
rice dishes are particularly noteworthy.

Sweets are part of the gastronomic heritage

of the Pacific. Some of the most famous are:
baked fruits, a kind of bread roll known as
marraqueta, plantain cake, ginger cookies, an

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

ancestral aphrodisiac drink called tumbacatre,
and many others that depend on the time of
the year and the harvesting of some fruits.

Fish tapao
Is one of the most typical culinary
preparations in the Pacific, especially in the
communities that live along the river banks,
and is usually eaten for breakfast and dinner.
There are some practices around the
kitchen that are vital when preparing
food, such as cleaning meats with
lemon or vinegar, salt, and warm water
so that they release their characteristic
others. While they clean, they think
very directly about the health of those
who are going to eat the food, and it is
a real demonstration of love.
Another common practice is to
smoke meat, chicken, and fish. This is
a community strategy that is very use-
ful for preserving food for times when
there is no electricity.
Arroz atollado is served soggy, just
like a risotto. Some elders consider
that constantly drinking hot soups
such as the atollado “kept them from
getting worms.” The other types of
rice they prepare in the Pacific are
dry rice and corn rice. Dry rice, or
arroz clavado, is used to accompany
any meal and is topped with squares
of the local cheese.
Corn rice is made by grinding corn
in a mortar and pestle and is called this
because it resembles open rice grains.
116-117

musk. For some women, cleaning meats this recipe to be part of their care Sometimes corn rice is also cooked
is one of their main forms of caring for practices, as the elders considered with coconut.
 Tourist region
The Colombian Pacific
Ancestral drinks:
medicine and flavor
Viche, the artisanal firewater
of the Pacific, encapsulates the
essence of the region’s ancestral
liquors. The sugar cane-based
drink and its derivatives are the
most traditional beverages of
the region.
Viche is distilled by hand in alembic
stills using earthenware or aluminum
pot stills. This production method
was developed at the end of the 16th
century, in the midst of the mining
boom and the subsequent imple-
mentation of sugar cane cultivation
during the slavery period. It is, there-
fore, a symbolic manifestation that,
although charged with the historical
subjugation of black peoples, today
represents territorial rootedness and
at the same time liberation.
Many traditional drinks are derived
from viche and consumed for their
medicinal and healing properties. They
Gastronomy
are often considered an aphrodisiac and
are usually made by adding medicinal
herbs and some fruits. These derivative
beverages usually do not have a single
recipe as such, and their taste depends
on the ingenuity and knowledge inher-
ited from one generation to the next.
One recent achievement in the defense
and protection of these liquors occurred
in September 2021, when the Viche Law
was passed, “recognizing, promoting,
and protecting viche and its derivatives
as ancestral, artisanal, traditional bever-
ages and as collective heritage of the
Afro-Colombian black communities of
the Colombian Pacific coast.”
Just as viche production is associated with
traditional medicine, it is also associated
with festivities and celebrations. It is used
at births and christenings, in solidarity
activities such as the minga, mano
cambiada, and the convite, as well as at
wakes and novenas. Traditional singers and
musicians also use the viche both to warm
up their throats, to improve the pitch, and
to endure the long musical sessions.
One of its derivative beverages is
viche curao, made with pure viche,
to which a wide variety of plants are

added, mixed, and fermented. These
are usually placed inside a bottle,
preferably opaque, and once filled, the
viche is added so that it can take on the
aromas, flavors, and benefits of these
plants. It can be left in reserve for as
long as one wants, and the longer it is
left, the more intense the flavors will
become. Depending on the herbs that
are added, the soothing herbs can also
be used to cure different ailments and
illnesses.
Another variety of viche is the
sweeter tomaseca, which is usually
made with cloves, cinnamon, pepper,
and nutmeg to taste. However, like viche
curao, there are several recipes that
are kept secret and passed down from
generation to generation by those who
make it, giving each preparation its own
identity. People also often add honey
to enhance the flavor, and the drink is
consumed mostly by women who have
given birth, in order to cleanse the body.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Viche travels
with the people of the Pacific coast in life and
in death; it is drunk both to celebrate the birth
of a child and to mourn losses during funeral
ceremonies, bringing comfort in times of grief.
Tumbacatre, or arrechón, is another
type of viche-based drink, usually made
with the same ingredients as tomaseca,
but with added borojó and milk.
Finally, we have the pipilongo, typical
of Chocó, which comes from the curao
118-119
family and whose main ingredient is the
spicy pipilongo herb.
 Tourist region Towns with
CÓRDOBA
The Colombian Pacific heritage

er
Riv
rato
At
Resistance,
Bajo Atrato
(Urabá chocoano)

persistence, ANTIOQUIA

and assimilation
Medio Medellín
Atrato
Baud
óR
The difficult access to the San Juan Pacific iv
er
Coast
and Atrato rivers through the jungle Quibdó

affected the way in which Spaniards,

Cértegui
blacks, and indigenous people related CHOCÓ
CALDAS
to each other. As a result, during the Tadó
Alto
17th century, the Catholic Church led pacific
ocean
Andagoya Atrato
RISARALDA

iver
a model of “pacification” that left Nóvita

R
uan
its mark on the assimilations and Alto, Medio

S an J
resistances that today characterize y San Juan

the patron saint festivities, the

RISARALDA
cumbancha, and the funeral rites
of the municipalities of the middle
Atrato and San Juan rivers.
QUINDÍO

Tadó, Cértegui, Andagoya, Quibdó,

and Nóvita, located near the Atrato
and San Juan rivers and key to trade
and mining, were born around the 17th
century, with the Spanish colonization,
the mining boom, and the exploitation Enlarged
of African and indigenous labor. Unlike area

the other places, Quibdó was never a

mining camp, but the influence of this
activity and its strategic location con-
necting the Atrato with other river
arteries made it a military stronghold
and an administrative and commercial
center since 1770.
The colonisation of these regions
was marked by the Spaniards’ dif-
ficulty in dominating the indigenous
communities that inhabited them.
Most of them had a strong tradition
of warfare and were hunter-gatherers
whose settlements were isolated.
However, Chocó’s population changed
colombia
radically between the 17th century and
the first half of the 18th century. The
indigenous population, by then in the
majority, was subdued through a long population, the enslaved found many
process of evangelisation. ways to fight against the subordina-
This happened at the same time tion of the slave system. The Chocó
as the arrival of hundreds of blacks of the time was characterized as an
from Africa. Like the indigenous isolated region, with a low population

The festivities of the
Virgin of Candelaria
Patron saint of the municipality of Cértegui,
is an example of assimilation and resistance:
Oyá, an orisha deity, found a home in the New
World alongside the Virgin of Candelaria, in the
Pacific, in Cartagena, and other parts of the
Caribbean. According to chroniclers, when the
time came, the Virgin descended, gathered her
thick hair into an iruke —or ponytail— and began
to dance frantically with Changó, the orisha
God who had already taken the form of a drum.
of Hispanic origin and little surveil-
lance by the Crown. This meant that
in the municipalities of Tadó and
Cértegui, at the beginning of the 18th
century and in a context of economic
growth due to mining exploitation, the
people became increasingly restless.
In Tadó, the 1728 rebellion was deci-
sive because it marked a transition
to a series of subsequent revolutions.
Barule, Mateo Mina, and Antonio
Mina, together with forty captives,
led the largest known slave uprising
The story
of resistance in Tadó
Cannot be told without mentioning Agustina,
a black woman who carried out the first
recorded act of women’s rebellion in Chocó,
the consequences of which are still felt
in other parts of the region. This woman
denounced her slaver, Miguel Gómez, for
raping her and leaving her pregnant. The
authorities, however, did not believe her and
decided to punish and torture her, causing her
to have an abortion. In retaliation, Agustina
decided to set fire to several properties,
including Gómez’s home. Today there are
monuments to both King Barule and Augustine
in the central square honoring their influence
on the municipality.
in the Chocó in the entire colonial era.
Following this event, Barule was named
king of the Palenque of Tadó, which
housed three thousand maroons ready
to defend their freedom. Although
this settlement was later razed to the
ground by the Spanish, many Maroons
managed to escape and eventually
formed small autonomous settlements
such as Guarato, Carmelo, Jamarraya,
and Santa Rita.
But these resistances also perme-
ated the “pacified” and evangelized
communities. Although the cultural
scenarios responded to the Church’s
catechization processes, there were
uprisings that reclaimed their ances-
tral legacies, their aesthetics, and their
cosmologies. These appropriations and
resistances appear in the San Francisco
de Asís celebrations in Quibdó, San
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Gerónimo in Nóvita, Nuestra Señora de
la Pobreza in Tadó, and the Encuentro
de Alabaos, Gualíes, and Levantamiento
de Tumba in Andagoya. The revolú, pro-
cessions, mortuary rites, architecture,
medicine, and gastronomy are loaded
with ancestral knowledge in permanent
tension and fluid dialogue and coexis-
tence with Catholic values. This is how
the saints that began to be acquired by
families at the beginning of the 20th
century fused with their own cultural
baggage that makes these celebrations
unique. The ethnic communities of the
Pacific build and reinforce their own
120-121
ties in their patron saint celebrations
and their funeral rituals.
 Tourist region Urban
The Colombian Pacific culture

Rap and ritmo exótico:

folklore from the city
Rap and ritmo exótico (exotic rhythm) are two
of many unique sounding expressions of hip-
hop culture in the Pacific. As large numbers of
people migrated to the cities, traditional music
has been fused with electronic instruments
and beat box, resulting in a musical landscape
with a distinctive sound produced and enjoyed
by young people in the urban centers.

Examples of artists who mix

Hip-hop culture arrived in Colombia
in the 1980s through the port of
Buenaventura, where cassettes, LPs,
magazines, jeans, and sports shirts were
brought from the United States. Rap,
break dance, and graffiti echoed in the
Pacific’s main cities like Buenaventura,
Quibdó, and Cali. Before this period,
few people listened to rap music, wore
baggy clothes, and much less graffitied,
with the most popular music styles
being ballads, rock, salsa and, of course,
traditional music of the marimba and
rhythms like chirimía.
urban genres and traditional
music are ChocQuibTown, Plu
con Plá, and Alexis Play.
The DJs, radio stations, television,
and movies of the time all played an
important role in the surging popular-
ity of the counterculture and hip-hop
music itself. However, it was the massive
displacement of Black communities to
the cities, especially in the 1990s, that
ultimately secured its adoption by the
Afro-Colombian population. At that
time, almost 70% of Afro-Colombians
had moved to urban centers, which
meant that they were more integrated
than ever into processes of economic
and cultural modernization.
The hip-hop movement gathered
momentum, especially in Cali where
since the early 1980s it had gained
a strong following in the district of
Aguablanca. While hip hop’s roots in
the slums of New York meant that it
appealed to other marginalized social
Ritmo exótico was born when a group of DJs
started to create remixes that sampled voice
notes from WhatsApp, phrases taken from
TV shows or funny audio loops over beats
constructed with rhythms taken from chirimía,
champeta, touches of salsa, Cuban son, and
reggaeton. Because of its “odd” style and
fusion of so many rhythms, they described it
as “exotic.” Some of the artists that play this
genre are Diego LaToo, Yilmar Dresan, Dámaso
Viveros and Luis Eduardo Acústico. Classic
songs to check out are “Cheque Choco” and
“La Coreografía.”
groups living in ghettos and often suf-
fering violence, in Colombia, political
rap especially caught the imagination
of Black youth, as it could convey
messages of social inequality, state
neglect, police abuse, discrimination
and segregation that they experienced
in the urban setting. Rap and reggae
have become synonymous with Black
self-determination and protest, as well
The Festival DeMentes Conscientes is one
of the Pacific’s most important and was
the first platform in Quibdó for hip-hop
artists to perform. Founded by Stewart
Palacios and Alexis Play in 1998, every
December 30 rappers and freestylers
from all over the Pacific flock to compete.
as youth movements, turning these
artforms into active participants in
national conversations.
A space that has made a big con-
tribution to the fusion between tradi-
tional and urban music is the “free”
category at the Petronio Álvarez
Graffiti is another way in which the hip-hop
influence has been felt in the Pacific, mainly
in the eastern half and in Cali’s iconic Calle
Quinta. With its mission to democratize art,
communicate the loss of historical memory
and give voice to a counter-discourse, this
artform has taken off since the nineties, and
has branched into tagging and street art,
been studied by academia, and is constantly
being revitalized with new aesthetics and
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
artistic approaches.
Festival. Since the year 2000, the fes-
tival and the inspiration taken from
city life, often in the margins, have
seen the emergence and consolida-
tion of mixing between urban styles
such as rap, reggae, and dance hall
with folk music such as chirimía and
instruments like the marimba.
This fusion is not only evident in the
music: today, ritmo exótico —a genre
invented and popularized across the
Chocó, mixing sounds of chirimía with
electronic music— are accompanied
122-123
by hip-hop style dance in the form of
dance battles and improvisation.
 Tourist region Urban
The Colombian Pacific culture

Salsa,
circus, and
orchestra go
large scale
The arrival of salsa in Cali in
the 1950s marked a before
and after in the city. As well
as broadening the cultural
offer, the rhythm was also
a resource that forged
Cali’s identity and allowed
its inhabitants to express
themselves and participate
in cultural and economic
flows beyond regional and
national borders.

As Cali grew and transformed, salsa

became its emblematic music genre
but this evolution has not been
homogeneous, nor has it been free of
ruptures. In fact, the city’s salsa and
cultural evolution can be divided into
several stages. One of these was the
importance of record companies and
salsa recordings as a focal point of
popular culture during the 1960s and recording and the professionalization dance, acrobatics and circus. Its
1970s, when a unique local style of of dance became signs of economic importance has been maintained over
salsa dancing emerged. These records prosperity and social growth. Next time and, even today, salsa cabaret is
were crucial to the rise of salsotecas came people’s interest in recordings, one of Cali’s economic mainstays.
and specialized taverns where people collecting, the emergence of venues However, this cultural complex,
could go to listen to records. specializing in the genre and with it, although widely embraced and
The emergence of popular and the need for a large-scale show that adopted in Cali, was not born there.
record-centered cultural practices in would respond to the complexity of Salsa cabaret actually emerged in
Cali paralleled the city’s emergence the burgeoning industry. It was at this the 1950s in the United States and
as an influential urban center. As local juncture that salsa cabaret appeared was imported to the city because of
fortunes rose, the sound of live salsa as a combination of live orchestra, its authentic spectacle nature. Salsa

Salsa cabaret
A whole cultural industry revolves
around salsa cabaret; in addition to the
dancers and choreographers, there are
professionals involved in the manufacture
of shoes and costumes, and make-up
artists and hairstylists, among many
others. The schools also constitute an
important pole of development in the city.
Delirio and Ensálsate are among the most
outstanding salsa cabaret companies.
cabaret is the name given to the stag-
ing that combines dances with acro-
batics and the grace of pirouettes, lifts,
and jumps in carefully choreographed
dynamic sequences. This format also
allows for fusion and experimentation
with other rhythms, and steps from
belly dancing and classical ballet,
among others, have been incorporated
into the salsa choreography.
Thus, the staging, although orches-
trated around a well-defined group cho-
reography, also allows for improvisation,
with each dancer taking the opportunity
to stand out from the group. Some of
the rhythms that are most frequently
fused within these shows are salsa,
tango, mambo, merengue, bachata,
chachachá, and boogaloo.
At world level, the dancers from Cali have
always stood out in salsa cabaret; they know
how to combine acrobatics and athletic
dexterity very well, and are skilled at coming
together as a group. Although there are often
transitions in the shows where the focus is
on a couple, the group performances are
undoubtedly the hallmark of this scene.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
For this and much more, it can be
said that salsa cabaret boasts an avant-
garde style, always open to creativity
and innovation. With its dynamism and
strength, new companies continue to
emerge, seeking to build their own
hallmark and stand out among the
other dance groups in the city. There is
a wide variety of these great shows on
offer today, and the industry continues
to grow and evolve. These experiences
124-125
have also become a significant part of
Cali’s identity as a modern metropolis.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The Western
Colombian
Andes

Archeology » 130

RISARALDA
Towns with heritage » 134

Living culture » 140

Gastronomy » 150
CAL
Fairs and festivals » 156 Pereira
Manizales

Religious and spiritual tourism » 162

QUINDÍO
Urban culture » 164
Armenia
 ANTIOQUIA

Medellín

LDAS
 Tourist region
The Western
Colombian Andes

INTRODUCTION

Many paths to navigate

your way through
the mountains
The Western and Central Cordilleras
that cross this vast region have been
the main axes of its historical and
cultural development. The mountains
have provided its inhabitants with
all kinds of resources to sustain and
boost their economy, which is based
on gold, sugar cane, and coffee,
among others.

As its people are so diverse, as diverse

as their resources, they travel from the
valleys to the plateaus; ascend to the
moors and snow-capped mountains,
including the Nevado del Ruiz, reach-
ing 5,321 meters above sea level. In the
lowlands, they cross the streams of the
country’s most important fluvial arter-
ies —the Magdalena, Cauca, Atrato, and
San Juan rivers— which open roads as
many settlers have done.
In this broken topography, the
indigenous peoples built an exten-
sive network of roads connecting the
north and south of the country, which
the Spaniards and later the muleteers
adapted and expanded according to
their interests. They cut down veg-
etation to create roads to the mines, Antioquia to the north of Valle and
valleys, forests, capitals, ports, and Tolima, or from Antioquia to Urabá,
the sea, as a means of survival and and Córdoba.
a reflection of the tenacity of people Its population is composed of mul-
who did not give up in the face of dif- tiple voices, a polyphony that speaks
ficulty. Walking, then, is an essential of miscegenation, influences, and
aspect of this region, since it enabled transactions with other territories and
the different colonizing advances cultures. The indigenous presence is
that migrated from the south of large and includes the Embera Katío,

Embera Dobidá, Embera Chamí, Umbrá,
Zenú, and Tule-Kuna communities,
whose agency over the territories has
ensured their well-being and vitality. As
for Afro-descendant communities, there
is an extensive network of community
councils, especially in Antioquia and
Risaralda, which, in addition to social
organization, promotes and protects
their rights and cultural identity.
With their love for the land and their
work, the peasants of the Western
Andes are heirs to this ethnic richness.
As a result, this region has given rise
to extraordinary examples of artistic
sensitivity and artisanal ingenuity, such
as iraca palm weaving, ceramics from El
Carmen de Viboral, guadua construc-
tion, sugar cane distillates, sainetes, the
silletero parade, the Carnaval del Diablo,
parrandera music, and the wide range of
gastronomic offerings made from corn,
beans, plantains, and sugar cane.
The coffee cultural landscape is
rooted in rurality. It is the dynamic that
is generated between the territory and
its people’s way of life that makes it a
world heritage site: the farms that pro-
duce one of the most distinctive coffees
in the world, the architecture that has
been adapted to anchor the houses to
the slopes are some of the characteris-
tics that have made the peasant culture,
especially the coffee culture, a source of
pride for the country.
The capital cities, on the other hand,
stand out for their capacity to overcome
the difficult times they have faced. The
systematic violence experienced in
Medellín, as well as the earthquake in
Armenia in 1999 or the successive dis-
placements from the countryside to the
city caused by the internal conflict, are
circumstances to which the inhabitants
of the region have responded with hope.
Multiple forms of social and community
organization, along with the work of
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
artistic collectives and cultural manag-
ers, have emerged in the territory as
agents to transform reality, based on
art, culture, memory, and the recogni-
tion of diversity.
That idea of hard work as a way
of overcoming obstacles —another of
the region’s cultural traits— is what has
sustained those processes of change
and reconstruction. The people long
for other, happier times, but new ones
are always in the making. And these
bring hope of encounter, solidarity,
hospitality, and festivity as essential
values in cities where tango has been
128-129
embraced and theater has invaded the
squares and the streets.
 Tourist region
The Western Archeology
Colombian Andes
Guaquería was one of the typical trades of
these regions: people were dedicated to
searching for riches in pre-Hispanic tombs

Traces
with self-taught techniques and procedures.
Buying, selling, or pawning archaeological
pieces is now penalized by law. However, it

between rivers
is worth noting that many collections in the
region began with pieces these people had
bought in order to safeguard them.

and mountains
Approximately ten thousand years
ago, the hunter-gatherers who
inhabited and traveled through this
territory left recognizable traces later
found in archaeological excavations in
the Magdalena, Cauca, and Porce river
basins. The first human settlements
recognized as communities were
located in the Medellín-Porce river
basin and in the Magdalena River
valley around 5000-4500 years ago.

As shown in the chronicles of the time,

the term Quimbayas was used from
the time of Spanish contact with the
indigenous communities that resided
in the territories. It refers to the style
of the rescued pieces shared by the
human groups present in this area
of the country between the middle
Cauca Valley, with its flat areas, and
the mountain slopes of Quindío,
Risaralda, Caldas, and the southern
half of Antioquia.
One of the difficulties faced by
the indigenous communities that
prospered in this region was having
to adapt to the difficult geography of
the banks of the Cauca River and the
steep and inaccessible mountains of
the Western Andes. Archaeological
evidence of these adaptations can be
seen in the traces that remain in the
landscape, such as the terracing on
mountaintops, the irrigation ditches
for water transport, and the crop

Cire-perdue was one of the techniques
perfected by the Quimbaya, in which a
molten metal was poured into a mold that
had been created using a wax model. Once
the mold was made, the wax model was
melted and drained away. The final step
was to polish the new object. The Quimbaya
poporo was made using this technique.
irrigation systems, reflecting how the
first settlers were able to master the
environment.
Despite the distance between
them, the indigenous groups shared
a cultural and social communication
strengthened by a network of roads
that crossed the mountain systems,
hills, and valleys formed by the basins
of the tributary rivers of the Cauca.
A dynamic network was consolidated
with the constant use of royal roads,
canals, and secondary trails that united
and dispersed the material culture as
well as customs and cosmogonies
throughout the territory. These roads
were later used by the Spaniards to
strengthen their management of the
colonies and facilitate the founding of
settlements in sites previously occu-
pied by the Indians.
One of the main examples of these
communication dynamics is related to
the material culture found. Pottery
and goldsmithing processes spread
throughout the territory, creating a
style distinct from that of other com-
munities settled in the Quimbaya
territorial limits. The pottery has
highly elaborate decorations —gener-
ally incised lines and dots on necks
and edges— in Antioquia, and, in the
Coffee Axis, the pieces were painted
with incisions. Gold work was enriched
The cancana
Is a type of pottery found on the banks of
the Porce River between the municipalities
of Amalfi, Yolombó, and Gómez Plata. It
is a thin and brittle ceramic used to make
domestic utensils (vessels, bowls, plates)
and some anthropomorphic figures. It is
the oldest dated material in the region
(from approximately 4500 years ago).
by processes for the manufacture
of gold, such as molding by ham-
mering, embossing, the cire-perdue
technique, and the use of tumbaga (a
mixture of gold and copper) for more
elaborate pieces.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Burial rituals and practices played
a fundamental role in the cosmogony
and relationship with the territory and
belonging: although they were gener-
ally direct shaft and chamber tombs
with an access tunnel, in Antioquia and
Quindío there are examples of tombs
consisting of stone slabs placed in the
form of a niche for horizontal body
placement, or vessels with skeletal
remains. The finding of these so-called
secondary burials suggests a ritual use
in direct tombs where offerings such
as spindle whorls, small pots and gold
pieces were deposited next to the ves-
130-131
sels containing the burned remains of
the deceased.
 Tourist region
The Western Archeology
Colombian Andes

One of the highlights of the collection at

Universidad de Antioquia is the Alzate

The living memory

Collection, made up of almost two
thousand ceramic pieces manufactured
by the Alzate family. The family was from

of the people,
Marinilla, and produced ceramic objects
between the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. These objects were made to
look like antiquities and used to supply

between objects
the national and international market with
archaeological pieces from our cultures.

and places
The archaeological findings of the
Western Andes region preserve
the memory of the peoples who
settled in what we know today as
the Eje Cafetero and Antioquia.
The region’s museums narrate
these stories through pieces such
as ceramic objects for domestic
and ritual use and various tools,
such as spindle whorls for
spinning and printing textiles.

The Antioquian businessman, Leocadio

María Arango did not suspect that his
Museo de Antiedades y Curiosidades
Históricas y Ciencias Naturales, in
which he worked for years buying
indigenous pieces from grave rob-
bers of Antioquia and Caldas, would
be the main input for two of the most
important Colombian archaeological
collections: the Banco de la República
Gold Museum and Universidad de
Antioquia’s Museum of Anthropology
(latter part of the University Museum).
In 1939, Bogota’s Gold Museum
became the repository for a large part
of the Colombian archaeological heri-
tage, with gold as its protagonist. In
1986, this great collection was divided
to found the Quimbaya Gold Museum
in Armenia, in order to return many
of the pieces that, at some point, had
been extracted from this territory. The
building that housed the new museum
was designed by Rogelio Salmona, who
in the layout of the spaces sought to
link the area’s landscape with the inte-
rior of the building, whose patios and
terraces reflect the geometric forms
used by the indigenous people.
The Quimbaya Gold Museum houses
archaeological pieces from the ancient
inhabitants of the middle Cauca. They
formed agricultural and goldsmith
societies that expressed their world-
view by employing ceramics, metal,
and stone in different ways. They made
funerary urns, domestic objects, and
ornaments on which they recorded
the designs they used for body paint-
ing, their knowledge of how to build
houses and bury the dead, their war-
making methods, and their techniques
for alloying and molding metals.
The anthropology collection at
Universidad de Antioquia currently
includes more than 37,000 ceramic
pieces, making it the largest collec-
tion of pre-Hispanic ceramics in Latin

America. It stores, registers, catalogs,
and documents archaeological cultural
material and ethnographic objects of
the Colombian indigenous communi-
ties. Universidad de Caldas and the
Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira
have their own archeology, paleontol-
ogy, and geology collections. The one in
Caldas exhibits fossils and megafauna
specimens, while the one in Pereira
specializes in the Quimbaya culture.
The Gold Museum’s first acquisition was
the Quimbaya poporo. The Ministry of
Education ordered its purchase from the
Banco de la República in 1939. The piece
was found in Yarumal (Antioquia) at the end
of the 19th century and is a sample of the
impressive Quimbaya goldsmithing.
Some museums in the region are
managed by religious institutions and
their collections are the result of the
missions they carried out in different
parts of the country. In Medellín, there
is the Madre Laura Montoya Upegui
Ethnographic Museum in the Belencito
neighborhood, and the Miguel Ángel
Builes Ethnographic Museum of the
Missionary Brothers of Yarumal. It has
two thousand pieces, among which
the most outstanding are from the
Embera culture of the northern part
of Antioquia, where most of their mis-
sions took place.
It is worth noting that there is an
interest in preserving and exhibit-
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
ing archaeological pieces, especially
among local communities. Cultural
organizations, neighborhood groups,
as well as cultural centers and munici-
pal museums, carry out important
museographic exercises in their com-
munities, whose collection pieces are
the result of fortuitous discoveries in
urban projects in the area.
Some examples of this are the
Envigado Cultural Center, the
Támesis Archaeological Museum, the
Graciliano Arcila Vélez Community
Museum in Itagüí, the Jericó Museum
of Anthropology and Arts in Antioquia,
132-133
and the Quinchía and Mistrató cultural
centers in Risaralda.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Western heritage
Colombian Andes

A landscape laid out

with paths of gold
The history of the Western Andes has been
marked by mining, muleteering, and industry.
These activities have been linked to each
other, driving social and cultural processes,
such as the so-called colonization of Antioquia,
determining it as a region of the Andes.

However, in order to turn gold into

Botanist Joaquín Antonio Uribe from
Antioquia used to say that “gold is
nature’s wayward child”. It hides in
seams inside the rocks, and flows
swiftly on river beds. Given the news
of the region’s great auriferous wealth,
El patrón mono
This is the name given to the Cauca River by
the artisanal miners who work along its banks,
and which mestizo communities of Risaralda,
Caldas, and Antioquia pay tribute to.
the Spanish conquistadors began a
voracious search for gold as soon as
they arrived.
wealth, it had to be put into circulation.
Thus, together with the first towns,
inaugural roads were built that would
allow access to the rivers to export the
mineral and trade it with agricultural
areas for the supply of food and mer-
chandise to the mining areas.
Both the indigenous and slaves
were engaged in alluvial and vein
mining beginning in the 16th century.
Alluvial mines, located in streams and
river tributaries of the Cauca, such
 Panama
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QUINDÍO

Enlarged
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colombia

Lode mining required greater effort

and investment, because it involved
drilling the mountain, and building tun-
nels, ditches, and reservoirs for water
conduction, and mills for the rocks, i.e.,

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Marmato was declared a National Historic
Monument in 1982 and bases its tourist activity
on its mining vocation, which includes tours of
the tunnels that surround Cerro El Guamo, as
well as its particular urban complex of steep
alleys and a church without an atrium.
as the Nechí and La Vieja, provided
higher yields because they required
less technology. Over time, this cre-
ated a society of mestizos and freed-
men, willing to migrate if necessary,
and who only needed a batea to obtain
establishing mining plants. The mines’
were at their most productive during
the 19th century with the arrival of
foreign technology and capital, mainly
from England and Germany. This is the
case for Marmato, one of the five old-
est municipalities in Colombia.
Two of the oldest cities in Antioquia
were Zaragoza and Santa Fe de
Antioquia. In both, a vibrant tri-ethnic
society was formed, with an active
social, economic, and cultural life.
Santa Fe de Antioquia was also the
capital of the governorate.
The exploitation of Cerro de Buriticá
Santa Fe de Antioquia’s historic center is one
of the few examples of colonial architecture
that remains in the department. Its temples,
houses, cobblestone streets, and the
magnificent Puente de Occidente —the former
entrance to the town— are complemented by a
rich festive calendar that includes Holy Week
and the Fiesta de los Diablitos.
was led from there. This colonial
urban center, through which all the
gold produced to be smelted and
exported to Spain passed, had close
links with other strategic points such
as Popayán, Cartagena, and Mompós,
134-135

their sustenance: mazamorra (hence or “the mountain of gold,” from which with the latter of which it shares a long
the name mazamorreros). the greatness of the city was derived, tradition of filigree craftsmanship.
 Tourist region
The Western
Colombian Andes
The expansion
of the trade map
With the intense mining activity
across the region, its network of
roads expanded to carry muleteers
with gold, merchandise, food,
news, and ideas.
In the heat of this dynamic, towns
and cities were created which, given
their strategic position with respect to
the main trade routes used, became
the epicenter of the economic life of
the Western Andes during the 18th and
19th centuries.
Their location at crossroads and
their temperate and cold thermal
floors were conditions that determined
Towns with
heritage
the commercial relevance of many
of the towns in this territory, as this
encouraged the development of agri-
cultural activities, supply to mining
areas, and the improvement of roads
and communications.
In the east of Antioquia —whose
altitude ranges from 1,900 to 2,600
meters above sea level— roads from
Popayán, from the warehouses that
Commercial axis
Although other places such as Sonsón —also
in eastern Antioquia— and Medellín declined
in importance, Rionegro remained an
important commercial hub thanks to the fact
that the José María Córdova International
Airport was built there, providing a new
determining factor in Antioquia’s and the
country’s export and import trade.
had been built on the Nare River,
and from the Magdalena crossed
each other. It is in this context that
 Manizales is located 2,146 meters above sea level,
an altitude that makes it privileged in terms of
landscapes. From it you can see the Nevado del Ruiz
with a certain reverence; the Chipre neighborhood
offers a view of three neighboring territories (Cali,
Risaralda, and Quindío) that used to be one; and the
dome of its cathedral looks out towards the historic
center that is part of Colombian cultural heritage.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

municipalities such as Marinilla and,
especially, Rionegro gained strength;
their inhabitants were forged between
transits and transactions, and they
diversified their needs, their trades,
and their investments, earning them
the reputation of good businessmen.
Rionegro, which was also a national
reference for liberalism, was ahead of
Medellín as a center of commerce. It
such as industry and banking. Banco
de Oriente was created in 1883, as
well as handicraft factories produc-
ing ceramics, weaving, and footwear
made from fique.
Further south, in Caldas, is
Manizales. If we are talking about
strategic positions, this city, founded
in 1849 by settlers from Cauca and
Chocó, Mariquita, and Honda. It was its
direct connection with the Magdalena
River that made it the nucleus of cof-
fee exports, strengthening its agro-
industrial and artisanal production and
propitiating the sophistication of its
means of transportation. The Caldas
Railroad and the Manizales-Mariquita
Aerial Cable were the points through
136-137

even opened its doors to new ingre- Antioquia, connected the south of which millions of loads of coffee
dients of Antioquian economic life, Antioquia, Viejo Caldas, Popayán, flooded the world market.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Western heritage
Colombian Andes

Settlement and
muleteer villages
Given the region’s challenging
topography, an intricate
network of roads emerged,
traced by muleteers and
settlers who crossed mountain
ranges and bordered rivers to
reach the sea, better land, and
other markets. One of the most
visible traces of these transits
and interests is the founding of
towns, mainly during the 18th
and early 19th centuries.

Although towns were founded to

control the exploitation of gold and
strategic trade routes, they also led
to expand the agricultural frontier,
since the strengthening of agriculture
and livestock depended on sustainable
mining and trade.
When Juan Antonio Mon y Velarde
visited Antioquia in 1785, he did so with
clear instructions from the Spanish
Crown to found towns in the north and
east of the province as a way of giving
unused land to poor settlers to make the north of Valle and Tolima. Although renewed pole of “civility” far from the
it productive and diversify markets there was an entrepreneurial interest city, in a territory with a large indig-
in the face of falling gold produc- that often harmed settlers, it was peo- enous presence.
tion. This is the case of the Antioquia ple’s drive and tenacity that helped to To the east, and close to the
municipalities of Carolina del Príncipe, found towns, give them character, and Magdalena, are Sonsón (1791) and
Yarumal, Don Matías (north), and San promote valuable trades and ways of Abejorral (1805), commercial nodes
Carlos (east). doing things. that were an active part of the road
Private colonization initiatives In this context, there are several network that communicated with
supported by the State —the Villegas, heritage towns that constitute differ- Popayán, Honda, and Mariquita. This
Echeverri, Aranzazu, and Burila con- ent points of transhumance. Towards is the starting point of colonization
cessions— motivated the massive the southwest of Antioquia are the advancing towards Caldas, Risaralda,
displacement of settlers in search of municipalities of Jardín and Jericó, and Quindío. The migrants —many of
opportunities associated, among other which were founded in the beginning them mestizos— who moved through
things, with coffee cultivation, towards of the 19th century to shorten the the Central Cordillera founded
the southwest and south of Antioquia, road to Chocó, as well as to create a Salamina (1825), Manizales (1849),
 The railroads, or iron mules
Were a means of transportation that connected
the region to the world market. The Antioquia
Railroad (1874) was intended to support Medellín’s
growing industrialization improving exports and
imports by reaching the Magdalena River at Puerto
Berrío. The Caldas Railroad, on the other hand, was
conceived as a way to connect the strong coffee
economy of the cities of Manizales, Armenia, and
Pereira with the railroad networks that transported
cargo and passengers to Buenaventura.

Pereira (1863), and Armenia (1889),

the latter three considered capital
cities thanks to their location and
strategic role in the coffee trade.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Muleteers were fundamental in this
history. With their routes and their
efficiency, they created a commercial
dynamic that strengthened the region
and allowed it to lay the foundations
for future industrialization. This led to
the founding of towns, which, before
becoming towns, were stops on the
road, where the muleteers could rest in
an inn, feed their mules, rearrange the
load, and stock up on tools and supplies.
Aguadas (1808), for example, was and the world. Another place was was the crossing point for travelers
the base of Antioquian migration, a Salento (1842), an intermediate sta- going from Bogotá to Popayán or for
meeting and business point; it was a tion on what was known as the Quindío cocoa, fabrics, flour, and salt going
138-139

stop on the road that communicated road, which crossed the Central from Cartago and Cundinamarca to
Antioquia with the rest of the country Cordillera from Ibagué to Cartago. It Antioquia.
 Tourist region Living
The Western culture
Colombian Andes

Paintings of a
history under glaze
El Carmen de Viboral is located
at the northern end of the
Central Cordillera. It is one of
the 23 municipalities that make
up the eastern Antioquia region
and is well known for its artisan
sector given its production
of hand-painted earthenware
using the underglaze technique.
The region’s landscapes are
brought to the dishes and pots
through floral designs and color
combinations called pintas.

At the end of the 19th century, busi-

nessmen from Caldas reached Carmen
in which they found an ideal water and
mineral wealth to establish ceramic
production centers. This industrial
complex began to transform the
town’s social and economic dynam-
ics, as numerous factories, with large
kilns and large-scale production, came
to supply 40% of national production
while numerous exports were made to
Venezuela, Ecuador, and the Antilles,
among other countries.
At the time of greatest ceramic
production, between the 1930s and
1950s, the pieces manufactured con-
stituted production batches of white
earthenware with basic decorations of
colored lists or backgrounds that were
sold to hotels and restaurants. These
were made in plants with numerous
operators in which the entire produc-
tion process was carried out, from the
preparation of the pastes to the finish-
ing and glazing of the pieces.
In 1970, in an attempt to add value
to the pieces, the women responsible
for the final touches to the earthen-
ware began to hand-paint images of
nature to give the ceramics made in
Carmen an identity value, and thus be
able to sell them for two or three times
the price of undecorated white earth-
enware pieces. The decorations were
named after the artisan who created
the design.
In the eighties, several factors led
to the decline of ceramic activity,
including the crisis brought on by the
entry of Chinese imports and the lack
of technification in production, added
to the wave of violence in eastern
One of the great contributions of the ceramic
trade was the inclusion of women in the social
and productive life of eastern Antioquia.
Ceramics allowed women to play a leading role
in this economic sector, which transformed
the habits and lifestyles established by a
traditionally conservative society.
Antioquia. Little by little large facto-
ries absorbed small ones, which then
closed one by one.
But clay has memory and has
always been at the heart of the village
of Carmen. Indeed, it soon resurfaced
in small family workshops whose
members knew the technique as they

The streets of El Carmen de Viboral are flooded
with ceramics in the form of mosaics and
earthenware pieces donated by the inhabitants
themselves. Calle de la Cerámica relates the
town’s daily life with its traditional ceramics;
Calle de las Arcillas exhibits mosaics of trees
native to the region, and El Pórtico and the
Torre Bicentenaria are works that emphasize
a tradition and reveal the connection with a
geography and its artisans.
had worked in the large factories. The
women, with their handmade decora-
tion, rediscover their own language
and the characteristic stamp of the
Carmen craftsmanship.
The pintas are the designs painted
on the ceramic pieces, learned and
created mostly by women who repro-
duce the motifs of the colorful floral
landscapes of eastern Antioquia and
A ceramics
museum housed
In the Cultural Institute has an exhibition
featuring the characters related to the ceramic
trade in the municipality, along with the
transformations pertaining to it. The Institute’s
simple and clear museography describes the
history of a municipality marked by clay.
that give rise to a Carmen’s specific
iconography. There are traditional
paintings, which are part of the
collective heritage of artisans and
workshops, and decorations such
as Viboral, Carmelina, Florelba, and
Hortensia. Each workshop also has its
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
own designs, allowing the craft to con-
tinue transforming its own tradition.
The technique used in Carmen is
called underglaze, as the images are
painted on the bisque before the piece
is dipped in glaze and fired for a sec-
ond time.
By placing all the emphasis on
handmade decoration, the crafts of El
Carmen have become distinguished
from the rest of the ceramic process,
but the new generations and some
independent workshops have been
focusing on a reconnection with their
pottery work, finding new languages,
140-141
experimenting with shapes, raw mate-
rials, and colors.
 Tourist region Living
The Western culture
Colombian Andes

Territories of
indigenous thought
If we think about the worldviews of the
indigenous, whose ancestors have traveled
and settled in these territories for over 10,000
years, we would realise that there can be many
ways in which to understand the landscape. It
is thought that they entered the territory that
is now Colombia through the Darien isthmus,
in the region of Urabá in Chocó and Antioquia.
The Embera, Tule and Zenú ethnic groups still
inhabit these lands today.

The current departments of Antioquia,

Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío were
inhabited by numerous indigenous
groups such as the Darienes, Katíos,
Nutabes, Tahamíes, and Quimbayas,
who were part of the region’s long
occupation, made up of complex
natural sites framed by mountains,
inter-Andean valleys, rivers, and coast-
lines. Today, the names of the ethnic
groups reflect their relationships with
their environment: the Embera Katío-
Eyabida are people of the jungle; the
Embera Dobidá, people of the river;
the Embera Chamí, people of the
mountains; the Umbrá, people of the
mountain range; the Zenú, children
of the caña flecha; and the Tule-Kuna,
people that love the word.
These groups are distributed
throughout the Western Andes.
The Embera Katío, in northwestern
Antioquia and Caldas; the Embera
Dobidá, in the area of the Atrato Medio
in western Antioquia and Risaralda;
the Embera Chamí are found mostly
in Risaralda (in the municipalities of
Pueblo Rico and Mistrató), in south-
western Antioquia (in Cristianía, Andes
and Jardín) and in Caldas (in Riosucio
and Supía), and in some settlements
in Quindío; the Zenú are located in the
Bajo Cauca region of Antioquia; the
Tule (or Kuna) have their largest popu-
lation in the Caimán Nuevo reservation
(in Necoclí to the north of the Gulf of
Urabá); and Quindío is home to some
members of the Yanacona ethnic group.
Each ethnic group has its own iden-
tity, beliefs and social organization
that differentiate it from the others
settled in the region, although some of
them share common features related
to the ways in which they inhabit and
understand the territory. The Embera
originally settled on the banks of the
upper reaches of the Atrato and San
Juan rivers, and for almost a hundred
years, they maintained their resis-
tance and independence in the face of
military attacks by Europeans, before
migrating to remote and difficult-to-
access areas. The Embera are divided
into two groups: the Dobidá and the
Eyabida. The former, with their palafitic
For Kuna women, weaving molas
represents their way of seeing and
inhabiting the world. The labyrinths and
figures repeated in the textile creations,
refer to the complex paths in which
men, tropical vegetation and animals
meet, and also to duality, which is a very
important concept for this culture.
constructions, persist in their life along
the river, while the Eyabida, who in turn
are divided into two groups, are rooted
to the mainland. The Embera Katío,
who are recognized as belonging to
the tropical rainforests, and the Embera
Chamí, who are people who inhabit and
cultivate the mountains.
In pre-Hispanic times, the Tule, also
called Darien, extended from Central
America to the Cundinamarca-Boyacá
highlands. In the 16th century, they
 Tolú

Sincelejo
INDIGENOUS GROUPS
caribbean
SUCRE
sea Embera katío
Montería
Embera chamí

Tule (or Kuna)

Panama BOLÍVAR Umbrá
Turbo CÓRDOBA Zenú

Embera dobidá

Enlarged
area
ANTIOQUIA
pacific
ocean colombia

Medellín

Quibdó

CALDAS
RISARALDA
CHOCÓ Manizales

Pereira

Armenia

QUINDÍO
VALLE DEL
CAUCA

faced the first colonization of the

Gulf of Urabá after the foundation of
cities such as Santa María la Antigua

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

del Darién. At present, the largest
population is located in Panamanian
territory on the islands of San Blas,
and in Colombia in the Urabá region of
Antioquia and Chocó.
For the Tule, words and language
play a central role in their culture and
there is a marked difference between
the use of everyday language and ritu-
als. Corn, cacao, manioc, plantain, rice,
and sugar cane are grown to supply the
group’s needs, as well as for trade, for
which they have a long tradition.
The Zenú people are concentrated
mainly in Córdoba and Sucre, and to a
The colonial Cañamomo Lomaprieta
reservation, located between the municipalities
of Riosucio and Supía and created for the
Embera Chamí by royal decree on March 10,
1540, is one of the oldest in the country.
known for their construction of a sys-
tem of artificial canals between the
San Jorge, Sinú, Cauca and Magdalena
rivers to control floods, build a network
of fluvial communications, channel
excess water to its natural outlets, and
yams, beans, watermelon, cocoa, and
malanga, among others, for their own
consumption, and produce handicrafts
woven from caña flecha, including the
famous sombrero vueltiao, as one of
their main economic activities.
Native communities which believe in
the existence of an intrinsic connection
between society, nature, and the spiri-
tual world, have played a fundamental
142-143

lesser extent in the subregions of Urabá make use of the sediment. Today, the role in the understanding and conser-
and Bajo Cauca in Antioquia. They are communities grow plantain, manioc, vation of valuable ecosystems.
 Tourist region Living
The Western culture
Colombian Andes

Hand-woven
mountains
Just as weaving has provided
a solution to a variety of
needs —clothing, gathering,
transporting, and storing objects
and food— the region has been
a web woven by its people, who
have forged paths through
mountains, valleys, and hillsides.

Weaving fibers such as fique, hemp, festivals dedicated to this traditional

bejuco, and iraca grow wild in the
inter-Andean valleys, and the knowl-
edge of how to harvest, transform, and
weave them is a legacy of indigenous
tradition. With the colonization of
Antioquia, the bejuco baskets repre-
sent the splendor of the coffee har-
vests: some were used to pick the ripe
beans, others to thresh, and yet others
to transport the pulp.
Filandia, the smallest town in
Quindío, has represented the coffee
basket tradition for several generations.
The town is home to the Asociación
de Artesanos de Filandia (Association
of Filandia Artisans), which has an
interactive space for the public called
the Centro de Interpretación del
Bejuco al Canasto (Bejuco to Canasto
Interpretation Center), and hosts
craft. Handicrafts made in this region
are fashioned using tripeperro, bejuco,
and fique, and some towns have imple-
mented measures for balanced and
sustainable harvesting practices for
these materials.
Iraca weaving has been the eco-
nomic and cultural mainstay of
Aguadas —a town in Caldas that has
been declared a site of national cultural
The textile boom had a very important
collateral impact on the struggle for
women’s rights, as being able to work
without paperwork or bureaucracy allowed
single rural women to aspire to economic
independence. One of the most significant
strikes in the history of the country was led
by a woman, Betsabé Espinal, in response
to the mistreatment and exploitation to
which women workers at the Compañía
Antioqueña de Tejidos were subjected.
interest— for over 150 years. Its main
handicraft product —the aguadeño
hat— is loaded with great geographic
and social significance: The shade it
provides from the high mountain sun,
its light weight suitable for farm work,
and its resistant and durable fibers are
a reflection of a pragmatic and elegant
culture. It takes around three to four
weeks to manufacture the hats, and
more than eight hands are involved in
the production chain.
In addition to providing economic
support, it has given the weavers and
their families, the ripiadores (those
who cut and prepare the iraca buds)
and the molders and seamstresses
who give the final touches to each
hat, the chance to work from home
and raise their children and look after
the home at the same time.
Risaralda hosts many expressions
of weaving: the Emberá Chamí indig-
enous communities of Mistrató and
Pueblo Rico use iraca palm, joro, caña
brava, and fishpole bamboo, among
others, to make baskets and domestic
utensils, and plastic beads to weave
handles, necklaces, and earrings.
Guática is the center for another
type of work using looms and weav-
ing. With the idea of creating a new
silk route, a silkworm farm was set
up, and a silk spinning and weaving
production center established. The
artisans who work this craft, which
is on its way to becoming a tradition,
are peasants, indigenous people, and
displaced populations.
Antioquia has a great textile tradi-
tion. Already by the time of the colony,
the indigenous people used looms to
make manufactured cotton blankets
to sell in the viceroyalty. Thereafter,
a process of merchandise exchange
began, and machinery was introduced
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
that allowed the industry to become
more technical. The textile companies
have undoubtedly left their mark on
Antioquia’s construction, especially
in the city of Medellín, where, in 1907,
Coltejer —the most important textile
company in Latin America for almost
50 years— was founded.
Despite the decline of the textile
industry at the end of the 20th cen-
tury, Antioquia continues to play an
important role and has positioned
Medellin as a fashion capital, hosting
consolidated academies, and serving
as a source of constant employment
144-145
and the site for important trade fairs
and events.
 Tourist region Living
The Western culture
Colombian Andes

Singing about grief

Music is as alive as the communities that
produce and signify it. And, like people, it
travels, borrows, mixes, transforms, mourns,
rejoices, and, in the Western Andes, its
presence is inherent to the identities that
have been formed there.

String music is often thought to be

the music that best describes this
region. However, its geographic and
ethnic diversity brings a great richness
of sound to a territory that includes
mountains, rivers, and sea. Guitars,
bandolas, tiples, and requintos have a
clear Hispanic ancestry. They arrived
on the new continent and it became
popular to learn how to play them. New
sounds were found in the American
timber, and they were strung by hands
that had other rhythms. Travel and
music went hand in hand, with instru-
ments as companions. The trova antio-
queña, which involves tiple and voice,
became popular in the roadside inns,
where muleteers and peasants showed
off their ability to improvise through
double entendre and picaresque.
In Andean music duets and trios,
what counts is mutual trust and The National Guasca Festival has been held in
harmony. The conjugation of instru- Betania (Antioquia) since 1993, where the Guasca
ments and voices is what makes King and the Guasca Parrandero King are chosen,
native rhythms such as pasillo and the Trio Picaporte and the Hatogrande along with awards for the best unpublished song,
bambuco, or imported ones such as groups in Antioquia and Victoria Sur the best duet, and the best soloist.
polka, redova, or fox-trot, pieces of in Quindio.
extraordinary beauty that spark joy in In the Western Andes, as well as in In the mountains of Antioquia,
those who listen to them. They have a the center of the country, serenades muleteers produced cañas, monos,
more rural or popular vocation than (or serenos, as some call them) have vueltas, cachadas and gallinazos,
the student music groups, associated been part of the inhabitants’ sen- party rhythms for dancing in couples,
with academic knowledge and an timental education. They are and frowned upon by civil and ecclesiasti-
urban context that admits instruments continue to be an essential part of cal authorities. These would continue
other than strings. However, new gen- courtships and different celebrations. their crossbreeding with other rhythms
erations have a renewed interest in Their subtlety and restraint contrasts that came from Cundinamarca and
the “new Colombian music,” which with the energetic display of par- Boyacá (merengue and rumba criolla)
returns to Creole instruments and randa music or the restlessness of the and from the Caribbean aboard the
rhythms as the basis of their sound guasca and the carrilera, both genres steamers that sailed the Magdalena
experimentation. This is the case for also played with strings. (porro, vallenato) to create parranda

music. In 1943, Guillermo Buitrago, a
singer-songwriter from Cienaguero
with a father from Antioquia, recorded
his first album, and since then he has
influenced the sound of the moun-
tains and promoted the creation of
parrandero groups, which, based on
the phonographic industry that was
established in Medellín, became the
stars of December celebrations and
other popular celebrations throughout
the year.
This industry also paved the way
for the emergence of guasca and car-
rilera. Mexican cinema was gaining
ground in the country, María Félix
and Pedro Infante sang rancheras and
corridos with a feeling with which the
people of the region identified, after
the arrival of the tango. By adapting
to Andean rhythms, as well as borrow-
ing instruments such as the accordion,
the guasca, and the carrilera, they
embraced the anguish and depth of
the peasant heart, to express it in lyr-
ics, voices, and melodies.
Flutes and the cantao dance are
another part of the region’s sound-
scape. Riosucio and Supía (in the
department of Caldas) especially, are
Given the wide use of stringed instruments
in the region, the luthiers’ profession is
a prestigious one. As well as making and
repairing these instruments, they use
native materials to innovate their finishes,
acoustics, and tuning. Some of the best
have their workshops in El Carmen de
Viboral, El Retiro and Marinilla (eastern
Antioquia), in Medellín and Barbosa (Valle
de Aburrá), in Dosquebradas (Risaralda)
and in Armenia (Quindío).
home to the ancestral music of the
Andean chirimía. Associated with the
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Embera Chamí community settled in
the area, the chirimía is made up of
flutes, drums, and maracas or guache,
and plays a central role in the Carnaval
del Diablo. The Devil being a syncretic
and mestizo figure like them.
There is also the baile cantao or
bullerengue, which is performed with
drums, voices, and hand clapping on
the coasts of Urabá and in the towns
of the Bajo Cauca region of Antioquia.
Unlike other traditional music, this
one is performed by women. The
maroon ancestry of bullerengue is
expressed in the freedom of move-
146-147
ment and in the solidarity of the songs
that respond to it.
 Tourist region Living
The Western culture
Colombian Andes

Growing
like guadua
Guadua, the most widely used
species for construction in
Colombia, is an especially hard
and tall bamboo that, thanks
to its constructive strengths
(flexible, resistant, and light),
its rapid growth, versatility,
and ease of transport, has
been fundamental to region’s
agricultural and architectural
development.

This giant grass (Guadua angustifolia)

is a native species that grows in soils
between 0 and 2000 meters above sea
level. Below the ground, the guadua
clumps form a complex network of
rhizomes that maintain a special com-
munication to share the moisture and
nutrition in the soil; above, they stand
“like vegetable republics” (as described
by Joaquín Antonio Uribe), as immense
groupings, tall erect canes, flexible, and
resistant to strong winds.
Guadua has been part of the region’s
landscape since before the conquest.
At the time, the Calimas used it to
manufacture fishing cages used dur-
ing fish migrations in the Cauca River,
and the Quimbayas used its charcoal to
improve gold smelting due to its high
thermal power, and to build bridges,
hunting instruments, and tools.
During the second half of the 19th
century, the expansion of colonization
in Antioquia, Cauca, and Tolima found
an abundance of guaduales, which,
after deforesting the Andean forest,
formed dominant patches that were
left behind on the banks of streams
and rivers. These enormous pastures
were ideal for establishing haciendas
and farms, founding towns, building
barns, barracks, water canals and all
the infrastructure associated with cof-
fee production.
The architecture of the Antioquian
colonization in this region is a hybrid
of Spanish tradition, pre-Hispanic
knowledge, and the region’s own
inputs. It anchors itself in the moun-
tains and has balconies and corridors
from which to view the landscape.
The construction system mainly
developed in the coffee-growing
region is the bahareque de guadua,
which consists of a guadua and wood
framework covered with plastered
matting. This construction system is
affordable for both rural and urban
Quindio has two specialized guadua
education sites that are accessible to the
public: The Centro Nacional para el Estudio
del Bambú Guadua, in Córdoba, which
offers interpretation trails and models of
guadua construction, among other services.
And the Paraíso del Bambú y la Guadua, in
Montenegro, which has one of the largest
collections in South America, with more
than 80 bamboo species.
populations: its low cost, its adapt-
ability to extreme topographic condi-
tions and its great seismic resistance
have given it the nickname estilo
temblorero or tremor style.
The coffee-growing region alone
accounts for more than 60% of the
country’s guadua plantations and its
prominence is undeniable: it is present
 The architecture in Manizales includes a large number of houses
built in wattle and daub, while guadua plays a leading role in
the architecture and landscape of Salamina, Filandia, Calarcá,
Pácora, and Quimbaya. In Córdoba, artisans use guadua to
create both decorative and functional items, and in Circasia, they
have specialized in a new craft of veneering using the guadua
culm leaf. Culm leaf veneering. Circasia. Caulinarte Workshops.

Guadua and thought

Among the most emblematic works built in

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

guadua are the Recinto del Pensamiento or
center of thought in Manizales, designed by
Simón Vélez; the Centro del Pensamiento,
in the Suratena reservation, designed by
architect María José Arango for the Emberá
Chamí indigenous community in Marsella; and
the Centro de Pensamiento de Arquitectura
Mixta in Tenjo, built using the non-glued
guadua fiber technique.

in the region’s natural landscape as
well as in its architecture, its work, and
its handicrafts.
The flexibility of guadua has placed
it in distant worlds: both the difficult-
housing was built after the earthquake
in the Eje Cafetero in 1999, monumen-
tal works have been erected in guadua,
and, recently, it has been used to man-
ufacture high-tech parts for cars and
148-149

to-access rural world and the luxuri- airplanes, and in research on energy
ous world of cities. Just as emergency and data transmission.
 Tourist region
The Western Gastronomy
Colombian Andes

Food to lift
spirits and
give strength
for the road
The agricultural frontier was
expanded as a result of the
crops planted by settlers in
the 19th century Foodstuffs
such as corn, plantain,
sugarcane and coffee and
their by-products became
part of the gastronomic
habits and customs of this
region, prepared and sold
in its marketplaces and
roadside restaurants.

The popular adage “breakfast will

tell you what’s for lunch,” shows how
important the morning meal is in this
area, as the first dose of energy to kick-
start the day. Although traditional reci-
pes have transformed over time, they
still use basically the same ingredients.
Corn, an ancient crop that has
sustained peoples and cultures, also
accompanied colonial settlers as they
moved, first to the east and then to
the south of Antioquia. The arepa, a
kind of corn patty, travelled with the
muleteers and their loads on these
journeys, as they climbed mountains
and crossed ravines and rivers, giving a
taste of home and a semblance of rest
at mealtimes. This comforting food,
whose production has become increas-
ingly industrialized, can accompany
almost any meal of the day. Both in the
morning and evening, it is best paired
with butter, fresh and ripened cheeses,
eggs, tomato sauce, or fried meat,
while at lunchtime, a thicker arepa is
often eaten with soups and steaks.
Corn is prepared by boiling, milling,
and kneading it into a dough. Then,
mainly women, heiresses of a long
tradition of culinary fusion, prepare
empanadas and arepas of all kinds
with skillful and creative hands. In
Caldas and Risaralda, the specialty is
The pig landed on the shores of the New World
alongside the Spanish armies and traveled
with them during the process of conquest and
colonization. Herds of pigs accompanied people
as they moved from place to place, becoming
the main source of protein and sustenance for
the poorer classes, since rearing pigs requires
no special care or conditions, and no taxes
were charged for their slaughter.
almanegra (arepas with a bean filling),
in Risaralda, chiquichoque (dumplings
wrapped in corn husks) and in Caldas,
The plantain has also been commonly grown on
campesino plots. It adapts well to both upland
and lowland areas, grows beside rivers and the
sea, and was even the driving force behind the
colonization of areas such as Urabá (Antioquia).
hogagato (corn cakes made with
bran and manioc flour). Everything is
cooked in pots of boiling water sim-
mering over burners whose lighting
signals the start of a new day.
In this region, love and affection
are expressed through food, and so
at noon and into the afternoon when
lunch is served, it becomes an excuse
for a get-together. Lunch consists of
legumes, vegetables, meat, and fruit
all produced in the surrounding areas.
In the past, all ingredients would have
been grown in cottage gardens, root-
ing families to the earth by providing
them both food for the table and an
income from any surplus sold in the
markets of nearby towns and cities.
Banana leaves,
bijao (calathea lutea), and corn husks are
best to wrap up food for the road, creating
dishes such as fiambres and tamales.
Fried plantain, sliced or pressed into
patacones –sharing their name with the
gold coins used in colonial times– replace
the arepa on the coasts or riversides as an
accompaniment for soups and stews.
A great variety of soups and stews
are prepared in many different ways.
Sancocho (meat stew) and mondongo
(tripe stew) rank among the region’s
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
most popular dishes, and are associ-
ated with ritual, large families, and
communal work. However, it is beans
that dominate this region’s culinary
universe. Beans alongside plantains
and pork serve as the base for the
dish known these days as bandeja
paisa. Served fresh or as leftovers the
next day at breakfast, a whole host of
proteins have been added to enliven
what was once an austere peasant
dish. Pork cracklings share the plate
with other pork products such as cho-
rizo and blood sausage. The famous
chorizo made in Santa Rosa de Cabal
150-151
(Risaralda) is very lean and seasoned
with spices such as cumin.
 Tourist region
The Western Gastronomy
Colombian Andes

From the field to the

table: corn, beans,
coffee, sugar cane,
and plantain
Speaking of the fundamental ingredients
of the cuisine of the Western Andes
involves flavors and ingredients, but
also culture, migration, colonization, and
economic development. Corn, beans,
coffee, sugar cane and plantain have
made up the basic ingredients of this
region’s cuisine, history, and ethos.

Of all the foodstuffs that comprise

the cuisine of the Western Andes,
corn, coffee, beans, sugarcane, and
plantain have held the most impor-
tant and certainly the most consistent
place at the table and in the economy.
Corn and beans, paired together in
the field and on the plate, were grown
by Amerindian cultures long before
the conquest. Indigenous civilizations
across the Americas sowed, domesti-
cated, and traded these crops, which,
centuries later, were adopted by the
colonists and served as the fuel that
fed the Antioquian campesinos in their
colonization efforts.
The ubiquity of corn production and
consumption across the continent has
given rise to the phrase “people of
corn,” and corn is eaten in many differ-
ent forms, from arepas to mazamorra
corn porridge, empanadas, fried buñue-
los, set custards, tamales, popcorn, and
alcoholic beverages such as chicha,
among many others. But importantly,
corn, in addition to its nutritional role,
is also a symbol of identity, celebrated
in origin myths, rituals, festivals, songs
and literature alike.
Bean species also, in all their
diversity, are found throughout Latin
America thanks to their versatility in
cultivation and preparation. In the
Western Andes especially, the carga-
manto bean has been a staple source
of protein for campesinos across the
entire coffee growing region, as it is
also an agricultural boon, fixing nutri-
ents in the soil in which it is planted.
Unlike corn and beans, coffee and
sugarcane were imported from else-
where. Although there is no exact date
The bandeja paisa
one of the region’s most typical dishes,
was originally a day-to-day meal eaten by
campesinos that combined produce grown
in cottage gardens, such as beans, plantains,
and rice, designed to fill up the eater and
provide the necessary energy to withstand
the long days of field labor.
for the arrival of coffee in Colombia, it is
first mentioned in 18th century records
of the missions of Jesuit priests. At
the end of the 19th century, this small
bean became the powerhouse of cof-
fee region’s economy when the first
exports coincided with an exorbitant
increase in prices at an international
level. The profits from this trade funded
the region’s subsequent industrial
boom, and were used to expand and
open up new road networks.
Antioquia currently grows the most
sugarcane for panela production
of all Colombia’s departments, and
in 2020, panela production was
declared cultural and gastronomic
heritage of the department.
Sugarcane, another crop imported
by the colonizers, arrived in Colombia
through the port of Cartagena around
1538 and traveled to the Cauca region
accompanied by sugar mills and
presses. Since the colonial and repub-
lican periods, panela —solid blocks of
unrefined cane sugar, also called dulce
macho— has played an important role
in the campesino diet, as a beverage
(aguapanela) and raw ingredient for
fruit preserves and liquors such as
guarapo, aguardiente, and white rum.
Plantain, originally from Southeast
Asia, was introduced to Colombia
shortly after the arrival of the Spanish
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
and was quickly incorporated into the
agriculture and culinary habits of the
indigenous peoples and campesinos. It
is a particularly important crop in the
region as the main production centers
for domestic consumption are located
in the coffee growing areas of the
Western Andes, and the main plantain
plantations for export are located in
Urabá Antioqueño region.
The agricultural development and
labor needs of the intensive cultivation
of plantains resulted in cultural mix-
ing which saw the mountain identities
influenced by those from other parts
152-153
of the country like Chocó and the
Caribbean plains.
 Tourist region
The Western Gastronomy
Colombian Andes

At the center of the

table: liqueurs, coffee,
and Christmas Eve
Sugarcane and coffee hold a
central place in the region’s
eating habits and community
and festive celebrations.
Preparing, cooking, and
consuming these kitchen staples
provides a sense of home,
wellbeing, and pleasure, similar
to the warm feeling of sharing a
few drinks or a tasty meal with
friends on Christmas Eve.

Sugarcane has been a source of

energy for a large part of the popu-
lation since the 16th century, fueling
the mule trains and trade routes con-
necting mining areas with the rest of
the department. The cane is processed
in sugar mills, where panela, a key
ingredient of the campesino diet, is
extracted. Dissolved into both hot and
cold beverages, the resulting aguapa-
nela is drunk throughout the day.
Hot aguapanela can ward off the
bitterest cold, and when it is mixed
with ice and a squeeze of lemon
(guandolo), it can provide relief in the
most scorching heat. It’s also used to
make hot chocolate with cloves and
cinnamon, or it can be fermented with
wheat flour and sugar to make and
alcoholic drink called forcha.
Since colonial times, home brewer-
ies, artisanal distilleries called zaca-
tines and factories have produced
spirits such as aguardiente and rum.
Essential components of any festival
or holiday celebrations, they have
become cultural symbols of the region.
A couple of aguardientes worth men-
tioning are Antioquia’s anisado and
the amarillo variety, a yellow aguardi-
ente distilled from gorobeta sugarcane
in Manzanares (Caldas). Panela is also
the main ingredient of guarapo, a fer-
mented liquor with indigenous roots
produced in the municipalities of Supía
and Riosucio (Caldas).
Coffee is one of the country’s best
loved beverages, especially in this
region. Coffee cultivation has driven a
process of colonization that has seen
Antioquia’s borders pushed south,
giving a new lease of life to previously
The region’s sweets are a perfect example of the
ingenuity of its cooks and craftspeople, coming in
all shapes, wrappings, and colors, with different
names and confection processes. Sweets in
the shape of little animal and human figures
are displayed on bakery counters, and can be
decorated with seeds and fruits, while the candy
itself is wrapped up in shells and dried leaves.
unexplored territory. Black coffee,
known as tinto, is drunk before and
after meals, while milky coffee goes
with breakfast and snacks. Coffee with
a shot of liquor in it livens up any chat
or gathering.

Colombia is a major producer of
specialty coffees, along with Costa
Rica and Ethiopia. This region in par-
ticular has created a whole experi-
ence around drinking coffee. With the
appearance of specialized stores and
barista training courses, people are
now exploring different preparations
as well as its origin and flavors.
The most anticipated night of the
year is Christmas Eve, which is both a
time to celebrate with family and eat
to your heart’s content, with prepara-
tions for the main meal starting in early
December. It comprises several differ-
ent dishes that are delicious on their
own, but brought together invoke utter
contentment. In the days running up to
Christmas, people congregate in their
kitchens, bringing lashings of milk and
piles of panela, sugar, cinnamon sticks,
coconuts, raisins, corn, flour, lemons,
oranges, figs, and chili peppers. The
counters are littered with sieves, bowls
of resting dough and chopped fruit,
the burners are turned high, and the
air is filled with aromatic scents (Tomás
Carrasquilla said “On Christmas Eve the
Devil resides in unlit stoves, and holds
sway over the whole household”).
While sugar arrived with the
Spanish, the indigenous peoples, con-
noisseurs of corn, had already tasted
sweetness from eating honey and
fruit, and the Africans brought with
them their own cooking methods and
seasonings. All this knowledge and
the different flavors come through
Quesito Antioqueño
Is a fresh cheese typical of the region. It is
made by hand, and its soft, grainy texture
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
comes from the way the milk curds are mixed
and kneaded. The resulting balls of cheese
are drained, salted and wrapped in banana or
bijao leaves to stop them from drying out.
in this Christmas meal, in fruit pre-
serves where figs or green papaya
are soaked in panela syrup, in the set
custard seasoned with cinnamon and
coconut pieces, in the fried cheese
and corn flour buñuelos or in the
flaky pastry squares that are kneaded
and then fried. Eaten all year round,
at Christmas slices of fresh quesito
cheese complement the meal with
154-155
their distinct flavor and texture, and
remind us of our cultural history.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Western festivals
Colombian Andes

Blazing trails:
cargueros and silleteros
Medellín’s Feria de la Flores
has been celebrated in early
August every year since 1957.
The stars of this flower festival
are the silleteros: campesinos
from east of the city, from the
village of Santa Elena, who carry
a wooden crate on their backs
filled with dahlias, daisies, Star-
of-Bethlehem, agapanthus, and
other flowers that together can
weigh up to eighty kilos.

The night before the main event of

the Feria de las Flores —the proces-
sion of the silleteros— locals and tour-
ists visit Santa Elena to see how a
silleta is assembled, bunch by bunch.
In the fourteen villages of the district,
located east of Medellín, campesinos
welcome visitors and proudly show
them the work learned from their
forebears. They place each flower
carefully, making sure that the shapes
and colors come together in a single
In 2003,
composition to make a work of art that the Corporación de Silleteros de Santa
they will carry on their backs. Elena was founded, to be an organization
The tourists watching this creative uniting and protecting the campesino
process witness a tradition that was families and their traditions that are part
born on the trails of what was then of the nation’s cultural heritage.
the Viceroyalty of New Granada. The
silleteros who parade with their flow- transporting goods on their backs and
ers through the streets of Medellín boosting local commerce. Along many
today have inherited a line of work that steep and swampy routes, they carried
was key to the opening up of the prov- staple foodstuffs and coal extracted in one of his chronicles: “Just as with
ince of Antioquia during colonial times. from the mountains. horses, there are distinctions made
At that time, indigenous and These porters would also carry sick between porters who are steady,
criollo porters travelled on foot, people, pregnant women, merchants sure-footed and give a comfortable
through routes that were difficult and explorers such as Alexander von ride. Some walk so awkwardly that
for even mules and oxen to navigate, Humboldt, who described the practice one is thrown around in the seat. The

seats are very well designed, made of
bamboo canes with a backrest, held
at an angle of 60° so that the person
being transported can lean against the
sillero’s back.”
Some time later, after the battles
of Independence in 1826, Medellín
was named capital of the depart-
ment. Many of the region’s political,
economic, social, and cultural affairs
took place in the small town. One of
the main access roads to the city was
the Santa Elena path, a steep route
that the cargueros knew by heart, and
through which they were frequently
seen arriving in the new capital shoul-
dering their burdens.
At the beginning of the 20th cen-
tury, the silleteros were well known
all over the city. On market days they
were the first to arrive at the square.
Just like the campesinos who had
come in from many miles eastward,
they would bring vegetables and a few
chickens. They would also carry other
items in their packs, like soil, moss, and
especially wildflowers. They brought
small bunches of pansies, stock, and
hydrangeas that would end up deco-
rating a dining table, the room of a
sick person, the altar of a church or
the headstone of a tomb. The demand
was so great that they could not bring
enough wildflowers, and so the farm-
ers of Santa Elena began to cultivate
Besides honoring Santa Elena’s campesinos,
the Feria de las Flores, pays tribute to the
means of transportation which aided the
progress of Antioquia and its capital, along
with vintage cars and chivas —the colorful
buses that drive through the department’s
highlands— also exhibited at the Feria.
flowers in greenhouses and so were
able to bring huge amounts to the
marketplaces.
Over time, the silleteros became
local characters of the city. Thanks
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
to the carguero’s popularity and their
historical legacy, they became the
central figures of festivities that shape
the identity of the people of Medellín.
After several events that took place in
the first half of the 20th century, in
1957 —before the end of Gustavo Rojas
Pinilla’s dictatorship— the Sociedad de
Mejoras Públicas (Public Improvement
Society) organized the first Feria de las
Flores. Stages went up in the different
neighborhoods and dances were held
in the city’s main clubs over five days.
The event ended with the parade of
the silleteros, and on that occasion,
156-157
forty campesinos exhibited their flow-
ers along Junín Street.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Western festivals
Colombian Andes

Speak of the devil,

and he is sure to
appear (amongst
songs and revelry)
Every other year, the people of Riosucio sing
songs and chant incantations to summon
the devil, the host of the Riosucio Carnival.
This festival is one of the longest in the
country: for six days in January, revelers
are enchanted by the words and rhythms of
the music, in a celebration that mixes the
indigenous, African, and European heritage
of this town in the west of Caldas.

The history of the Riosucio Carnival

began with a peace agreement. In
colonial times, two neighboring towns,
Quiebralomo and La Montaña, con-
stantly fought over the land surround-
ing Ingrumá hill. The feud escalated
when the inhabitants of one commu-
nity invaded the land of the other. To
mark the boundaries, the communities
decided to build a statue of Christ. As
the villagers kept crossing the land as
they pleased, the statue was replaced
with another depicting the devil, per-
haps to frighten potential trespassers.
Tired of so many quarrels, while
the battles of Independence raged
elsewhere, José Bonifacio Bonafont
and José Ramón Bueno, the parish
priests of these villages, decided to
make peace and unite their commu-
nities in a single town, which since
1819 has been known as Riosucio. This
reconciliation was an excuse to mix
indigenous rites, African dances, and
The calabozo
The calabozo is another symbol of the
carnival and refers to the receptacle from
which the sacred drink of the celebration
is drunk. Strong sugar cane liquor such as
guarapo or chicha has always accompanied
the rituals of the indigenous communities
of the western part of Caldas. Before the
end of the festivities, the people of Riosucio
attend the burial of the calabazo which
returns the ancestral drink to mother earth,
as a gesture of apretiation for the strength
it gave them during the days of revelry.
religious festivities into one celebra-
tion: the Riosucio Carnival, a veritable
rite of friendship and merry making
since 1911.
The Riosucio Carnival has a gov-
erning body made up of a president,

the mayor, and other officials who, by
law, guarantee merriment and peace
for the duration of the festivities. A
main attraction of the celebration are
the matachines, witty folk poets who
compose the edicts, incantations and
parodies that are heard throughout
the celebration.
Los treinta
One of the Carnival’s oldest cuadrillas, this
group is in charge of building la Diabla —a
female version of the devil— out of recycled
materials. This figure challenges the Carnival
tradition, and is brought out on the second
day, before the real devil is revealed.
With a satirical and playful tone,
they narrate what has been going on
in the town and voice any grievances
they have with current politicians. The
Riosucio Carnival is also known as the
Carnaval de la Palabra or Carnival of
the Word thanks to this matachinesque
literature, as it is known by the people
of Riosucio.
The inspiration for these poetic
interventions comes from the devil
himself, as the guardian and host of
The prelude
to Carnival
In the build up to the Carnival, two
events are held: the first is in July,
with the Inauguration of the Carnival
Republic; the other is in December,
when locals and visitors come together
in anticipation of the great celebration.
the festival. Two weeks before the
celebration, the people of Riosucio
gather together to summon him: pas-
sionately they ask him to inspire the
poets, warm hearts and prepare bod-
ies for the dancing and revelry. The
devil of Riosucio is not a representa-
tion of evil. Although he always sports
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
horns, tail and trident, each Carnival
sees him in a different costume and
mask. He strolls triumphantly through
the streets of the town and as guest
of honor, converses with the mata-
chines and observes as the cuadrillas
go by. These traditional bands are the
backbone of the Carnival whose color-
ful costumes and creative songs and
parodies can be seen and heard every
other year.
After six days, the Carnival ends
with the burning of the devil. Before
retiring to the bonfire, the king of rev-
elry and fellowship reads his will and
158-159
promises to return in two years’ time
to reclaim his throne.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Western festivals
Colombian Andes 1 Manizales
International Theater Festival

From campesinos
The festival has been included on the
National Cultural Heritage List of Colombia
and has received important international

performing
awards, including the Atahualpa del Cioppo
Award (Cadiz) and the Ollantay Prize of Latin
American Theatre Creation and Research
(Buenos Aires).

sainetes to urban
festivals Tolú
Sincelejo

Theater has been an BOLÍVAR

important component of
the region’s arts scene, CÓRDOBA

and has forged close

connections across Latin
America and the rest of the
world through exchanges,
tours and festivals that ANTIOQUIA

have sprung up over the

3
last few decades. Medellín

Quibdó
Theater was first performed in the
country by religious communities that
found it an effective tool though which
RISARALDA
to evangelize and educate people in
CHOCÓ
the Christian faith. These perfor-
mances displaced other community
gatherings and ceremonies prac-
ticed by the local indigenous groups.
Similarly, evangelization of enslaved
VALLE DEL
peoples would put an end to most CAUCA
of their outward religious practices
based on the worship of idols. Behind
the scenes, however, new attachments
and ways of representing reality were
being brewed.
In addition to verses from Spanish
ballads brought in the mouths of the
Enlarged
conquistadors, comedians and travel- area
ing theater companies also arrived in
the New World and planted the seed of
the Western theater tradition, where
the new societies being built in the
Americas began to transform and
adapt this artform to the new context.
2
CALDAS
1 Manizales
Pereira
Armenia
QUINDÍO
TOLIMA
Bundes, mojigangas, and sainetes
are examples of this theatrical cross-
pollination. The first two combine
masks, rhyming couplets, choreogra-
phy, and music. The sainete, on the
colombia
other hand, tells a short cautionary
tale of human vices and virtues using
satire and accompanied by music and
dance. The original sainetes were first
established mainly in the campesino
villages of the mountains of the
 2 El Gesto Noble
Theater Festival
This festival takes place in El Carmen de
Viboral, a town known for its crafting tradition.
Starting in 1993, it brings together national
and international artists under the banner of
independent, avant-garde, and contemporary
world theater.
Western Andes. Antioquian settlers
moving south brought this flavor of
popular theater with them, and they
started to become staples of the
Christmas celebrations, and served to
strengthen family and community ties
through artistic expression.
The revitalization of theater since
the 19th century has been aided by
touring plays and itinerant theater
groups. This revitalization has resulted
in the emergence of several local
3 San Andrés,
a Black campesino community
The village of San Andrés in the municipality
of Girardota in the mountains of Antioquia
is home to an Afro-descendant community
which still performs sainetes. For centuries,
its inhabitants have spent long hours
rehearsing, sewing costumes, and making
masks to participate in the Christmas
celebrations, which begin on December 7
and last until January 6.
festivals at the turn of the last century
that have privileged cultural exchange
and built audiences for this artform.
A prime example is the Manizales
International Theater Festival (FITM),
founded in 1968 as a means of artistic
expression in the midst of the compli-
cated political situation brought about
by the Cold War. The festival initially
staged Latin American university
Musical
accompaniment of a sainete
In addition to the ten actors performing the play,
a musical ensemble consisting of a tiple, bandola,
guitar, and guacharaca or raspa, accompanies
the performance and participates in specific
moments of the play.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
theater, and later welcomed new wave
and experimental theater companies,
to later establish itself as a festival
of contemporary theater. Since the
festival’s founding, Manizales has wel-
comed more than 1,500 companies
from around the world to perform in
its theaters, streets, and on all kinds
of stages, opening doors to other
worlds for audiences in the region and
the rest of the country, and building
artistic and creative bridges with Latin
America, showing stimulating works
160-161
that have prompted all types of audi-
ences to think and reflect.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Western spiritual tourism
Colombian Andes
On December 7 and 8, the streets of
Quimbaya (Quindío) are lit up as part of
the Festival de las Velas y Faroles or of

The paths of faith

candles and lanterns, to celebrate the
Immaculate Conception. Around forty
thousand lanterns are lit each year, these
being made by local craftspeople and
adorned with images of the coffee region.

Ever since colonial times,

congregations in the Western
Andes have used prayers
and plaster statuettes of
saints to profess their faith.
The Catholic Church was a
key institution in the process
of settling the Antioquian
mountains, escorting
expeditions of mule drivers
who colonized the south of the
province until they reached
the border of what was then
the Caldas department. The
Catholic faith has maintained
its strong influence in the
region ever since.

Holy Week is perhaps the most impor-

tant celebration for the country’s
Catholics, especially for those who
grew up in the mountains of Antioquia
and the Eje Cafetero. In every town,
the parish priest and his parishioners
carefully prepare events marking the
Passion of Christ, and each community
has its own traditions. For example,
in Cocorná, a municipality in eastern
Antioquia, a theater group is in charge
of the Easter celebration, with one tunics, cover their heads with capir- apostle is stuffed full of gunpowder
hundred and fifty actors participating otes, tall cone-shaped hats, and carry and carried through the streets of
in Holy Week Live, a tradition that has aloft wooden platforms with statues the town to eventually be strung up
been maintained for fifty-five years of saints the same size as themselves. and burnt. The crowd then listens to
and is so evocative that those who About a thousand children walk the reading of Judas’ will, wherein he
have participated in the processions the streets of Risaralda’s capital to leaves his property to the town as a
say that people cry when they see remember the passion and resurrec- token of reconciliation.
Jesus walk through the town’s streets tion of Jesus. The inhabitants of the region are
carrying the cross. On Easter Sunday in Neira, Caldas, never far from a sanctuary where they
A little further south, in Pereira, Judas is punished by the townspeople can enter to pray. The main squares of
the stars of the Easter processions for his betrayal of Christ for 30 silver all towns and cities always hold a mod-
are the local children, who wear black coins. An effigy representing the est church, small chapel, or imposing
 CÓRDOBA

ANTIOQUIA

Girardota SANTANDER

Medellín of the Rosary is the tallest church

Cocorná in Colombia. Visitors can attend its
services, have a coffee on one of its
terraces or climb the 395 steps up to
Quibdó the high viewpoint.
Local people’s Catholic faith
CALDAS extends outside of these places of
Neira
CHOCÓ worship. Those wanting to ward off
RISARALDA Manizales Enlarged
area witchcraft will light a candle to St.
Pereira
colombia
Augustine, drivers seek safe passage
Quimbaya from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and
Armenia those looking for a husband pray to
St. Anthony. This faith in divine inter-

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

QUINDÍO
VALLE DEL
CAUCA
cathedral. Each temple has a particu-
lar architectural style and a story to
tell, altars with carved wooden saints
brought across seas and mountains,
stained glass windows painted by great
artists, or bells that for years have
tolled to call parishioners to mass.
An example of this is the church of
the Sacred Heart that stands proud
Although Catholicism is the dominant
faith in Antioquia and the Eje Cafetero,
the region is also home to many different
religions and other alternatives for people
seeking a spiritual awakening. One of these
is Vanadurga Ashram, a yoga sanctuary
located between the municipalities of San
Rafael and San Carlos, in eastern Antioquia.
with stones taken from the Quindío
River for its walls, and was completed
in 1939. Not far away, in Manizales,
vention will see believers ask favors
of different saints, depending on their
divine request. This is also true of the
Fallen Christ of Girardota, a wooden
figure of Jesus that arrived from Quito
in 1799, and lies on a special altar in
the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary.
Every year, thousands of people
go on a pilgrimage to ask him for a
miracle or to thank him for requests
granted. They walk along the edge of
the highway from Medellin, and when
they reach their destination in north-
ern Antioquia, tired yet hopeful, they
approach the statue of the lacerated
162-163

in the west of Armenia. The church and measuring 115 meters high the Christ resting on his hands and knees,
was built by the hands of the faithful, Metropolitan Basilica of Our Lady and ask for his grace.
 Tourist region Urban
The Western culture
Colombian Andes

Meetings in marketplaces,
squares, and libraries
In the cities of the Western Andes, marketplaces sell fruit,
vegetables, and meat like all others. But here, the city
dwellers can also hear stories that will remind them of their
campesino origins. This quiet chatter can also be heard
in parks, museums, and libraries, public spaces that have
responded to the region’s social and cultural transformations,
promoting diversity and the exchange of ideas and outlooks.

Valdés marketplaces remain standing

At about four o’clock in the morning,
while Manizales is still asleep, trucks
full of produce grown by campesinos
of the Eje Cafetero arrive and little by
little the porters unload the crates of
fruit and vegetables. The marketplace
—the capital of Caldas’ pantry— was
built in 1951 in the old center, two
blocks from Plaza Bolivar, as a gift
from the Town Hall marking the city’s
first hundred years. Since then, the
five pavilions that make up this build-
ing are filled with workers and shop-
pers buying their weekly supplies,
while they chat and sip good coffee.
Plaza Minorista José María Villa, located in
downtown Medellín, was opened in 1984 to
house the merchants from the former Plaza
de Cisneros. Here, as locals will tell you, “If you
can’t see it, ask.” As well as fresh produce for
the weekly groceries, you can find gourmet
restaurants, scrap metal dealers, hairdressers,
and new and second-hand clothing stores.
This same atmosphere envolves
Medellín’s four surviving marketplaces.
Placita de Flórez, Plaza Minorista José
María Villa, La América and Campo
despite the boom in large supermarket
chains. Placita de Flórez is the oldest,
built in 1891 in the center of town
and still sees campesinos from Santa
Elena and eastern Antioquia arrive
every morning, laden with cut flowers
and produce from their fields. Placita
de Flórez holds a special place in the
heart of the paisas, as over 130 years
of trade have made it one of the city’s
social, economic, and cultural hubs.
Pereiranos and Armenians (also
known as Cuyabros) used to regularly
shop at farmers’ markets: there are pic-
tures in photo albums of the Armenia
and Impala marketplaces in Pereira,

The Lucy Tejada Cultural Center, named
in tribute of the Pereiran artist, was
inaugurated on August 30, 2005. Pereira’s
cultural radio station, Remigio Antonio
Cañarte, which has been reporting on the
region’s main cultural events since 1986, is
broadcast from its studios. The center also
has a theater, an exhibition hall and houses
the Ramón Correa Mejía Municipal Library.
whose buildings did not withstand the
earthquake that shook the Eje Cafetero
in January 1999. In Armenia, the pub-
lic square of Plaza de la Quindianidad
and the city’s administrative buildings
were erected on the land occupied by
the Galería de Armenia marketplace,
while Pereira’s old market square,
inaugurated in 1965, gave way to
Plaza Ciudad Victoria and Lucy Tejada
Cultural Center.
The Western Andes’ main cities
have had to adapt their public spaces
to the social, cultural, and political
changes they have undergone. Just
as Armenia, Pereira, and Manizales
saw changes in their architecture due
to the earthquake, Medellín’s urban
transformations have largely been a
response to the violence suffered by
the city in the eighties and nineties.
Many sites became places of refuge
and epicenters of new social and cul-
tural experiences. The library parks,
the Moravia Cultural Development
Center, the Casa de la Memoria
Museum and other spaces designed
for Medellín’s population to enjoy
were built. For example, inaugu-
rated in 2008, the Moravia Cultural
Development Center has become a
meeting place for the city’s north-
ern neighborhoods and a venue for
Afro culture, community projects,
The Belén
Library Park
Is renowned Japanese architect Hiroshi
Naito’s only work built in Colombia. When
the park was finished, Naito donated part of
his personal collection of books to Belén’s
Hall of Japanese Culture.
and neighborhood remembrance
programs. Plazoleta Centenario de
Armenia, an open-air art gallery in
the center of the city opened in 2004,
offers a similar experience, where
locals and visitors can enjoy exhibi-
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
tions, plays and other performances by
local and regional artists. This urban
transformation is also reflected in the
Cultural Center at Rogelio Salmona
University in Manizales which opened
its first phase in 2018 to promote cul-
ture, research and learning through
the visual arts and the use of new
technologies.
Whether in the traditional market-
places that fill the big city with the
smells, flavors, and colors of the coun-
tryside, or in the new public spaces
dedicated to promoting culture, the
region’s inhabitants enjoy and appro-
164-165
priate these places by engaging in their
favorite pastime: having a good chat.
 Tourist region Urban
The Western culture
Colombian Andes

And tango
never left...
In the 1930s, Latin
American cities began to
massify, which dynamized
and diversified both the
domestic market and the
lives of their inhabitants.
As the urban demand for
work increased, so did
people’s expectations and
rural migrations to cities
such as Medellín, Manizales,
Armenia, and Pereira. Tango
(the music of the cities) was
the star of this story.
The urban explosion changed the cit-
ies’ physiognomy, their spaces and
people’s way of being and moving
in them. One of these spaces is the
cantina, which, like the café, is a tra-
ditional, welcoming space in which to
meet, in this region more than in any
other part of the country. Cantina’s are
spaces in which to relax, converse, dis-
cuss, and even indulge in some intro-
spection, and always to the rhythm of Although they have become part
music and liquor. of the urban landscape, in large cities,
Tango festivals
In the past, the fondas camineras they paradoxically evoke the rural, the The region’s four main cities host annual tango
(inns) were where people could meet village, the intimate. In a context of festivals. The Manizales and Medellín festivals
and interact. Travelers and muleteers uprootedness and individualism such are international and the Armenia and Pereira
arriving from many places would spend as the urban one, the peasant culture ones are more regional and have gradually
the night there and often end up duel- of the Western Andes, with its values of become more prominent in the country since
ing in verses to the tune of guitars or attachment to the land and community 2001 and 2011, respectively.
commenting on current events. These ties, created familiar, close, and trust-
were part of a purely rural environ- ing environments in the cantinas. The representing shared emotions that
ment that, over the years, as towns same is true of neighborhood stores. make us feel part of something: tango.
increased in size, and with the popu- It has already been said that music Thanks to the radio, this musical genre,
larization of electrical appliances such is an integral part of these spaces. born in the slums of Buenos Aires and
as jukeboxes or pianos, became urban, However, there is one genre that Montevideo, arrived in the country and
giving way to the cantinas. persists triumphantly and happily deeply penetrated the region, where

it has captivated many generations
with its lyrics and melodies. This is
why great tango performers such as
Luis Ramírez Saldarriaga, El Caballero
Gaucho, from La Virginia (Risaralda),
as well as dancers, musicians and com-
posers, have emerged here.
The mere rhythm of Cambalache,
by Enrique Santos Discépolo, or Lejos
de ti, by Raúl Garcés, is enough to
make unsuspecting passers-by start
singing and feel the melancholic air
of a song that, like the city itself, they
do not understand, but feel as their
The novel Aire de tango by the Antioquian
writer Manuel Mejía Vallejo narrates the life
of Medellín’s Guayaquil neighborhood in the
late 1950s. It is a portrait of a growing city,
in which its characters leave behind their
peasant origins to become citizens. This
change is only possible thanks to a cultural
fusion in which old and new values; accents;
different ethnic origins; popular religiosity;
political stances; popular music; and, among
them, tango, as a friendly voice, helps to
understand life events.
own. The collective memory of cities
like Medellín, Manizales, Armenia or
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Pereira is shaped by tango, a sonority
that belongs to them because it grew
with them and whose legacy has been
transformed along with them.
The popularity of this genre can
be felt in the large number of venues
where it has historically been pro-
moted: Casa Gardeliana, the Homero
Manzi Bar, El Patio del Tango, and Salón
Málaga (in Medellín), as well as Calle
del Tango in the heart of Manizales. In
terms of educational initiatives, one
of the most important is the Tango
Orchestra of the Network of Music
Schools of Medellín, which teaches this
166-167
music to children and young people in
the city.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The Eastern
Colombian
Andes

CUNDINAMARCA
Tunja

BOYACÁ
BOGOTÁ D. C.
 NORTE DE
SANTANDER

Cúcuta
Bucaramanga

SANTANDER Venezuela

Archeology » 172

Towns with heritage » 176

Religious and spiritual tourism » 182

Gastronomy » 188

Urban culture » 192

Living culture » 196

Fairs and festivals » 202   

 Tourist region
The Eastern
Colombian Andes

INTRODUCTION

Land of the cultural

melting pot
Colombia’s Eastern Andes are divided
into four departments: Cundinamarca,
Boyacá, Santander, and Norte de
Santander. Their territory extends from
the lowlands near the Magdalena River
to peaks such as the Ritacuba Blanco, or
Ritak’uwaen, in the Cocuy National Park.

The variety of elevations in the Andes

mean that we can experience differ-
ent temperature ranges and enjoy the
abundance of water supplied by the
region’s moorlands, which is exactly
what people have been doing for a
little over ten thousand years, as they
have been traveling uninterruptedly
between the lowlands and highlands.
Groups of hunter-gatherers found
conditions that favored a sedentary
lifestyle from very early on, and the
consolidation of agriculture and the
development of organized societies
ensued. The Muisca and the Guanes
were among these groups. Upon the
arrival of the Europeans, the indig-
enous had established a political and
social structure that facilitated access
to products from different parts of the
region via exchange with other pre-
Hispanic groups.
These structures were initially
exploited and soon undermined by the
Spanish conquistadors with the impo-
sition of a new order that, symbolically,
had the sword, the horseshoe, and the
cross as its principal weapons. After
their arrival, the territory was orga-
nized differently, different resources This region was where people of
were exploited, people created differ- different traditions, knowledge and
ent bonds and a new system of beliefs beliefs met and mixed, bringing
was imposed: a clash of cultures in products that led to new ways of
which today’s Colombia has its roots. eating, commemorating, praying,

dancing, and celebrating, and even-
tually turning the Eastern Andes into
a rich and diverse territory.
This richness can also be seen in
the architecture and monuments
that serve as places of memory, all
of them inserted in our heritage
towns, in the countryside, and in
cities such as Bogotá, which for cen-
turies has welcomed people from all
over the world and which livens up
its frequently gray skies with a broad
cultural agenda that constantly illumi-
nates and renews its spaces.
Rural farming culture is also rooted
in these fertile lands. Here, ancestral
knowledge and practices not only
serve to grow food for the people of
this mountain range and the rest of
the country, but also to spread differ-
ent cultural expressions such as the
carranga, handicrafts, and traditional
celebrations that express gratitude
for abundance.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Traveling through this territory
also involves understanding the ways
of life of pre-Hispanic groups, rec-
ognizing the buildings that resulted
from the encounter of indigenous
peoples, Europeans, and Africans,
and learning about how indepen-
dence was reached, reflected in the
monumentalization of public spaces
in the region’s various urban centers.
Traveling through the Eastern Andes
is an invitation to experience cultural
expressions with all five senses, to
join in the festivities, to delight in its
gastronomy, and to learn to appreci-
170-171
ate its living arts, its religious rites,
and its modes of dwelling.
 Tourist region
The Eastern Archeology
Colombian Andes
Rock shelters 1

The rock shelters of Tequendama,

Traces of
near the waterfall, were used as
seasonal settlement sites by hunter-
gatherer groups. Archeological work

thousands of years
indicates the presence of animals such
as curí (guinea pig) in their diet and
the process by which they became
sedentary in the Bogotá savanna.

of occupation
Archaeologists and paleontologists have found evidence
of human occupation going back more than twelve
thousand years in the territory of the Eastern Andes.

Enlarged
Area
colombia

BOYACÁ
2 2 Gachas
CUNDINAMARCA Fragments of the gachas used by the Muiscas
can still be found in the stratigraphy of the
municipalities of Zipaquirá and Nemocón in
Bogotá D. C.
Cundinamarca.
3

women as they moved through these

1
TOLIMA
3 Pubenza Mastodon
The remains of the mastodon found in the
nineteen seventies are housed in the Pubenza
Archaeological and Paleontological Museum.
META
Villavicencio
Tools wrought in stone and animal
bones, ceramic vessels, post marks,
cave paintings, and human remains
are some of the traces left by men and
valleys and mountains over thousands
of years.
The discovery of the remains of
a mastodon near some stone age
tools found in Pubenza, a jurisdic-
tion of the municipality of Tocaima
(Cundinamarca), made the site the old-
est archaeological site associated with
hunter-gatherer groups. It provides
proof that the highlands along the
Magdalena River were populated, and
indicates the coexistence of human
groups and megafauna in this territory.
The departments of Cundinamarca,
Boyacá, Santander, and Norte de
Santander are home to thousands of
sites in which our ancestors left their
mark through painting or carving, as rock
art. Today they have become re-signified
spaces and have been endowed with new
values by neo-indigenous groups.
Herrera Early Muisca
400 BC – 200 AD 200 - 1000 AD
The archaeological site of Nueva
Esperanza was discovered in Soacha
(Cundinamarca) in 2011, while ascend-
ing the mountain as part of the prelim-
inary stages of the construction of an
electrical substation. Archaeologists
found evidence that the place had
been continuously occupied since the
times of hunter-gatherers until shortly
before the arrival of the Spanish, as
well as traces of the circulation and
exchange of products between human
groups from different parts of what is
now Colombia.
Late Muisca Colonial
1000 - 1600 AD post-contact
Towards the north of the Bogotá
savanna, in the municipalities of
Zipaquirá, Nemocón, and Tausa, hills
have been found that are formed by
fragments of the so-called gachas,
ceramic vessels in which the Muiscas
made salt bread that they exchanged
with Muisca groups from other areas
and with the Guanes, inhabitants
of what is today the department of
Santander.
According to traveler’s descrip-
tions and archaeological evidence, the
Guanes were known for their abundant
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Most of the archaeological remains found
at the Nueva Esperanza site correspond
to the periods of Cundinamarca-Boyacá
highland history known as Herrera, Early
Muisca, and Late Muisca and are now
part of the permanent exhibition at the
Soacha Archaeological Museum.
ceramic production and for being
skilled weavers of different types of
fibers, including fique, which they used
to make hats and rucksacks.
This evidence makes up the archae-
ological heritage of our country and
serves as a bridge to our pre-Hispanic
172-173
past, giving us clues to imagine the
human journeys through this territory.
 Tourist region
The Eastern
Colombian Andes
Sacred sites
for making
offerings to gods
or demons
Water sources, hills, and caves played a
fundamental role in the rites and ceremonies of
the pre-Hispanic communities and were essential
places for making offerings to their gods.
1 Ubaque Lagoon,
municipality of Ubaque.
The chroniclers who traveled the
territory of the Eastern cordillera
during the conquest and age of the
colony wrote about how “civilized”
the communities that inhabited the
range were. They also wrote about
the offerings that the inhabitants of
these lands dedicated to the “devil”
to receive his favors and labeled them
“devil worshippers.”
These offerings were of various sizes
and materials, according to the mag-
nitude of the favor required and the
social rank of the petitioner. Some were
made up of figurines in materials such
as ceramics, gold, or precious stones
and included objects made of wood or
cotton, such as woven bags, blankets,
Archeology
2 Verjón Lagoon,
municipality of La Calera.
or tunjo figurines. Coca leaves were
offered too, along with corn and other
grains, chicha, tobacco, and objects
such as shells and feathers exchanged
in distant places with other groups.
The person in charge of determin-
ing the content of the offering was the
chief or priest, who acted as mediator
between the supplicant or community
and the deities. This authority was also
in charge of collecting the offerings
and arranging them in caves, hills, or
lagoons, places that served as stages
for rites and ceremonies both public
and private.
In the case of the Muisca groups
settled in the Cundinamarca-Boyacá
highlands, many of their gods, myths,
3 Siecha Lagoons,
municipality of Guasca.
and ceremonies had a close relation-
ship with water, infusing water and its
repositories with sacred value. Their
origin myth is set in the San Pedro de
Iguaque lagoon, from whose waters
emerged a woman bearing a child in
her arms —Bachué, goddess of water
sources— chosen to populate the land
and as protector of crops.
This deity later returned to the
same lagoon with her husband, both
turned into snakes. They are a recur-
rent motif in Muisca pottery and
goldsmithery. The sacred character
of the water and its function as a
 In El Carnero, an account that is considered the
first literary work written in Nueva Granada, Juan
Rodríguez Freyle refers to the rite of “running
the land,” during which the participants traveled
through the territory and to sacred sites around
the lagoons of Guatavita, Guasca, Siecha, Teusacá,
and Ubaque. According to Freyle, these celebrations
lasted several days and included various activities
ANTIOQUIA
such the so-called borracheras or drunken revelries.

Tunja

BOYACÁ

CUNDINAMARCA

4
3
2
Bogotá D. C.

Villavicencio

META

Enlarged
area
colombia

4 Guatavita Lagoon,
municipality of Guatavita.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

setting for ceremonies and the depo-
sition of offerings was recorded by
Fray Pedro Simón in his Noticias his-
toriales de las conquistas de Tierra
Firme en las Indias occidentales
(1625). He described the so-called
Ceremony of El Dorado, in which
every so often, a chief, his body cov- Although this ceremony may have
ered with gold dust, would board a taken place in various lakes through-
raft and upon reaching the center out the territory, accounts and oral
of the lake would cast offerings and memory locate Guatavita lagoon as The Muisca raft exhibited at the Gold Museum in
then submerge himself in the water, the epicenter, making it a coveted Bogotá and found in a cave in the municipality
such that all the gold that covered place for those seeking gold, which, of Pasca (Cundinamarca) is a goldsmith’s
174-175

him would find its way to the bottom according to legend, was resting at the representation of the so-called legend of El
of the lake bed. bottom of the reservoir. Dorado, described by Fray Pedro Simon.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Eastern heritage
Colombian Andes

The mark of the

hoof, the sword,
and the cross
The imposition of the colonial system followed
economic, technological, and territorial parameters.
Many of the towns that today are recognized for
their heritage originated in this period.

After the plundering that the con-
quest of the New World territories
entailed, a process began to organize
them economically, administratively,
and territorially. This was achieved
symbolically by hoof, sword, and cross.
Explorations on horseback, the violent
subjugation of indigenous groups,
along with their evangelization led to
the founding of cities, parishes, towns
and Indian villages, which began to
shape the new lands.
Each of these categories of urb
was defined according to its lay-
out and the number and type of its
population. The territories that were
called cities served as administrative
centers and were inhabited by enco-
menderos and a significant number of
Spaniards who held the most impor-
tant colonial positions.
In the eastern Andes, Santa Fe,
Tunja, Vélez, Pamplona, and Ocaña
held the title of city, and their historic
centers still preserve buildings that
are a testament to the colonial period.
As the population increased in certain
territories, towns began to appear,
including Villa de Leyva, Guaduas,
Girón, Socorro, and San Gil.
The quintessential meeting point
in these urban centers for religious
processions, political celebrations,
proclamations, announcements, and
In San Juan de Girón (Santander), the colonial
architecture and the town’s main square stand
in contrast to the colorful costumes of the gypsy
women who gather here every day to read the
palms of passersby. This heritage town has
been home to the largest Romani population in
Colombia since the mid-twentieth century, when,
fleeing World War II, hundreds of them migrated
to America and found a place to settle and start
a new life in El Poblado - Girón.
the market was the main square. The
entire urban space was structured
from the central plaza. Along its
 CITIES, TOWNS,AND,
One of the towns that best preserves the INDIAN VILLAGES
colonial architecture of the Eastern Andes is
Monguí. Its cobblestone streets and buildings Ocaña 1
NORTE DE
such as the chapel of San Antonio, the minor SANTANDER Pamplona 2
basilica of Our Lady of Monguí and the 1
Franciscan convent take us back to the time San Juan de Girón 3

when church bells marked daily rhythms. Cúcuta

San Gil 4

Venezuela Socorro 5
2 Vélez 6
Bucaramanga Villa de Leyva 7
3
Sáchica 8
Enlarged
area
SANTANDER Tunja 9
colombia 4
5
Guaduas 10
6
Sutatausa 11

Tausa 12
Quibdó
BOYACÁ
7 Santafé 13
8 9 Tunja
CASANARE
11 Yopal
10 12

CUNDINAMARCA

Bogotá D. C. 13

Villavicencio

META

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

What is known today in Bogotá as Plaza de

Bolívar was one of the city’s foundational
spaces, conceived as the main square since
1539. Its center was the stage for the tree
of justice, the pillory where residents who
committed serious offences were punished.
In 1583, the pillory was replaced by a water
fountain. The sides of the square were
lined with buildings for the operation of the
lengths were the buildings of power-
ful institutions, such as the church and
the town hall, and from there streets,
blocks, plots were laid, all according to
the ordinances of Philip II.
Along with the growth of cities
and towns, the so-called Indian vil-
lages began to be organized as a way
However, this facilitated one of the
main purposes of the conquest,
besides economic extraction: indoc-
trination. Towns such as Tausa,
Sutatausa, and Sáchica were used
for the “reduction” of the indigenous
people, forcing them to work in mines
and all manner of physical labor, for
176-177

Royal Audience, City Hall, and the church, to “protect” the indigenous people which their principal payment was the
which later became a cathedral. from the abuses of the Europeans. imposition of the cross.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Eastern heritage
Colombian Andes

Towns of wheat,
bread, and mills
Growing wheat and building mills to
produce flour for baking led to the
founding of many colonial towns in
the Cundinamarca-Boyacá highlands
that were dedicated to breadmaking.

Spaniards who were beginning to

settle in the New World found that the
provinces of Tunja, Santa Fe, and later,
Pamplona provided the right conditions
for them to grow wheat, this being an
essential crop for the newcomers. The
location, climate, and clay soils of these
lands were just right, and wheat was
grown here from 1540 onwards, begin-
ning with Captain Jerónimo de Aguayo,
a Cordovan knight, who, according to
Fray Pedro Simón, was the first to sow
and harvest the grain near Tunja, in
the New Kingdom of Granada. Pedro
Briceño is recorded as the first to have
built a mill, and Elvira Gutiérrez, the
wife of Captain Juan de Montalvo, the
first to make bread.
Villa de Leyva was founded in 1572
in the province of Tunja with the idea
that its inhabitants would cultivate
wheat, by order of the president of the
Royal Audience of Santa Fe. Indeed,
the effects of intensive wheat produc-
tion can still be felt in and around this
historic town, in both the aridity of
the soil, the shape of the landscape,
and buildings —still standing— in which
wheat was ground, including Lozada,
La Rosita and La Primavera mills,
among others.
Most of the agricultural work in
this region fell to the indigenous renowned for the production of wheat, Cucaita, Sora, Samacá, Oicatá,
peoples, and wheat was no exception. flour, and bread. Bread was indispens- Soracá, Chivatá, Motavita, Toca, Tuta
Indigenous communities were almost able for the Spanish table and was clas- and the valley of Sogamoso are some
always used to plant the grain, and so sified according to the fineness of the of the indigenous villages in this ter-
this area in the Eastern Andes, with its flour and any other ingredients added ritory that were dedicated to wheat
mills and proximity to major cities, was to it during baking. cultivation
 SANTANDER

Turning wheat into flour 1

required five stages 1

Reception and storage

1
Cleaning and preparation for milling

Milling and flour production 1

1
Flour classification 1
1
1 2
Bagging, storage, and dispatch or sale
1 4 1 1
1
1
1 2
1 1 Tunja BOYACÁ
1
CALDAS 1
1 1
1 Yopal

1
1 1 2
Manizales 1 1
1 1
CUNDINAMARCA 1
1
2 1 1
TOLIMA
1 1
CASANARE
4
Bogotá D. C.
1 3
1 1

Ibagué 1

Villavicencio

MILLS IN THE HIGHLANDS

META 16th century 18th century

17th century 19th century

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Enlarged
area

colombia

To grow wheat, one has to prepare the soil,

sow the seeds, look after the plant as it
A number of religious communities plains, and the Order of Saint Clare, grows, and harvest it when the time is right.
also grew wheat, including the Jesuits, who used the flour produced to make Specific tools were needed for each of these
178-179

who had estates in Firavitoba and wafers in the Royal Convent of Santa stages, and over time, craftspeople became
Tópaga to supply their missions on the Clara in Tunja. specialized in tool production.
 Tourist region
The Eastern
Colombian Andes
Heroines and
patriots: the route
to independence
Tracing the geography of the independence
movement takes us to different heritage towns and
places in the Eastern Andes. Scattered throughout
the territory, we find monuments, squares, and
historical sites that serve as markers and places of
memory of this period and its leading figures.
1 Águeda Gallardo
(Pamplona, Norte de Santander, 1751-1840)
A good place to start the journey
through the traces of independence
is El Socorro (Santander), where, as
a precursor of our freedom, Manuela
Beltrán exclaimed in 1781 “Long live
the king, death to poor government!”
This municipality also remembers
José Antonio Galán, leader of the com-
munist insurrection, and the heroine,
Antonia Santos, shot in El Socorro’s
square for organizing and financing
Towns with
heritage
2 Manuela Beltrán
(Pamplona, Norte de Santander, 1751-1840)
a patriot guerrilla. The acts of these
two characters are commemorated
through monuments erected in the
town’s Parque de la Independencia.
In Pamplona, one of the most
important cities in the colonial age,
the bravery of Águeda Gallardo de
Villamizar unleashed events that
would lead to the declaration of inde-
pendence on July 4, 1810. This, along
with the city’s contributions —money
3 José Antonio Galán
(Charalá, Santander, 1741-Santafé de
Bogotá, 1782)
4 Pantano de Vargas
(Paipa, Boyacá)
and soldiers— to the independence
cause earned Pamplona the epithet
of Patriot City. This locale in Norte de
Santander also evokes the memory
of General José Antonio Anzoátegui,
one of the leaders of the liberation
campaign of 1819.
One of the heroines of indepen-
dence is Policarpa Salavarrieta (La
Pola), originally from the town of
Guaduas. Policarpa went down in
history for having served the patriot
cause as a spy until the moment of
her execution on November 10, 1817. In
Guaduas, one of Colombia’s heritage
towns, and in various places in Bogotá,
the memory of this woman is evoked
Liberation campaign
1 2
As part of the commemorative acts of the Venezuela
NORTE DE
bicentennial of the independence, a tourist route SANTANDER
Bucaramanga
was established connecting the locations of key
events of the struggle for liberation, integrating
municipalities of several departments of the
SANTANDER
Llanos and the Eastern Andes.
ARAUCA
ANTIOQUIA 5 Tame
Liberation route

3
Betéitiva Socha
Bonza
Paipa 4 Morcote
Gámeza
Pantano Pisba Paya
de Vargas
Enlarged Tunja
area CALDAS
Puente de Boyacá 6
BOYACÁ CASANARE
colombia
Yopal

7 CUNDINAMARCA

TOLIMA
Bogotá D. C.

Ibagué

Villavicencio

META

5 Antonia Santos

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

(Pinchote, Santander, 1782-El Socorro,
Santander, 1819)

through monuments and plazas,
reminding us of the role played by hun-
dreds at the foundation of the nation.
A journey through the Eastern
Andes in the footsteps of heroines
and patriots would not be complete
without entering the towns of Boyacá
where the main battles of the libera-
tion campaign led by Simón Bolívar
in Nueva Granada were fought. The
6 Puente de Boyacá
(Ventaquemada, Boyacá)
por el páramo de Pisba alludes to
what it meant for the patriots to cross
the Andes.
This army’s path to freedom took it
through Boyaca until it reached Paipa,
where between July 24 and 25, 1819,
the battle of Pantano de Vargas took
place, a site where a monument was
7 Policarpa Salavarrieta
(Villa de Guaduas, Cundinamarca,
1795-Santafé de Bogotá, 1817)
historic site of the Battle of Boyacá,
one of the most important in our
struggle for independence, claimed
the lives of thousands of men and
180-181

painting by Francisco Antonio Cano erected in honor of the fourteen lanc- women of the Eastern Andes who gave
entitled Paso del ejército libertador ers. Days later, in Ventaquemada, the it all for the dream of freedom.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Eastern spiritual tourism
Colombian Andes

Places for indoctrination

into the faith
Churches, chapels, and doctrinal complexes were part
of the infrastructure developed by the Spaniards in
the territory for the colonization and indoctrination of
the indigenous people into the Catholic religion.

Many of the temples built in the colony

According to colonial laws, once any
type of settlement had been established,
plots of land had to then be distributed,
which included a space destined for the
church alongside the town square. As
the population increased and various
religious orders were established in
a given territory, new churches, monas-
teries, and convents appeared in order
to educate and maintain the faith —or
fear— of the land’s inhabitants.
To strengthen the indoctrination of
the Indians, religious complexes began
to be built in the Eastern Andes, usually
in Indian villages, where indigenous
populations were concentrated. In
exchange for work, mainly in the fields
and mines, they received doctrinal
instruction and a Christian education.
Tausa, Sutatausa, Suesca, Zipacón,
Bojacá, Sesquilé, Sáchica, Cucaita,
Tópaga, Turmequé, and Nobsa are just
some of the sites that still bear traces
of this colonization by the cross.
were part of a larger complex formed by the
parish house, the plaza or square, the atrial
cross, and standalone chapels. One of the
best preserved doctrinal complexes in the
Cundinamarca-Boyaca highland is in the old
Indian village of Sutatausa, where one can also
find mural paintings depicting the chiefs and
captains of the village who contributed to its
ornamentation.
The space used for indoctrina-
tion in this type of settlement was
the doctrinal temple, which may or
 In the municipality
of Sáchica (Boyacá)
a sixteenth century doctrinal temple
is preserved and every Holy Week it
stages a theatrical representation of
the passion and death of Christ along a
route that begins at the Sáchica River
and ends at the local Mount Calvary.

SANTANDER

Nobsa Tópaga

Sáchica Cucaita
Tunja BOYACÁ
CALDAS
Turmequé
Tausa Yopal
Suesca
Sesquilé
CUNDINAMARCA

Zipacón
CASANARE
Bojacá
Bogotá D. C.

Ibagué

Villavicencio

TOLIMA

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

META

may not have been part of a larger

complex. This was the place used to
impart mass, baptize, and educate the
indigenous people in matters of faith,
a process in which religious images
played a fundamental role. Some of
the most commonly used images,
which were intended to impart ter-
ror at the thought of non-compliance
with the commandments and sin,
were those representing purgatory,
which can still be seen in the mural
Enlarged
area
colombia
Along with the images and religious
constructions used to indoctrinate
the indigenous, devotional figures
began to be “created” to make the
locals appropriate the Catholic faith.
Iterations of Christ and the Virgin
Mary miraculously appeared in hills, mark our holiday calendar, just as in
182-183

paintings of the doctrinal temples of deserts, and water sources, gathering colonial times it was church bells that
Sutatausa and Turmequé. such momentum that to this day they marked the hours of the day.
 Tourist region
The Eastern
Colombian Andes
Christ on the
hill, the Child
in 20 de Julio
Bogotá is home to two major devotional
images with countless devotees: El Señor
Caído de Monserrate or Fallen Christ of
Monserrate and El Divino Niño del 20 de
Julio or Divine Child of 20 de Julio.
During the conquest and colonial
period, images and sacred places were
superimposed, as a way to indoctrinate
and colonize the indigenous people’s
beliefs. Crosses or altars were erected
on hilltops already used as places of
worship or for pagan rites as a way
of imposing the new faith and install-
ing the Christian god in a high place,
watching over and protecting us all.
This was the case for Monserrate,
and the sanctuary that was built on
its summit that houses a statue of the
Fallen Christ of Monserrate, an iconog-
raphy depicting “Holy Christ, fallen
after having been flogged and nailed
to the cross.” Since colonial times,
Religious and
spiritual tourism
devotees of the image —which is said
to perform miracles— have been seen
on the roads leading to the top of the
hill, climbing on foot or on their knees,
to ask for a miracle or give thanks for
a request granted.
Not as high up, but closer to its
faithful, is the Sanctuary of the Divine
Child in the 20 de Julio neighborhood.
Believers from all over Colombia and
the world visit the sanctuary and
declare that the child dressed in a
pink robe has granted them miracles.
Feast of the Holy Cross
Before the first church was built on
Monserrate and the Fallen Christ received
its first devotees, a cross was erected at the
summit to take religious possession of the
hill in honor of the Catholic feast of the Holy
Cross, which is celebrated every May 3rd.
The statuette in question is based on
the Infant Jesus of Prague, and local
residents have set up a large informal
economy around the figure, selling
scapulars, holy cards, T-shirts, and all
kinds of imagery.
Whether the pilgrimages are made
to top of Monserrate or down to the 20
de Julio neighborhood, we can safely
say that they keep Bogotá protected
from the sky to the ground.

Virgin Mary painting
The painting was commissioned by
Antonio de Santana and painted in 1562
by Alonso de Narváez for the chapel in
the indigenous village of Suta. The fervor
it has provoked over the years has been
such that in 1986, during his visit to
Colombia, the then Pope, John Paul II went
to the shrine to pray before the painting.
Dominican friars first brought the
image of Our Lady of the Rosary to
the Eastern Andes and it was widely
used in the indoctrination and cat-
echization of the indigenous commu-
nities of this part of New Granada.
A painting of the Virgin Mary, with
Saint Anthony of Padua on her right
Religious and
spiritual tourism
Chiquinquirá,
the home of our
patron saint
picture of one of Colombia’s
and Saint Andrew the Apostle on her
left, started one of the country’s most
important religious traditions: devo-
tion to the Virgin of Chiquinquirá.
The painting was originally consid-
ered miraculous because, according to
legend, its colors were restored after
having been almost destroyed. Then,
Tourist region
The Eastern
Colombian Andes
Chiquinquirá in Boyacá is
one of the most popular
towns among religious
tourists, as it houses the
best loved virgins.
Processions and pilgrimages to
Chiquinquirá have appeared in three
19th century works. The first two are
watercolors by Ramón Torres Méndez
called: Romería a Chiquinquirá and Un cura
de tierra fría en viaje para Chiquinquirá.
The third is a watercolor painted in 1871 by
the traveler José María Gutiérrez de Alba
and is called Vista de Chiquinquirá a lo
lejos en un día de romería.
since the end of the 16th century, it
began to be venerated for the many
miracles it performed for those who
prayed the holy rosary.
Years later, around 1636, copies of
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
the painting started to be made to
continue the spread of its popularity,
and devotees can now be found in
different corners of what used to be
New Granada.
The many miracles that have been
attributed to the Virgin have turned
Basilica Santuario Mariano Nacional
de Nuestra Señora del Rosario de
Chiquinquirá into one of the main
destinations for religious tourism
in Colombia. Thousands of pilgrims
come to this town in the department
of Boyacá to visit the Virgin, who
in 1919, was crowned as queen and
184-185
patron saint of Colombia on her feast
day, July 9.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Eastern spiritual tourism
Colombian Andes

Our Lady who Enlarged

area

colombia

cures sickness
Thousands of devotees visit
the Our Lady of Good Health
in Bojacá every weekend to be
healed of various aches and pains.

The area around the square is

full of places to buy religious
articles, including the so-called
cuerpitos, small figurines
made of yellow wax, in the
shape of different parts of the
body, or children or babies,
which are left as votive
offerings before the image of
Our Lady of Good Health.

The ancient indigenous settlement

of Bojacá, Cundinamarca, is a major
religious destination. A painting of
the Our Lady of Sorrows, showing the
moment when Mary holds Jesus’ life-
less body, recently taken down from
the cross, is the reason that so many
visit the old church, now known as
the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de
la Salud.
This image, cared for by Augustinian
friars, is considered miraculous, and
people from all over visit it to pray for
recovery from illnesses and healing
of ailments, be it their own or those
of relatives or loved ones, as well as
to give thanks for the miracles they
have received.
The sanctuary is also open to peo-
ple who want their vehicle blessed,
so it is common for the square to be
full of cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles,
and even bicycles, with their owners
waiting for the priests to sprinkle
their vehicles with holy water after
each service.
All these religious beliefs and prac-
tices have made the municipality of
Bojacá and Santuario de Nuestra
The painting at the center of this worship has
been kept in the church since 1757, when its
first owner, a Spanish man by the name of José
Pérez, had it brought from Granada and donated
it to the Augustinian priest Friar Luis Acuña to
spread devotion to the Virgin Mary.
Señora de la Salud one of the most
popular pilgrimage sites in this part
of the Eastern Andes.
 Religious and Tourist region
spiritual tourism The Eastern
Colombian Andes

NORTE DE
SANTANDER
The candle in
the desert
Cúcuta Venezuela

Santo Domingo
de Silos
Bucaramanga
ANTIOQUIA
SANTANDER
ARAUCA
Every February 2, the desert
Suaita
of La Candelaria, near
Chita
Ráquira, fills with devotees
Desierto de la
Candelaria
BOYACÁ
of the Virgin of Candelaria to
Tunja
CASANARE mark the Marian invocation
La Capilla Garagoa
CUNDINAMARCA
of the presentation of Jesus
Barrio la Candelaria in the temple.
Bogotá D. C.

Villavicencio
META
TOLIMA

Besides Ráquira, there are several other

towns and neighborhoods in the Eastern

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The celebration
on February 2nd
commemorates the presentation of Jesus
at the Temple: 40 days after the date on
which his birth is celebrated (December
25th), believers observe his presentation by
invoking the bright light of the candle.
Devotion to the Virgin of Candelaria
in Colombia began in 1597, when Juan
Rodríguez, a resident of the city of
Tunja, decided to devote his life to
There, together with the help of
others, he built a chapel dedicated
to the Marian invocation of Our Lady
of Candle, before setting out to visit
Cartagena and the many other places
in Colombia that had also made Our
Lady of Candle their patron saint.
Every year, on February 1 and 2, the
church that houses her image painted
by Francisco del Pozo is the site of
pilgrimage for devotees who come to
the desert to pay tribute to the Black
Madonna, as she is also known, and to
join in a celebration that mixes the reli-
Andes where the Virgin is worshipped,
including: Santo Domingo de Silos (Norte
de Santander), Suaita (Santander), Chita,
Garagoa and La Capilla (Boyacá), and the
neighborhood of La Candelaria (Bogotá).
Father Mateo Delgado— and convent,
home since 1611, to the Augustinian
Recollects, the religious order charged
with safeguarding this devotion.
As well as being a place of pilgrim-
age, the spirit of introspection, prayer,
and contemplation of the Augustinian
Recollects has turned the Nuestra
Señora de la Candelaria Monastery
186-187

prayer in the desert that today is gious and the festive. This celebration into a popular venue for individual and
called La Candelaria. takes place in the church —founded by group spiritual retreats.
 Tourist region
The Eastern Gastronomy
Colombian Andes

Broths, soups, stews,

and baked goods
The unique gastronomy of this region has
its origins in the confluence of indigenous,
European, and African foods and cooking
techniques. This delicious combination has
made it a destination for fine dining.

Fundamental staples of the diet of the

indigenous people who inhabited these
lands included corn, tubers such as
potatoes, cubios, chuguas, hibias, and
squash, supplemented with certain
types of beans and animal protein from
deer, guinea pigs, pacas, armadillos,
fish, and various types of birds.
With the arrival of the Spanish, new
animal proteins began to be included
in the diet, such as beef, pork, and
poultry, as well as cured meats such
as sausages and chorizos, staples of
the Iberian diet. By combining these
different meat products on a platter
with potatoes, plantains and arepas,
the traditional “piquete” was born, an
unmissable dish on trips through the
plains as it is found at roadside eateries
throughout the length and breadth of
the region.
The combination of American and
European foods produced various types
of broths, soups, and stews that make up
the gastronomy of different areas of the
Eastern Andes, all of which require only
one pot to prepare. Some of the best
examples are caldo de costilla (bone
broth), mute santadereano (corn, beef,
and vegetable soup), ajiaco bogotano
The potato was one of the foods that the
Spanish encountered in America and which was
quickly adopted as part of the diet of the Old
World. Nowadays, this tuber is the country’s third
biggest crop, in terms of area planted, with the
departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá being
two of the country’s main producers.
(chicken and potato soup) and changua
(a savory broth made from milk, egg,
bread, onions, and coriander).
 Bucaramanga NORTE DE Venezuela
SANTANDER

ANTIOQUIA SANTANDER 1

2
4 3 Enlarged
area

colombia

10
8 BOYACÁ 5

11 9 7
6
12 13 Tunja
CALDAS
MARKET TOWNS

14 Tausa 16 Chiscas 1
15 Yopal
Tenza 17 Soata 2
16
19
21 18
Suesca 18 Charalá 3
20 17
CUNDINAMARCA
22 Pacho 19 Oiba 4
24 23 CASANARE
25 Machetá 20 Támara 5

Nemocón 21 Morcote 6
Bogotá D. C. 26 Zipaquirá 22 Pisba 7

Guatavita 23 Duitama 8

Subachoque 24 Sogamoso 9
28 27
28
Gachetá 25 Sorocotá 10
Villavicencio Bogotá D. C. 26 Saboya 11
META
Fusagasugá 27 Tinjacá 12

Tibacuy 28 Tunja 13

Pasca 28 Turmequé 14

Ubaté 15

Before the Spanish arrived, products from

different parts of the Cundinamarca-Boyacá
highlands and from more distant places were
traded in market towns, such as Tunja, Sogamoso,

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

and Duitama, which appear to have been hubs for
the exchange of large quantities of products.

Wheat flour, together with other

Despite the novelty and variety of
products found on the new continent,
the longing that Europeans felt for their
traditional dishes led to the reinvention
or Creole interpretation of Old World
dishes such as olla podrida, which
evolved into the traditional cocido
However, one of the foods that
undoubtedly transformed the diet and
landscape of the Eastern Andes, espe-
cially in the highlands of Cundinamarca
and Boyacá, was wheat, not only
essential for the production of its most
popular derivative, bread, crucial to
the European diet, but also important
for the propagation of Catholicism,
because it was used to make the sac-
foodstuffs such as eggs, butter, cheese,
and corn flour, were the ingredients of
baked goods, which to this day are still
eaten daily across this vast territory.
This is how almojábanas (sweet, cheesy,
cornmeal buns), panderos (sweet
manioc biscuits), cotudos (crunchy,
fried dough rings), buñuelos (fried
balls made with cheese and corn flour),
garullas (sweet buns with a soft cheese
center), and many other baked goods
188-189

boyacense (a stew made of different ramental bread that represent the body became perfect partners to a hot drink
meats and tubers). of Christ. for elevenses.
 Tourist region
The Eastern
Colombian Andes
Sweetening
the palate
Among the features of
the colonial system in the
New World were culinary
miscegenation and the
establishment of monocultures
such as sugarcane, which
continues to be, along with its
derivatives, one of the most
important economic sectors in
the country.
Several varieties of sugarcane have
found fertile ground in certain territo-
ries of Nueva Granada since the early
days of the colony. Some municipalities
of the Eastern Andes cultivated the
variety known as caña panelera —com-
monly refered to as panela— a staple at
the Colombian breakfast table.
The most common drink made
with panela —the basis of las onces, or
Colombian tea— is aguapanela, usually
served with almojábanas, cheese, and
bread. If it is mixed with lemon and
Gastronomy
BOLÍVAR
Bucaramanga
SANTANDER
Vélez
Guavata Barbosa
Puente Nacional Moniquirá
Tunja
CUNDINAMARCA
ginger, it becomes a treatment for
colds passed down by our grandmoth-
ers. And if we add some herbs and
aguardiente (also derived from sugar
cane), the product is one the most
effective drinks for warming up on cold
nights in places like Tunja and Bogotá.
Panela-producing municipalities
such as Güepsa (Santander) have their
Land prepared for the production
of guava paste (bocadillo)
Cúcuta
NORTE DE
SANTANDER
Venezuela
ARAUCA
BOYACÁ Área
ampliada
colombia
own traditional recipes that use sugar-
cane at its different stages of produc-
tion at the trapiche or sugar mill. Some
of these preparations are plátano al
fondo, la melcocha, and el dorado.
Sugar, one of the principal deriva-
tives of sugarcane, can be mixed with
New World fruits to create countless
sweets such as cuajada con melao,

brevas con arequipe, and the bocadillo
veleño from Vélez (Santander), which is
a perfect combination of regional white
guava, regional red guava, and sugar.
The bocadillo veleño was awarded a
protected designation of origin in 2017
and is made mainly in the municipali-
ties of Vélez, Barbosa, Guavatá, and
Puente Nacional in Santander as well
as in Moniquirá (Boyacá). It is tradi-
tionally hand-wrapped in bijao leaves,
which partly determine its flavor. The
sweet has become a fundamental
ingredient in many of the region’s
pastries and has found cheese to be
its perfect partner.
Panela
can be sampled in its different
presentations thanks to the work of people
who have learned each of the trades that
are part of panela production. In most
cases, this knowledge has been passed
down from generation to generation. Thus,
it is the cutters, raisers, carriers, pressers,
skimmers, bakers, and others that make
this sweet tradition live on.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Aguardiente, a kind of fire water made from
sugarcane, began to coexist in the colony with
the traditional indigenous chicha, which was
produced by fermenting various grains. The
production and distribution of aguardiente was
regulated by the Estanco del Aguardiente, while
chicha was the object of persecution and smear
190-191
campaigns that leveraged nineteenth century
discourses around hygiene.
 Tourist region Urban
The Eastern culture
Colombian Andes

A city among
the stars
Guavio
Province
An impressive cultural agenda, open-air
entertainment, handicrafts, natural spaces,
and people from all over the country Usaquén
and the world make Bogotá a diverse, Chapinero
kaleidoscopic, and multicultural city.
Barrios
Suba Unidos

Teusaquillo

Engativá

Fontibón
Kennedy

Enlarged
area

colombia

just some of its attractions. There is

Despite being far from the sea, its
climate, fertile soils, and abundant
water sources made the distance to
the coastline a minor concern. The
city was founded in 1538 and later
expanded across the plains at the foot
of the Eastern Andes Mountains.
One of the main places in which to
discover Bogotá’s cultural diversity
is its colonial center, known today as
La Candelaria. Museums, theaters,
libraries, bookstores, cafes, restaurants,
marketplaces, and craft stores are
also the popular Septimazo, when the
iconic pedestrianized Carrera Séptima
is turned into a stage for street art
and performance.
In addition to its historic center,
Bogotá’s twenty localities covering
over 1,770 km2 offer multiple possi-
bilities for exploration, including its
green, rural fringes (which comprise
almost half of the city’s area). The
eastern hills and localities of Sumapaz
and Usme provide an alternative expe-
rience of the city based on nature
For antique lovers, collectors, or mere
admirers of old objects, there are two flea
markets filled with curios, held every Sunday.
The first is the San Alejo flea market, located
in a parking lot next to the Mambo, and the
Usaquén flea market, which takes over one of
the main thoroughfares of the neighborhood.
and biodiversity, where visitors can
observe and appreciate campesino life,
among scenery that hosts plants such
as frailejones along with agriculture
 Bogotá’s broad and rich culinary diversity
is definitely worth mentioning: from
its marketplaces that sell fruit from all
corners of the country, to the restaurants
located mainly in five parts of the city
(Usaquén, Zona T, La Candelaria, La
Macarena, and Zona G), with national
culinary traditions as well as international
menus or fusions of all kinds.

La Candelaria

Santa Fé
San Sumapaz
Cristóbal
Los
Mártires
Antonio
Nariño
Usme
Puente
Aranda Rafael Uribe Uribe

Tunjuelito

Bogotá D. C. Ciudad Bolívar

Bosa

Soacha

instead, you will find them in the San

Cristóbal and Los Mártires neighbor-
hoods, respectively.
But what really gives life to the city
are its people, whether they were born

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

and many water sources which feed
and water both the capital and the
surrounding region.
If you want to continue exploring
urban Bogotá and learn about the
practices and knowledge that shape
its cultural heritage, you can take a
tour of its workshops and crafts. One
of the many possibilities is El Restrepo,
a neighborhood in the Antonio Nariño
district, well known as an area of work-
Recent years have witnessed the launch
of a “creative districts” project intended
to strengthen the city’s creative and
cultural sectors. One of these is San Felipe
- a showcase for artists and their work,
and another is the Bronx, a revitalized,
remodeled former red-light district.
since the mid-twentieth century.
The neighborhood is home to many
small shoe shops, and thousands of
locals and tourists who love leather
in Bogotá or have migrated here from
different parts of the country for dif-
ferent reasons, perhaps for study or
in search of better work opportunities.
Among the diversity of cultures and
identities are Bogotá’s 14 official indig-
enous councils, including the Muisca,
Inga, and Pijao, who use the commu-
nity center La Casa del Pensamiento
Indígena to meet, transmit their ances-
tral knowledge, and be acknowledged
by the wider community.
As home to all the urban identities
—skinheads or punks, cachacos, rolos,
costeños, paisas, or llaneros, indig-
192-193

shops where many families have been goods shop here. If you are looking enous or Afro, nationals or foreigners—
working leather and making footwear for objects made of glass or marble Bogotá has a place for everyone.
 Tourist region
The Eastern
Colombian Andes
Street art
Gazing at walls marked by aerosol has
become another of Bogotá’s attractions
where urban artists have embellished and
re-signified many locations throughout the
city with a variety of images and styles.
For some time now, Bogotá has been
an important reference point for
graffiti art. Walls in areas previously
considered dangerous, bridges, mar-
ket squares, and many other places
in the city have become open-air gal-
leries where aerosol artists express
their ideas, giving new meaning to
these spaces.
To tour Bogotá along a graffiti route
is to acknowledge the capital’s cultural
diversity in the colors and figures cap-
tured on its walls, in which indigenous,
Urban
culture
Toxicómano, Saga Uno, Crudo, and TotCat are
some of the most prominent aerosol artists in
Bogotá, followed by graffiti artists from other
parts of the world who have come here to adorn
parts of the city with their art.
African, and mestizo influences are
proudly displayed. It is an environment
where references to the pre-Hispanic,
colonial, and republican past converge
with a critique of contemporary soci-
ety in contrast to advertising images
that generally dominate public space.
Guavio
Province
Bogotá D. C.
La Candelaria, downtown Bogotá,
Calle 26, and the industrial sector
of Puente Aranda are some of the
areas where this urban art has
spread vast areas of the city’s walls.
This resignification of graffiti is the
product of collective work between
artists, district institutions, and com-
munities where the painting takes
place. The Distrito Grafiti project has
given a the city’s walls a makeover,
whereby interventions of this kind
are no longer a forbidden or censored
form of art, but one that is promoted
and valued. Not surprisingly, among
so many other activities, visitors to
the city can now go on tours to these
open-air exhibitions.
 Urban Tourist region
culture The Eastern
Colombian Andes
Ascending to Alto de Patios in the neighboring
municipality of La Calera on Sundays and
holidays has become a tradition among

Pedaling through
Bogotá’s cyclists. The goal is to climb to three
thousand meters above sea level, giving the
best their legs can muster to finally receive

the city
their reward: the wonderful view from the top
and one or another road treat, but most of all
an immense sense of personal satisfaction.

One of the best ways to get

around Bogotá is by bicycle.
Enlarged
area
Whether during the week or
on Sundays, and for all sorts of
colombia
different reasons, thousands
of people pedal around the
capital city every day.

Soacha

Georeferencing of
graffiti works

In the neighborhood

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Siete de Agosto
Between Carreras 24 and 30 as well as along
Calle 13 from Carreras 17 to Carrera 23, shops
specializing in bicycles and cycling paraphernalia
have cropped up to support to this sport and
mode of mobility that has become deeply rooted
in the life of Colombia’s capital city.
“Bogotá, Bogotá has no sea, Bogotá
has no sea, but it has bicycle lanes,”
sang a commercial intended to pro-
mote Bogotá’s bicycle lanes as a rec-
reational alternative in the absence
of the longed-for sea. And the Bogotá
two in the afternoon) has become
one of the main recreational spaces
for Bogotá’s families, who take over
some of the city’s main streets that
are temporarily restricted for motor
vehicles, so that they can bicycle,
skate, or simply jog on them.
This event was inaugurated on
December 15, 1974, when the pro-
on June 20, 1976 through Decrees
No. 566 and 567, and gained strength
between 1995 and 2000, when the
district administration focused its
efforts on providing better conditions
for those who use bicycles as a means
of transportation. Today Bogotá has
more than 120 km of bicycle paths that
cross the city from north to south and
from east to west, along which thou-
194-195

ciclovía on Sundays and holidays cycling organization took to the sands of the city’s inhabitants ride on
(between seven in the morning and streets. The ciclovía was made official weekdays to escape motor traffic.
 Tourist region Living
The Eastern culture
Colombian Andes

Ceramics in Ráquira
Shaping clay, In 2010, ceramics made in Ráquira were
awarded a protected designation of origin,

weaving fibers
due to their traditional manufacturing
techniques and the distinctive properties
of the clay with which they are made.

Clay, stone, and a variety of fibers

are some of the raw materials
that are transformed by master
artisans of the Eastern Andes
into objects that have become
symbols of national identity.

Since the first half of the 20th

century, Master craftsman in
Monguí (Boyacá) have upheld
the tradition of manufacturing
leather balls, which are sewn and
vulcanized by many families in the
town’s workshops, and venerated
by a monument depicting a ball and
ball stitcher in the main square.

Two handicraft traditions from pre-

Hispanic times have survived in this
region: the manufacture of objects
molded from clay and the weaving
of various fibers. Today, master arti-
sans from Ráquira, Curití, Nobsa, and

other nearby municipalities continue
to make objects using techniques and
knowledge that have been passed
down from generation to generation.
In Ráquira (Boyacá), the art of mold-
ing clay into popular objects such as
piggy banks, vases, dishes, nativity
scene pieces, and hundreds of different
figurines is a handicraft tradition. This
colorful village of potters is full of work-
shops where you can see the master
artisans bring the clay to life through
modeling, turning, and molding.
One of the most famous workshops
is that of Rosa María Jerez, a master
craftswoman who has been working
in this trade for over thirty years and
is the creator of the traditional otilias,
clay figurines representing different
invocations of the Virgin Mary, named
in honor of Otilia, Jerez’ mother, from
whom she learned her art.
The weaving tradition dates back to
the Muiscas and Guanes, groups that
inhabited this territory before the
arrival of the Spaniards. Ruanas (thick
woolen ponchos), hats, rugs, and bas-
kets are just some of the handicrafts
created by master artisans from weav-
ing together different fibers found
throughout the Cundinamarca-Boyacá
highlands and the Santander region.
In Curití, Santander, the coffee
production boom at the beginning
of the twentieth century gave rise to
the tradition of weaving fique (a fiber
Archaeological excavations in the former
territories of the Muisca and Guanes
peoples have uncovered finds such as
spindle whorls, bone needles, and textile
fragments that show how important this
activity was to these two groups.
harvested from succulent plants),
which was used to make the sacks in
which the beans were exported. They
were also used to pack potatoes and
other regional products for transport.
However, in the nineties, artisans
began to innovate and use other
materials, creating new handcrafted
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
products that today appeal to lovers
of traditional crafts.
The ruana, typical outerwear in
the highlands of Cundinamarca and
Boyacá, is a classic staple of the
handicrafts of the Eastern Andes.
Chroniclers of the conquest and colo-
nial times referred to the blankets
and textiles produced by the Muisca
groups in many of their accounts,
and the fact that these were valuable
objects of exchange. Nobsa, in Boyacá,
is one of the municipalities best known
for producing this garment, and it is
home to hundreds of artisans dedi-
196-197
cated to shearing sheep and spinning
and weaving their wool.
 Tourist region Living
The Eastern culture
Colombian Andes

The music of
campesino life
Many of the country’s
most popular musical
genres have been inspired
by life and work on the
land. Of these carranga
is among the most widely
recognized.

The story of how one man lost a “little

bone teaspoon” is one of the most
famous tales sung about in the genre
known as carranguera or carranga.
This style of music was created by
maestro Jorge Velosa and his group,
originally called Los Carrangueros de
Ráquira, and hailing from the depart-
ment of Boyacá.
The music of the region, such as
torbellino, merengue, guabina and
bambuco, played on instruments like
the requinto, guitar, tiple and guacha-
raca, is mixed with all five senses of
the countryside and the generous
teachings and knowledge of its people.
All of this gives a poetic musicality to
daily life, in which the playfulness and
mischievousness of the inhabitants of
the Eastern Andes feature heavily.
La china que yo tenía (The girl I
once loved), La cucharita (The tea-
spoon), Te digo adiós (I bid you fare-
well), El pedimento (The request), La
pirinola (Pirinola the cow), Las diez
pulguitas (The ten fleas), Julia Julia
Julia, La muchacha del conejo (The
girl and the rabbit), Viva diciembre y
que viva yo (Hooray for December and
hooray for me), La tía Carmela (Aunt
Carmela), Yo también soy un boyaco
(I’m from Boyacá too), La Dioselina, La
gallina sarabiada (The spangled hen),
and Póngale cariño al monte (Give the
wilderness some love) are just some
One of Velosa y los Carrangueros’
greatest achievements (at first called Los
Carrangueros de Ráquira, fronted by Jorge
Velosa) was becoming the first Colombian
group to perform at Madison Square
Garden (in New York) during the celebration
of Hispanic Heritage Day in 1981.
of the songs that have put this rural
music genre of the Eastern Andes on
the national scene.
It is a long time since the eighties,
when Carrangueros de Ráquira began
to perform this genre, and as tends to
happen in music, new ways of inter-
preting carranga have emerged, and
new instruments are being added,
like the electric bass, drum kits or the
claves, which have given it a more
contemporary sound allowing it to
attract new followers without losing
its rural spirit.

The word carranga after which this
rhythm is named comes from a regional
term for beef that was not slaughtered
for consumption and whose meat,
despite the risk that its consumption
might pose, was sold to make sausages.
Along with these transformations
and changes, some regions have been
working to reappropriate this genre in
its “purest” state. Examples of this are
the groups Melao Carranguero and Las
Reinas de la Carranga, both from the
town of Güepsa (Santander), who play
different campesino rhythms and are
emerging as a new generation of car-
ranga musicians and performers.
Today, forty years after the first
carrangas, campesino inspiration and
tradition continue to feed this genre
and, in turn, the carranga and the
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
The ruana and
hat from Boyacá
The ruana and hat from Boyacá are part
of the dress of carranga musicians and
performers, evoking the traditions of the
campesinos from this part of the country.
little bone teaspoon continue to set
198-199
the mood for the festivities in the
Eastern Andes.
 Tourist region Living
The Eastern culture
Colombian Andes

Song and dance: the

delight of the senses
As a result of the blend of
instruments and genres that
emerge out of Colombia’s
cultural melting pot, a
variety of rhythms flood the
region with song and dance.

Many of the musical expressions of

the Eastern Andes are played with
instruments such as the tiple, guitar,
bandola, and requinto. The lyrics of
these rhythms —the torbellinos, gua-
binas, bambucos, pasillos, and car-
rangas— describe the daily life of the
peasant world and always provide for
a good party.
In torbellino music, four-line stan-
zas convey popular wisdom, criticism,
and mischief. This rhythm, typical of
the departments of Cundinamarca,
Boyacá, and Santander, generally
accompanies pilgrimages, wedding
parties, and popular festivities, and is
played on requintos and tiples.
In the dance of the same name, per-
formed in pairs, the man chases the
woman while she flees, spinning her
skirt about her so that it looks like a
whirlpool or whirlwind. The dance has
several modalities, among them the types, including the Cundinamarca-
moño and the simple torbellino, which Boyacá guabina, guabina veleña, and
are still being learned and transmit- guabina santandereana.
ted to children and young people in Guabina, which are of European
the province of Vélez (Santander) in descent, are sung to the music of
training schools that seek to preserve the tiple, requinto, bandola, and the
this intangible heritage. Some elders chucho or guache. The guabina dance
say that, in the past, the women who is a love dance that simulates a court-
danced the torbellino would put a cup ship through simple, smooth move-
with hot cocoa on their heads, and ments. The woman seeks to attract the
attempt to make their turns without attention of the man and he follows Pasillo is another of the musical
spilling a drop. her game, until they manage to join genres and dances of the Andes,
Another musical and dance genre and start dancing as a couple. This which, inspired by European waltz,
anchored in the Colombian Andes is dance can be performed as a couple took over Santa Fe gatherings and
guabina, of which there are several or as a group choreography. salons in the late nineteenth and
Examples of the capacity of music and
dance to congregate are the National Band
Encounter in Paipa (Boyacá), which is
part of the nation’s cultural and intangible
heritage, and the National Guabina and
Tiple Festival in Vélez (Santander).

In the panela-producing town on of Güepsa

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

(Santander), a program was implemented
in since 2012 to strengthen, promote, and
disseminate Colombian music as a cultural
expression of the region, in which young
people learn to play regional musical
instruments such as the requinto, the tiple,
the guitar, the quiribillos, the esterilla, the
chucho, and the carracas, among others.

early twentieth centuries. La gata

golosa is one of its most representa-
tive compositions.
All these rhythms and dances, in
addition to more recent ones such as
carranga, are the stars of stores, fairs,
200-201

and festivals in towns located in the

Eastern Andes.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Eastern festivals
Colombian Andes

The region on stage

Throughout the year, different areas of the Eastern
Andes set the stage to celebrate fairs and festivals
that boost and enliven regional tourism.

Festivals have always served to bring

together communities, regions, or the
country. In the Eastern Andes, since
long before the arrival of the Spanish,
festivals have broken up the year and
marked the rhythms and religiosity
of life. Later, they became national
celebrations and, in more recent times,
they have become part of the cultural
calendar, generally falling on long and Children’s Holy Week are held in
weekends and the holiday season to Pamplona (Norte de Santander), and
take advantage of tourism. these Holy Week celebrations have Expoartesanías, one of the most important
In Holy Week, the first long break been declared intangible cultural handicrafts fairs in Latin America, is held in
after the start of the working year, in heritage of the nation. Piedecuesta Bogotá every December, and has become
addition to the traditional religious (Santander) holds the International a major venue to showcase the country’s
celebrations, towns in this touristic Choir Festival and the Piedecuesta tangible and intangible heritage and
region organize festivals that both Religious Music Festival as well as appreciate the crafts that have been passed
locals and visitors can attend. The opening up spaces for the public to down from generation to generation in
International Festival of Choral Music browse works by local artists. different parts of the country.

The Christmas festivities that mark
the end of one year and the beginning
of another begin with celebrations
commemorating the Immaculate
Conception on December 7, and cul-
minate with Reyes in January, with the
novenas, nightly prayers leading up to
Christmas, Christmas itself and New
Year’s Eve in between. In the Eastern
Andes this festive season starts with
Villa de Leyva’s Festival de Luces,
which takes place on December 7
and 8, when the colonial town is filled
with twinkling lights, along with a light
Villa de Leyva
has celebrated the Festival del Viento y las
Cometas on the second August bank holiday,
every year since 1975. For three days, the
skies of the town are filled with colors and
shapes as tourists arrive to take advantage
of the high winds to fly their kites.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
show and fireworks in the main square;
just another of many reasons to visit
this historic town.
Also, as part of the Christmas tra-
ditions in the department of Boyacá,
the traditional Aguinaldo Boyacá has
been celebrated between December 16
and 22, since 1955. The city of Tunja,
Boyacá’s capital, becomes the epicen-
ter of cultural and artistic activities,
concerts and parades with horses and
floats, in addition to the turning on
of the unmissable Christmas lights.
Over the years, these traditions have
spread, and towns all over the depart-
202-203
ment are decorated with Christmas
lights, inviting people to visit them.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Eastern festivals
Colombian Andes

Appointments
with culture
Literature, music,
visual arts, and theater
are some of the
expressions of culture
that have become a
must at various fairs
and festivals in the
Eastern Andes.

Year after year, the nation’s capital

city hosts important large-scale cul-
tural events, such as the International
Book Fair, Rock al Parque, the Bogotá
International Art Fair, and the biannual
Ibero-American Theater Festival, turn-
ing Bogotá into the stage for some of
the most notable cultural events that
take place in Colombia.
The publishing industry and book
lovers have been coming together
since 1988 to enjoy the Bogotá
International Book Fair (Filbo). For
two weeks, thousands of Colombians
and foreigners flock to Corferias to
buy books and attend book launches,
meet their favorite authors, enjoy
conferences, and take advantage of
the cultural programming offered at
the fair. The vitality of the publishing
sector, in addition to various initiatives
to promote reading and boost the pub-
lishing industry, resulted in Bogotá
being awarded the title of World Book
Capital in 2007 (a title awarded annu-
ally by UNESCO).
Also in Bogotá, rock lovers enjoy opportunity to attend concerts by
a three-day festival dedicated to this well-known bands. It celebrated its
musical genre: Rock al Parque. Born twenty-fifth anniversary in 2019. Fans of role-playing games, manga, video
thanks to the initiative of musicians Outdoor enjoyment of music in games, anime, cosplay, fantasy literature,
from the capital, the event seeks to Bogotá has spread to other festivals comics, and cinema have had the ideal
promote the country’s rock and metal in the park: Jazz al Parque, Hip Hop al venue for their passions since 2009: the
bands, and provides people with the Parque, Salsa al Parque, and Colombia Salon del Ocio y la Fantasía (SOFA).

al Parque (which celebrates traditional
Colombian music), have become
occasions on which to promote
various musical genres, but above
all to provide Bogotá’s residents the
opportunity to witness how the human
voice and the mastery of various
instruments have the power to move
and assemble thousands at a time.
In 1988, to commemorate 450 years
since the founding of the city, actress
and theater director Fanny Mikey
created the Ibero-American Theater
Festival, one of the most important
Boyacá’s Festival Internacional de
la Cultura (FIC) has been held in
Tunja since 1973. Every year for a
week, the city becomes a center
for the visual arts, music, theater,
cinema, and cultural heritage.
Every December, the pavilions of Corferias
in Bogotá are flooded with thousands of
handcrafts and objects made by master
artisans from various regions in one of
the most anticipated fairs in the country:
Expoartesanías. The work of craftspeople
and artists along with indigenous, Afro,
and farming communities inspired by the
materials and designs of the earth come
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
together to exhibit their wares and arouse
interest in the country’s tangible and
intangible heritage.
performing arts festivals in the world.
Every two years, the capital in the
Eastern Andes becomes the stage for
theatrical and circus performances
from around the world.
More recently, since 2004, the
Bogotá International Art Fair (ArtBo)
has strengthened multiple stages of
the production and promotion of the
visual arts. During the fair, galleries,
museums, and Bogotá’s creative dis-
204-205
tricts are adorned with the best of the
country’s visual arts.
 Tourist region
The Eastern
Colombian Andes
Celebrating nature
and abundance
Giving thanks for all that nature
provides through feasts and offerings
is a custom originating in ancient
cultures which continues to be
practiced to this day.
The pre-Hispanic societies that inhabited
these territories had great knowledge
of the cosmos and nature in general,
allowing them to determine what to
sow and when in each season of the
year. Sowing and harvesting became
events around which the community
would come together, and with the har-
vest safely put away it would be time to
celebrate. Campesinos who live and farm
in the Eastern Andes still hold on to this
knowledge and their care of the soils is
rewarded with generous harvests which
are celebrated by the whole community.
Fairs and
festivals
The department of Boyacá cel-
ebrates harvests and abundance with
festivities honoring Isidore the Farm
Laborer, asking the saint to “blow
away the rain and bring out the sun.”
This festival takes place towards the
end of May or during the first days
of June to thank the saint for his role
as a “colleague” of Boyacá’s farmers
and helper with their crops. They take
the best of their harvest as offerings
to the chapel built in honor of Saint
Isidore and organize a ‘best vegetable
Saint Isidore
the Farm Laborer has become the patron
saint of campesinos due to his life as a farmer.
His symbols are the hoe and the plough.
garden’ contest, whose produce is then
auctioned to collect money to maintain
or make improvements to the chapel.
Corpus Christi and Campesino Day,
celebrated in Anolaima (Cundinamarca),
have a similar rural religious tone.
Campesino Day takes place over the
three days of the first June bank holiday
and is celebrated to give thanks for the
land’s generosity. It begins with the con-
struction of arches decorated with fruit
and other produce from the area; on the
second day there is a parade of floats
 NORTE DE
SANTANDER

Venezuela

Bucaramanga

SANTANDER

Feriado del Corpus Christi ARAUCA

ANTIOQUIA and Fiesta del Retorno

Medellín

BOYACÁ CASANARE
Gran Tomatina Colombiana

Fiestas de San Isidro Labrador

CALDAS
Yopal
CUNDINAMARCA

Fiestas del Corpus Christi

Bogotá D. C.

Ibagué
Enlarged
area

Villavicencio colombia
TOLIMA
META

The Huán Festival is celebrated every

year during the winter solstice at the
Templo del Sol in Sogamoso (Boyacá). Of
pre-Hispanic origin, it honors the sun and
commemorates the beginning of the new
Muisca solar year, which marked the sowing
and harvesting rhythms for this community.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

decorated with flowers, animals, and
regional agricultural produce; on the
final day of the festival, various activi-
ties are held to celebrate campesino life.
Another town in the Eastern Andes
where similar festivities are celebrated
is Mogotes, in Santander. Corpus Christi
get together with friends and family
while enjoying the region’s cultural
offerings.
Also in June, the Great Colombian
Tomatina is celebrated in Sutamarchán
(Boyacá). Inspired by the festival in
Buñol (Spain), since 2004 this town in
Boyacá has welcomed tourists from
different parts of the country who,
dressed in white, throw tons of inedible
tomatoes at each other, as part of a
fertility festival that dyes the streets of
the town red. These are just some of the
festivities held in the Eastern Andes, a
206-207

and the Fiesta del Retorno are an region that celebrates its natural beauty
opportunity to return to the land and and the fertility of its soils.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Eastern festivals
Colombian Andes

Fiestas patrias:
celebrating
independence
Gaining independence from
Spain and the events that gave
birth to Colombia’s history and
laid the foundations of our
nation are remembered every
year through the national
holidays or fiestas patrias that
have the Eastern Andes as
their epicenter.

A broken vase kept at the Independence

Museum (housed in the building called
La Casa del Florero) in Bogotá is the
symbol on which one of Colombia’s main
national holidays has been instituted.
Every July 20, Colombian calendars
mark Independence Day, a holiday that
is commemorated with an imposing
parade in which the three Colombian
military forces —National Army, Air
Force, and Navy— deploy troops along
one of the main streets of the capital.
In addition to this parade, there are
Eucharistic celebrations, floral offer-
ings at monuments associated with
the date, concerts, and cultural tours
intended to publicize sites and char-
acters relevant to Independence Day.
This day also marks the installation of
the Congress of the Republic and the was born as a tribute that the region’s
beginning of the legislative year. peasants paid to Colonel Juan José
Another celebration is the com- Rondón, and eventually became offi-
memoration of the triumph of the cial in 1910. Day, Cavalry Day is commemorated by
patriot army over the royalists in the Today, the epicenter of this national the Silva Plazas Battalion of Duitama,
battle of Pantano de Vargas which holiday is the Monument to the which performs a military parade and
took place on July 25, 1819 in the Fourteen Lancers, by sculptor Rodrigo a series of cultural events that attract
Cundinamarca-Boyacá highlands, this Arenas Betancourt. In addition to the visitors from different parts of the
time in Paipa (Boyacá). The celebration various tributes and Independence region to this historic site.
 The holiday calendar of Villa del Rosario
and Ocaña (municipalities in the department
of Norte de Santander) includes two other
important events that contributed to the
evolution of the early nation: the Congreso
y la Constitución de Cúcuta in 1821 and the
Gran Convención de Ocaña in 1828.

REFERENTE DES-
FILE MILITAR
20 DE JULIO

Villa Del Rosario

Venezuela This department also celebrates

NORTE DE
SANTANDER
another of the principal national holi-
days: the Battle of Boyacá. Every August
Bucaramanga
7, in memory of the victory to the patriot
armies against the Spanish (guarantee-
ANTIOQUIA SANTANDER ing the success of the liberation cam-
CAUCA paign of Nueva Granada), the historic
Pantano de
Vargas, Paipa site of the Battle of Boyacá in the
municipality of Ventaquemada becomes

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

the stage for the commemoration of the
event that took place in 1819.
Traditional cannon fire marks the
BOYACÁ CASANARE beginning of the celebration at the
site, which also pays tribute to the
Tunja National Army, born that day. Military
CALDAS Ventaquemada and artistic formations stage the
Yopal historical event, floral offerings are
presented in honor of the patriots who
CUNDINAMARCA lost their lives here, and the festivities
Enlarged
area conclude with fireworks.
Meanwhile, on these same dates,
Bogotá D. C. colombia
in the rest of the country and abroad,
Colombians raise flags in their win-
dows in memory of these events, pro-
208-209

Villavicencio
claiming their freedom and celebrating
TOLIMA
the birth of the nation.
META
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The Colombian
Massif
Popayán

CAUCA

NARIÑO

Pasto
 Ibagué

TOLIMA

Neiva

HUILA

Towns with heritage » 214

Religious and spiritual tourism » 220

Living culture » 224

Archeology » 234

Gastronomy » 238

Fairs and festivals » 244

Urban culture » 248

 Tourist region
The Colombian Massif

INTRODUCTION

The land where

life is born
The Colombian Massif,
historically known as the
Colombian fluvial star, comprises
the area where the Magdalena,
Cauca, Caquetá, Putumayo, and
Patía rivers originate.

The Colombian Massif encompasses

the departments of Cauca and Nariño
in its Andean area, including the
point where the mountain ranges
unfold through the rivers and open
up to the inter-Andean valleys in the
departments of Huila and Tolima. The
region is diverse in its geography,
economy, and culture, but built on a
close relationship between mountain,
valley, and river.
The Massif is oriented along two
main axes, the first from west to
east, where the proximity between
the Pacific and the Amazonian plain
conditions the special ecosystems
found there, and allows communica-
tion and interaction between coastal,
Andean, and Amazonian populations.
The second axis runs from south to
north through the mountain ranges
that break away and give way to the
inter-Andean valleys, a connection of
highlands and lowlands that has been
decisive in the region’s development.
To understand this region, we need
to consider the archaeological find-
ings that have revealed the millenary world transformed the Andean reality
presence of pre-Hispanic agricultural through a path of resistance, adapta-
settlements in a large part of the tions, and an inescapable mestizaje
Massif, with a notable development in where indigenous culture, thought,
their social organization and complex and expressions persist, together with
cultural expressions, which can still be those of the Afro populations, present
seen in their archaeological parks and since their historical entry through the
museums. The arrival of the Hispanic Patía valley and the Western Cordillera.

The great territory of the Massif
was shaped by the indigenous roads
and reconfigured by the new colonial
order with its roads of control, com-
munication, and trade. It is through
these that new towns were founded,
new ports were built, and the frontier
was extended. The new architecture
of churches and powerful images in
the territory sacralized and renewed
life, giving the region new signs and
symbols with patron saint festivals,
new foods, songs, dances, and carni-
vals that gradually became part of its
identity. This mestizaje appropriated
the Afro presence to its imaginary,
maintaining its indigenous soul and
conserving its European heritage.
The four founding cities of the
Massif are the capitals of the four
departments known today as Popayán,
Pasto, Ibagué, and Neiva, which
dynamize this densely populated
region in the center of the country.
The region connects the Colombia’s
north with its south-west and is char-
acterized as essentially agricultural,
first with corn and potato crops, and
later —with the introduction of mecha-
nized agriculture— with sorghum, cot-
ton, rice, and coffee.
The region’s vast geography has
required its inhabitants to adapt to dif-
ferent ecosystems and make the most
of the resources of each thermal zone.
This has enabled different lifestyles
and the construction of sub-regions,
making it a land of trades, fisher-
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
men, and farmers, great artisans, and
musicians whose oral tradition sings
its geography and its history, today
consolidated with the celebration of a
wide variety of festivals.
The Massif thus offers a powerful
cultural legacy based on its social
and multi-ethnic fabric. Multiple lan-
guages coexist and are perceived in
the social and spatial organization,
the people’s experience of the sacred,
the celebrations, the festivals, and the
traditions that have been transformed
and enriched. A symbolic universe —
cultural and economic— persists over
212-213
time, thanks to its people’s roots in a
land where life is born.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Colombian Massif heritage

At the origin of roads

and villages
Culture is born on the
road, inhabiting a region
and connecting peoples,
taking and bringing ways
of life from all ages.

To speak of towns is to speak of roads.

Their location is the product of a
choice made based on different fac-
tors and to satisfy certain needs: good
water, fertile land, building a shelter.
Where to build a road is the first major
decision made by a community as it
moves forward.
The ancient hunter-gatherer groups
gradually defined settlements, creat-
ing areas for communal living. Then
came the Indians followed by the
Spaniards who, layer upon layer, inhab-
ited and converted roads and villages
into the regions’ material, social, and
cultural base.
The Colombian Massif was first
occupied by pre-Hispanic communi-
ties, agricultural villages connected
by narrow roads that allowed them,
depending on the range of ecological
floors, to cultivate and exchange prod-
ucts from the highlands with those
from the lowlands: corn, fruit, and cot- as bridle paths; royal roads; roads of
ton for potatoes, beans, pottery, and conquest; and roads for the expansion
reed mats. The roads were short and of the frontier, the conversion of souls,
one of them, an extensive one, coming and the founding of towns.
from the south, was the Andean road The towns along the road were
known as Qhapaq Ñan, through which strategically placed, erected in the the towns from which the colony was
an elite group of traders called the Colombian Massif and along the managed —Pasto, Popayán, Santa Fe,
Mindalaes circulated, and gradually upper Magdalena, connecting the and Quito— needed to be connected,
settled, forming market-villages. Andes from the south, with the con- the Quindío road was built, crossing
The roads were widened with the quest towns that ascended the Cauca the Central Cordillera and continuing
Spanish occupation from the 16th River valley and the valley of the Rio southward. Also significant in shap-
century onwards. The Conquest took Grande de la Magdalena. First, towns ing this road map is the Camino de
the existing roads, and introduced were founded on the banks of the Guanacas that connected the towns of
new actors, such as horses and mules, great rivers, which was how the ter- La Plata, Popayán, Mariquita, Ibagué,
and soon these roads became known ritory was first explored. Later, when Chaparral, Purificación, Hobo, Timaná,
 DISTANCES AND ROUND-TRIP
DAYS ALONG A ROUTE
Quito and Santa Fe were connected by a royal road that
united the territory making it easier to manage, and leading
to the emergence of numerous towns as stop points.

Santa Fe to Tocaima (18 leagues - 3 days) 1

Tocaima to Mariquita (18 leagues - 3 days) 2

Mariquita to Ibagué (18 leagues - 3 days) 3

Ibagué to Cartago (22 leagues - 4 days) 4

Cartago to Cali (43 leagues - 22 days) 5

Cali to Popayán (22 leagues - 5 days) 6

Popayán to Almaguer (20 leagues - 8 days) 7

Almaguer to Pasto (20 leagues - 7 days) 8

Pasto to Quito (40 leagues - 15 days) 9

1 league - 4,8 km

Quibdó

Mariquita
CHOCÓ
Manizales CUNDINAMARCA
Pereira 3 2
Cartago Santa Fe
4 1 (Bogotá D. C.)
Armenia
Ibagué Tocaima
5
TOLIMA Villavicencio
Buenaventura

VALLE DEL
pacific CAUCA Cali
ocean
META

6 Neiva
CAUCA

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Popayán
HUILA
7

Almaguer
Tumaco
NARIÑO Florencia CAQUETÁ
8

Nowadays, roadside villages dominate the Pasto Mocoa

landscape with architecture that is ingeniously
installed on the slope or on the edge of the
mountain s, resting places, and food facilities PUTUMAYO
in a rural atmosphere with the traditions of a 9
colombia
region that is still alive and well. Enlarged
area

Suaza and Almaguer, among others, Quito

214-215

which marked the rhythm for the tran-

sit of people and goods. Ecuador

Peru
 Tourist region Towns with
The Colombian Massif heritage

Port towns, children of

the Upper Magdalena
Beginning in colonial times and with the
constitution of the republic, trading goods along
the Magdalena River encouraged the creation
of important ports that connected the country
and opened it to the world, strengthened the
economy, and made it possible to take the first
steps towards modernization.

All kinds of vessels arrived at the ports of the

The Magdalena River emerges in
the Colombian Massif, and connects
towns and regions through the val-
ley that gradually opens up between
the Central and Eastern Cordilleras.
A wonderful journey through more
than 500 km of diverse landscapes,
ecosystems, and people, until reaching
the historic port of Honda in the north
of Tolima, where the upper Magdalena
and the first great stretch of naviga-
tion along the river came to an end.
The first navigable stretch of the
river is between Neiva and Honda,
where the rapids prevent naviga-
tion and turn the latter port into an
unavoidable stop, as well as a point of
ascent to Santa Fe de Bogotá. During
colonial times, Honda was called “the
gorge of the Kingdom,” as everything
ended up passing through it.
Upper Magdalena. The rafts and the bogas
with their seafarers were the first means of
transportation that traveled long distances.
Later, steamers were introduced, with boilers
fueled by enormous quantities of firewood
found on the riverbanks and sold in units
called, which were equivalent to 70 sticks.
Other ports were built along the
river and in its upper reaches, giv-
ing rise to an incessant commercial
activity through which all kinds of
 Quibdó
Puerto Salgar
The train stations Mariquita
CUNDINAMARCA
CHOCÓ Manizales
Located along the main river ports were
meeting points, dynamic places of trade and Facatativá
Pereira Ambalema
of moving products and goods to the interior
Armenia Bogotá D. C.
of the country or exporting them to Europe.
pacific Ibagué Girardot
ocean VALLE DEL
CAUCA
Villavicencio
Buenaventura TOLIMA

Cali

Neiva META
CAUCA

Popayán HUILA

Tumaco CAQUETÁ
Florencia
COLOMBIAN RAIL-
Pasto Mocoa WAY NETWORK

Railways

PUTUMAYO

Ecuador
Enlarged colombia
area

Steam navigation was born in the early

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

19th century, among other reasons, to
transport tobacco produced in the upper
Magdalena. Ambalema became one of the
main ports of the Colombian economy.

the ports acquired a cosmopolitan

The combination of river port and a railroad
system with its stations consolidated many
of the towns of the upper Magdalena,
thereby creating a multiple strategy for
communication and trade.
merchandise and goods arrived:
liquors, fabrics, food, tools, and even
luxury objects such as mirrors and
tobacco, cinchona, cotton, and leather,
were also exported to Europe through
these ports. It was also through the
ports that other thoughts and ideas
arrived: the longing for freedom, and
dreams of modernity and progress.
One by one, the port towns formed
a chain linked by the Magdalena River
through their main activity: trade.
character, with rich architecture fac-
ing the river and its trading houses,
warehouses, inns, and marketplaces. In
the twentieth century, some of these
towns even had theaters, banks were
founded, and hydroports were built
(for the country’s first commercial
airplanes). They soon also turned into
a favorite place for businesspeople,
216-217

pianos to imagine new ways of life in As places of exchange and unavoid- consuls, and the many foreigners, who
distant lands. Many products, such as able sites of departure and arrival, dreamed of settling there.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Colombian Massif heritage
Murillo
Santa Isabel

Mountain villages: Ibagué

High altitude heritage TOLIMA

Inhabited for thousands of pacific

ocean Neiva
years, the Andean highlands CAUCA
are the result of different Totoró
HUILA

processes of adaptation and Paispamba

resource management. Today Isnos

their mestizo population, Tumaco

based in the Massif and NARIÑO
Florencia
along the mountain ranges, Túquerres
Yacuanquer
expresses itself through Sapuyes Pasto Mocoa
CAQUETÁ
Gualmatán
valuable ways of life, forms Cuaspud

of commerce, and cultural

manifestations. Ecuador PUTUMAYO

Mountains give mountain peoples the

dignity of altitude. Next to the lagoons,
snow-capped mountains, and river
sources, silence is highly valued on
these high peaks, along with a privi-
leged sense of belonging to the land
as a way of life. Here, the Caquetá,
Putumayo, Magdalena, Cauca, and
Patía rivers, among others, appear as
humble threads that bathe the towns
and allow their inhabitants to appreci-
ate the strength of nature.
In Cauca and Nariño, those who live
on the edges and slopes of the moun-
tain ranges value the altitude that over-
looks and controls the territory. They
are peoples of indigenous tradition and
peasant colonization, whose way of life
is characterized by self-subsistence;
smallholdings; and, in particular, thanks
Agricultural workers in the high mountains,
especially in Cauca and Nariño, have carefully
domesticated, selected, and conserved the best
plant species, including the potato. In their small
and numerous self-consumption crops, they
maintain diversity, and a material and cultural
wealth full of colors, shapes, sizes, textures,
flavors, and different aromas.
 Yacuanquer, Gualmatán, Totoró, Paispamba, Cuaspud,
Túquerres, Sapuyes, Isnos... the vivid sound of their
names indicates their origin: indigenous voices that recall
those who have inhabited these territories.
Villavicencio
Enlarged colombia
META area
to the mild, humid, and cold climate, the
cultivation of an endemic product of
the Andes: the potato.
These swarms of peoples who live
in the high mountains are closely
linked to the land, to rural life and to
caring for the water and seeds, both
to protect their diversity and food
sovereignty and to sustain profitable
exchanges with the world below in
“the temperate lands”.
Coffee has been the main export-
oriented product of Huila and Tolima’s
economy since the mid-nineteenth
century, affording these regions, to
this day, to ensure a better quality
of life. They are colorful towns of
vernacular architecture —in wood
The foothills of the snow-capped mountains
of Santa Isabel, Ruiz, or Tolima are home to
colorful villages shrouded in mist. One of these
is Murillo (Tolima), whose culture is the result
of the conjunction between the muleteering
of the ancient colonizers from Antioquia
and the farming methods of its inhabitants
from Cundinamarca and Boyaca, who forged
Tolima’s high altitude mountain culture.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
The ancient inhabitants of the department
of Huila found a sacred realm in the high
mountains. In what are now the municipalities
of Isnos and San Agustín, the hills of Alto de
los Ídolos and Alto del Lavapatas were burial
sites which propitiated dialogue between
the mountain and the river. These are now
considered world heritage sites.
and bahareque— on the summits and
slopes of the mountains, whose land-
scapes are enlivened by the active
218-219
trade of coffee beans transported by
mules, jeeps, and chivas.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Colombian Massif spiritual tourism

Sanctuaries: mestizaje, Enlarged colombia

territory, and miracles

area

Buenaventura
Sanctuaries are home Piendamó
Santuario Nuestra Señora
1 VALLE DEL
CAUCA
to divinities that came del Rosario.

from Europe and settled Rosas 2

Pacific
ocean
Cali

in America. They define a Santuario Virgen de Párraga.

territory through roads, Ancuya 3

architecture, devotion, art, Nuestra Señora de la Visitación.

and collective festivities. Iles 4 CAUCA

1

Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Iles. Popayán

Sanctuaries are points of convergence Ipiales 5 2

and attraction that many of the roads Santuario de Nuestra Señora
in Nariño, Cauca, Huila, and Tolima lead de Las Lajas. The mother, the
to. They are paths of pilgrimage and mama, known as la mestiza.
celebration, places of symbolic and
NARIÑO
commercial exchange, and luminous
points of collective encounter.
Identifying and visiting sanctuaries
is a way to experience and understand 3 Pasto
a region’s history. Shrines are the
Mocoa
result of a long process of occupation 4
and interbreeding of a large popula-
tion. The Hispanic world brought with it
powerful symbols of Catholicism, with Ecuador PUTUMAYO
5
captivating stories, sublime images,
and the hope of transcendence. The
indigenous peoples and the Creole
world welcomed these seductive
images, made them their own, and built
small chapels and large churches to
house the figures of these life-giving,
generous, and yet strange, aching, and
fascinating powers that speak to us of
5 Pilgrimage to Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Las Lajas, in Ipiales (Nariño)
fertility, the desire for eternity, and the
eternally longed-for miracle. Shrines bring together many culturally and socially diverse people. Sometimes they are an
The sanctuaries are mostly dedi- imposing figure that stands out in the landscape and are an essential part of understanding
cated to Mary, mother of Jesus, who a region. Peasants and Misak Indians from the Pacific and Ecuador, from the Amazonian
is either with her child in her arms, foothills to Mocoa, and from the north, join the crowds visiting the Sanctuary of Las Lajas.
or pregnant, or breastfeeding, but
always protective and generous. and iconography, and each one found- the leading image of a new model of
The Colombian Massif is home to ing a place and building a territory civilization, with his message of hope:
many advocations: Our Lady of the with which they are identified: Nátaga, that of life after death.
Rosary, Our Lady of Mercy, Our Lady Iles, Las Lajas, Caloto, Piendamó, Visiting a sanctuary is a marvelous
of Candelaria, Our Lady of Mount Purificación, Carmen de Apicalá. Other experience that provides a break from
Carmel, each with her own attributes shrines are dedicated to Jesus Christ, everyday life, an anthropology of the
 CALDAS
6 The Colombian Massif
RISARALDA
Manizales CUNDINAMARCA Is home to Marian shrines (Las Lajas, Iles and Ancuya),
which represent three states of a woman: as a mother,
Pereira as a pregnant woman, and at the time of childbirth.
Bogotá D. C.
Armenia
Ibagué
QUINDÍO
6 Mariquita
Iglesia de La Ermita. Sanctuario
7
Cristo de los Caminantes.
TOLIMA
8
7 Carmen de Apicalá
Sanctuario de la Virgen del Carmen,
with the deep devotion bestowed on
her by drivers.

8 Purificación
Marian sanctuary with two powerful
images: the Indigenous Virgen del
Neiva Amparo or Our Lady of Protection and
Our Lady of Purification or of Candelaria,
after whom the municipality is named.
9
9 Nátaga
Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Las Mercedes.
HUILA
10 Suaza
Sanctuario de la Virgen de Aranzazu.
Located high in the Eastern Cordillera.
10

Florencia

CAQUETÁ

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

9 Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Las Mercedes, in Nátaga (Huila) 6 Iglesia de La Ermita, in Mariquita (Tolima)

A deity pertaining to the border between Cauca and Huila, she is
received with special affection by the Misak indigenous community,
who come from distant lands to buy her portrait and return year
after year to be blessed in the sanctuary. Large numbers of pilgrims
flock to the sanctuary to worship the Virgin of Mercy on the day on
which she is celebrated.
Formerly known as the hermitage of Cristo de los Caminantes,
built on the outskirts of the rich mining town of Mariquita,
it houses one of the most powerful images in modern-day
Colombia. The Christ donated by Philip II was in the crusades,
in the battle of Lepanto, and in the advances of the Spanish
conquest in America.

miraculous. Strategically located high
up in the mountains, at crossroads, and
in breathtaking scenery they provide
a space in which to experience the
place that beckons one to prepare to
bring an offering. The experience of
the traveler or tourist is very similar to
that of the pilgrim who combines the
The pilgrim wants a miracle, a
solution to daily anguish, or to find a
solution to some serious issue, and so
starts off on a journey, committed and
220-221

sacred. The pilgrimage to a shrine is a emotion of faith and the negotiation of enthusiastic, hoping to be rewarded
journey to another world, to a distant symbols with her own journey. with a miracle fulfilled.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Colombian Massif spiritual tourism

Doctrinal temples:
architecture
and power
Chapels appeared throughout
the Massif as a result of the
counter-reformist impulse,
enamored of images, whose
seductive power was used
to control, convert, and
assimilate the Indians.

Starting in the seventeenth century,

numerous small chapels were erected
in the Colombian Massif, expanding the
frontier in order to establish and con-
trol the Indian villages. These were used
to spread the doctrine that brought the
great spiritual conquest, supported
by amazing and powerful images of
christs, madonnas, and saints.
The chapels were the great theater
of the baroque. In this case, they were
temples with a wide portal and antecha-
pel, a belfry, a wooden roof, and lavish
decoration and ornamentation inside
the only nave, topped by a wooden
altarpiece with some gold laminates,
preceded by a toral arch. Built by indig-
enous labor and with materials from
the region, they allowed a reinterpre- Six doctrine chapels are still standing in
tation of the religious world, a creative the former province of Paez, now called
syncretism in relation to the sacred and Tierradentro, in Cauca: San Pedro Apostle
its images, and a propitious scenario of Togoima, San Antonio de Chinas, San
for collective and festive encounters in Miguel de Avirama, Santa Rosa de Suin,
its extended atrium: the plaza. San Roque de Yaquivá and Santa Rosa
The doctrine temples in the depart- de Lima in Santa Rosa. Some of them are
ments of Nariño, Cauca, Huila, and considered Cultural Heritage of the nation. The chapels’ interiors were lavishly
Tolima were located in strategic places, ornamented with wood carvings, sculptures,
in areas of indigenous ritual impor- first peoples that inhabited these ter- mural paintings, and oil or tempera paintings:
tance and with mestizo representations ritories. Even today, these temples are signs from other worlds that were gradually
that recall their significant role in the foundational references of the region’s adapted and transformed, and gradually took
spatial and social organization of the rural architecture and culture. root in the Americas.

Saints and images
Holy Week is an invitation to enjoy and
contemplate powerful images: ancient
carvings, miraculous figures, images of the
suffering Christ or moving images such as
the Dolorosa. Depending on the place, some
saints, characters, or scenes such as St. John,
St. Peter, Saints Magdalene or Veronica, Pilate,
the Last Supper, the Holy Sepulcher, or the
resurrected Jesus, become more significant.
Religious and
spiritual tourism
The sacred in
the streets
The Holy Week processions in
Popayán were included on UNESCO’s
Representative List of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.
Holy Week, known as Semana Mayor,
marks a break with everyday life to
enter into a sacred space and time. It
is a dramaturgical celebration during
which, from Palm Sunday to Easter
Sunday, a large group of believers are
involved in different roles and tasks,
such as carrying the litter for the dif-
ferent processions.
Tourist region
The Colombian Massif
The towns and cities of the
Massif are transformed
and enriched during Holy
Week as a representation
of the passion, death, and
resurrection of Jesus.
The work be done in
Holy Week
Several months before Holy Week,
people begin to work as a collective
putting their expertise at the service
of the celebrations, with lighting
technicians, incense burners, stewards,
aldermen, porters or penitents, pigeon
carriers, carpenters, carvers, goldsmiths
and seamstresses, among others, being
involved in the preparations.
The celebration takes to the streets
to turn the sacred into an experience
for all, where people share beliefs,
offer food, enjoy music, and experi-
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
ence moments of contemplation, sor-
row, and hope.
Holy Week is deeply rooted in and
has been interpreted according to the
symbolic, economic, and cultural uni-
verse of the Andean zone. Given that
this macro region is home to founda-
tional and strategic centers that are
heirs to the Hispanic colonial admin-
istration, such as Pasto and Popayán,
Holy Week celebrated in these cities
reflects a broad Spanish tradition and
is very opulent and colorful. In other
towns, such as Silvia, Garzón, or
Purificación, this same tradition takes
222-223
on a singular meaning within their
rural context.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian Massif culture

Cultivating people VALLE DEL

CAUCA
Ibagué

and culture Buenaventura

Cali
TOLIMA

pacific
ocean
In its landscape of broken Neiva
topography, hillsides, valleys, CAUCA
and large rivers that rise Popayán HUILA
and fall from its variegated
geography, there is a
generous space that is used Tumaco

for agriculture, the basis and NARIÑO Florencia

CAQUETÁ
sustenance of all living forms.
Pasto Mocoa

Ecuador

PUTUMAYO

It is not in vain that the word culture
shares its root with cultivate, the
action of sowing and also that of devel-
oping intellectual capacity, which leads
us to refer to some people as being
cultured. These people are known to
have an accumulation of knowledge, a
trade, a millenary practice of survival
and adaptation to the environment
and the resources it offers.
The Colombian Massif is a meet-
ing place where agricultural practices
from long ago and far away come
together. It is a true setting for the
exchange of products and seeds,
where traditional knowledge has been
preserved and new technologies have
been appropriated.
Agricultural work generally involves
the whole family group and determines
reciprocal or cooperative forms of labor.
The wide bright green plains and pools of
water are full of rice growers doing their
daily work protected under the shade of
their large hats. Their hard work has earned
Tolima a denomination of origin for its rice, in
recognition of its value and quality.
It also requires a dwelling adapted to
farm work, fosters a material culture of
farming tools and objects, provides a
culinary universe, and promises at least

COLOMBIAN MASSIF
AGRICULTURAL FRONTIER
Agricultural frontier
Enlarged colombia
area
subsistence and, sometimes, a higher
economic compensation, despite the
many adversities.
The country’s powerful potato and
corn cultural legacy has been con-
solidated in the Massif. These origi-
nal products have become the great
American contribution to saving the
region from the great famines and to
providing a staple for everyone. The
landscapes here have become part of
our Andean imaginary: the ear of corn,
with its large leaves and slender stalk
that grows high into the sky; and the
potato, which goes deep into the earth,
leaving us a glimpse of its intense
green leaves and its purple flower.
In time and when descending from
the mountains, the communities that
worked the land began to grow crops
The farmers of the hot valley of Huila and
Tolima received machinery in the middle
of the 20th century. Tractors, ploughs,
and combined ploughs transformed
production methods and determined the
trades involved in their operation and
repair. This more specialized machinery
was designed for higher yields and large-
scale production. A new relationship
between man and machine appeared,
defining a different cultural landscape.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Corn creates culture.
We are corn. We eat corn in our arepas and
tamales, empanadas, buns, and wraps, in
soups and coladas. We even ferment it into
chicha, and get drunk on it.
on the slopes of the mountain ranges
and the warm valleys of the Magdalena,
the Patía, and the Cauca rivers. The
end of the 19th century marked a
flourishing of coffee production and
the spread of large-scale crops —cot-
ton, rice, sesame, and sorghum— on
224-225
the plains, with the help of technical
equipment and irrigation systems.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian Massif culture

There is also a lot of diversity in the growing

techniques and methods that are currently

Coffee in the
being experimented with, including organic,
denomination of origin, shade-grown, high
altitude, and conservation coffees. As with

cultural diversity
other crops, coffee is dynamic, evolving,
and adapts to regional conditions.

of the South
Coffee culture is one of the
great expressions of rural
society in the Massif: indigenous,
peasant, and Afro families have
learned to take advantage of the
best conditions in the mountains
to grow and process high-quality
beans. A social and multi-
ethnic fabric that contributes
new meanings to the country’s
economic and cultural dynamics.

Grown at between 1600 and 2100

meters above sea level, coffee is typi-
cal of the mountains, and, in a coun-
try with three mountain ranges, it is
grown at different altitudes. When
talking about coffee, one generally
thinks of the Western Andes, given the
Antioquian colonization of the area,
but Colombia has other regions, such
as the Massif, where coffee cultivation
is vital to the culture and the economy.
In Colombia’s so-called southern
coffee region, where the departments fact, the coffee from the departments In much of the Massif region, coffee has
of the Massif are located, peasant, of Huila, Tolima, Cauca, and Nariño, served as a crop of peace, as it has provided
indigenous and Afro-Colombian fami- which stand out for the unique qualities work through which the communities have
lies grow a variety of crops, including of their flavor and aroma have their been able to improve their quality of life,
coffee, on their small plots of land. own protected designation of origin. and they have opted for greater production
This family and subsistence economy Coffee growing has been the driving of foodstuffs associated with coffee, such
promotes a close relationship between force for the consolidation of territo- as bananas and home gardens to substitute
the crop and the worker in the context ries, through education, associativity, crops grown for illicit use.
of a manual technology. and the improvement of techniques
The Massif’s exceptional conditions, and processes. Today, consumers who after day by the multi-ethnic families
given its soils enriched with volcanic enjoy coffee and are aware of its cul- of the mountains of the Massif, and on
ash and organic matter carried by the tural importance have begun to learn which the coffee culture of the South
rivers, produce high quality crops. In about these practices performed day is built.

Vernacular architecture:
the tradition of inhabiting
a territory
Palms, grasses, reeds, wood, and mud,
are the interwoven materials used as the
basis for the foundations and construc-
tion of the houses of the first pre-His-
panic settlers. These later changed given
the new knowledge of building materials
Living
culture
inhabitants with resources,
limitations. At the same time,
new settlers travel through
live it, occupy it, and adapt it
Earthen architecture is expressed in many
different ways in each of the region’s villages,
imprinting its own style. For example, the houses
with parapets in Piedras (Tolima) on the banks of
the Magdalena, the ribbed walls of many villages
in Huila, or the upright planks of Murillo.
and systems in the Hispanic tradition
(the chircales or brickworks, the exploita-
tion of quarries, sawmills, forges), in the
emergence of the new cities.
Tourist region
The Colombian Massif
Vernacular architecture
is the construction of a
language of habitation.
Geography provides its
materials, landscapes, and
it, get to know it, learn to
according to their needs.
Using available materials defined
the techniques that allowed the set-
tlers to establish themselves. Adobe,
for example, was used to build the first
settlements in the mountains, valleys,
and lowlands. With the colonization,
adobe, rammed earth, and baked tiles
were incorporated into the construc-
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
tion systems of the founding cities
and towns such as Pasto and Popayán,
Neiva and Ibagué, from where, in turn,
the new techniques began to spread to
the surrounding populations.
Living arrangements changed in
response to cultural changes, techno-
logical transformations, and people’s
need to find a place to live. An example
of this are the villages formed as a
result of the Antioquian colonization
that have occupied the northwest of
Tolima. These reveal the persistence
and modern adaptation of this archi-
tectural language that adapts to the
226-227
region’s socio-economic demands and
the deeply broken terrain.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian Massif culture

Magdalena fishermen,
a culture that flows
like the river
In 1979, UNESCO declared
the Colombian Massif a
biosphere reserve as it
contains more than 70%
of the country’s water
reserves. It is considered
the fluvial star of Colombia,
where five important rivers
originate: the Magdalena,
Cauca, Caquetá, Putumayo,
and Patía.

In the upper part of the Massif —where

the Magdalena is born— fishing is
limited and provides only for the
peasants’ subsistence. As the river
descends into the warm valley, the
supply becomes greater and the fish-
ing trade becomes a way of life, a pro-
fession, and a key activity.
For thousands of years, the banks
of the Magdalena have been occupied
and populated by fishermen, whose
craft is a tradition and an art, passed
down from one generation to the next.
The fishermen learn their trade on
the river, as they make their own fish-
ing tools. The canoe and fishing line
are essential tools of the trade. When
fishing from the banks, the fishermen
cast their lines and patiently wait with
congo sticks to catch food for the
many families settled along the river.
The fishermen live independently,
follow the pulse of the river, which
they know well, and thus build a river
culture. They live in synchronicity
The fish leave their marshes in dry weather
between December and March and embark
on the marvelous adventure of swimming
upstream against the current. The shoal
gives off a murmur that only experienced
fishermen can distinguish. The fish advance
little by little in a natural order: first the
tulumba —announcing the subienda— In the pre-Hispanic world, the Magdalena River
followed by Bloch’s catfish, the gilt-head was known along much of its course as Arlí,
bream, the long-whiskered catfish, the “the river of fish,” “the river of the bocachico,”
bocachico, the tiefish, and the catfish. which reflects the importance of fish in the
activities and diet of the pre-Columbian groups,
with the water and await the subienda who were, and still are, skilled fishermen.
when shoals of fish swim upstream
towards the Atlantic coast. Faced with and cooperation and are fighting for
the decline in fish catches, fishermen their artisanal work, now considered
are looking for alternatives. They have intangible heritage in Colombia, to be
found valuable ways of association recognized and protected.
 Living Tourist region
culture The Colombian Massif

Winds of
miscegenatione
Traditional juntanza music
still survives in the Colombian
Massif, a land of miscegenation,
joy, and rhythms found in daily
life and farming environments.
Music of the Andes for dancing,
played with drums and string
and wind instruments.

The Cauca violins have provided the mestizo

territory with the Afro contribution of the former
slave workers of the haciendas of the Patía
Valley and the mountains of northern Cauca
with a sound and a name. The violin was made
of guadua, horsehair, and some alswere made
of totumo. Little by little, under the missionary
influence and the spirit of inexhaustible freedom,
a festive musical composition and ensemble was
created involving the western tradition (especially
singing) and the percussion and rhythms of the
Pacific and the mountains.

telluric festivities of San Juan and San

Pedro. These narrations are songs to
the river, the animals, to love and food,

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

String duets
Los Tolimenses, Silva y Villalba, and Garzón
y Collazos, among many others are well
known for their voices and stories of the
region, interpreting their own songs and
those of other musicians. Among the most
representative compositions is the Bunde
turned into a hymn that refers to “being
born, living, and dying loving the Magdalena”
and the Guabina by Pedro J. Ramos, whose
Amidst rivers and mountain ranges,
country trades and people from different
cultural horizons come together to cre-
ate a festive atmosphere. Rhythm and
melody in the Andean mountains are
backed by guitars, tiples and requintos,
flutes, quenas, charangos, and tambo-
ras, a countless number of instruments
including the chucho, guacharaca, the
marrana, and the bass drum.
Going down to the valleys, musi-
cians, composers, and performers, like
minstrels, talk about the territory with
colorful stories about its geography, the
to the rhythm of bambucos, guabinas,
sanjuaneros, bundes, torbellinos, violins
from Cauca, merengues, and pasillos.
The music of the Massif has helped to
strengthen the social fabric of the rural
Andes and the valley. In several of its
expressions, it has acquired the charac-
ter of “national music,” despite the fact
that it has been somewhat relegated to
the cultural and entertainment industry,
threatened by the conflict and the dis-
placement of its people to the big cit-
ies. Nevertheless, it is a heritage to be
safeguarded and revisited, recognizing
its valuable narratives, remembrance of
228-229

sentence is definitive: “You will always live, work of the countryside, the indigenous other times, and cultural memory that
Tolima, as long as the San Juan exists.” footprint, the partisan violence, the is still alive.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian Massif culture
The Amazonian foothills give way to
the Andes, offering up the mopa-mopa
tree, whose sap the skilled artisans

Crafting life:
of Pasto transform into varnish, with
which they adorn a dazzling array
of products, imprinting them with a

tools for building

distinctive texture and color.

a culture
In the beginning, the artisan
work of the communities of
the Colombian Massif, in the
south west of the country, was
intended to create a culture
in dialogue with the resources
nature provides. The region has
long produced an abundance of
handicrafts, richly loaded with
signs and symbols of an Andean
world that are rooted in collective
memory and indigenous thought
and are engaged in a constant
dance of aesthetic exploration.

The Colombian Massif produces an

extraordinary number of cultural
objects. To speak of artisan products
is to speak of people, trades, and con-
texts that imbue each product with true
value and meaning. They are the result
of expert knowledge of raw materials
inherited from the past and transmitted
orally from generation to generation.
There are countless artisan traditions
in the region: in Nariño, skilled crafts-
people make hats from fibers of the
iraca palm, or weave fabrics using the
hand loom known as the guanga; there
are leatherworkers; people who make
the celebrated lacquer work known as
barníz de Pasto, and woodcarvers who
specialize in religious imagery.
In the department of Cauca, the
indigenous communities contribute
fine pieces woven using the coarse
fibers of the fique plant and wool to
weave their characteristic bags called
mochilas, jigras, and chumbes (sashes
used to secure babies to the parents’
backs). Further north, in Huila, artisans
specialize in basketry and representa-
tions of San Agustin sculptures and
traditional transportation systems, as
well as the extremely fine weaving of
iraca hats in Suaza.
In the heat of the Magdalena river
valley, distinctive pottery work has
been produced in the village of La
Chamba since pre-Hispanic times.
Hats that provide shade for agricultural workers
or protect travelers and tourists from the fierce
tropical sun are made of iraca, Queen Palm,
Royal Palm and other fibers, in villages such as
Sandoná, Tumbichucue, Suaza, Guamo.
The clay for these pots is taken from
river clays, while hats are woven from
the fronds of the Queen and Royal
palms. The strong link in the depart-
ment of Tolima between music and
the Magdalena River has cultivated
 Slipware and smoke-fired pottery has traveled up and
down the Magdalena river for hundreds of years in the
form of bowls, jugs, pots, ewers, plates, pots, jars, trays,
casseroles and a multitude of other utilitarian items,
made by hundreds of artisans from La Chamba (Tolima).
This village is a center of pottery production because of
the rich river clays found there, the smooth stones used
to burnish the newly-fired pots the abundant firewood
needed to fuel the kilns, and the abundant water supply
provided by the river, which is used in the manufacturing
process and to transport the finished wares.

Indigenous
The Nasa and Misak Indians weave mochilas,
jigras, chumbes, and hat trimmings,
constructing life that comes and goes, that
coils and unravels like thoughts and ideas. They

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

are woven in sheep wool and fique, materials
provided by the earth to fasten clothes, carry
our babies or food, and to adorn our ritual hats.

a knowledge of musical instrument-

making as well as techniques to make
the distinctive cóngolo and atarraya
fishing nets.
The artisans of the Colombian Massif
demonstrate a vision of the world and
a knowledge of the resources and raw
materials the region has to offer in
such abundance. Their products bring
together the oral tradition and the
accumulated practical experience of
230-231

generations of people whose craft is

also rooted in agricultural practice.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian Massif culture

Indigenous territories,
resistance and tradition
linked to the land
Historically, the mountains and slopes
of the Massif has been occupied by
numerous indigenous groups, deeply
connected to the land, and custodians
of tradition. These communities have
managed to remain on their territory
to this day thanks to their resistance to
the western world and their determined
strategies to defend their economic
livelihoods and cultural identity.

There is a great deal of variation between

indigenous communities. They have lived
in their territories for more than three
thousand years and, as archeology
sometimes reveals, this long period of
settlement and social and cultural devel-
opment means their roots are deep.
Currently, indigenous people are
found throughout the region; some
live in resguardos, or reservations:
collective territories named after the
ethnic group living there, and governed
by a traditional council, or cabildo. The
indigenous people of the Massif are
important agricultural producers. Some
still wear their traditional clothing and
speak their own languages. They are
socially and culturally sophisticated,
with distinct models of authority, areas of society. Some have changed
symbolic systems, traditional medicine, the names of their organizations and
and mythical thought. have vehemently asserted their own Indigenous peoples inhabit nature, of which
Since the promulgation of the 1991 history, territorial rights, traditional they also have a profound understanding.
Constitution, which explicitly defines leaders, and sacred places, question- Over the years, they have developed a
Colombia as a multiethnic and multicul- ing the official, unitary, account of the powerful medicinal traditional based on
tural nation, indigenous communities Spanish tradition. acute observation and respect for plant life,
have asserted and defended their rights Indigenous peoples live in a constant a tradition that has been passed down from
and demanded recognition in many process of miscegenation and economic, generation to generation by the elders.
INDIGENOUS GROUPS IN THE
COLOMBIAN MASSIF REGION
Ibagué
Coconuco Nasa

Yanacona Pijao

Pasto Quillacinga
VALLE DEL
Buenaventura CAUCA TOLIMA
Misak Totoró

Cofan Guanacas META

Cali
Ingas
pacific
ocean

Neiva

CAUCA

Popayán
HUILA

Enlarged colombia
area

NARIÑO Florencia

CAQUETÁ

Pasto Mocoa

PUTUMAYO

Ecuador

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The following indigenous groups live in the
Massif: the Nasa, Yanacona, Misak, Quillacinga,
Awá, Coconuco, Guanaca, Inga, Totoro, Pasto,
Cofán and Pijao, or Coyaima.
social and symbolic exchange, and
communities. Given their long-standing
history, their experiences are a gift to
the future. Their peace initiatives, the
way they care for and protect seeds to
ensure food sovereignty and, above all,
their ceaseless struggle to preserve their
One of the great historical leaders in the
struggle to advance and defend indigenous
culture and rights was the Nasa Quintín Lame
Chantre, who was born in Cauca and pursued
most of his life-long struggle in Huila and
Tolima. He died in Ortega (Tolima) and his tomb,
232-233

frequently share customs and produc- culture, their love for, and commitment located at the top of the Abechucos mountains,
tion systems with neighboring peasant to, the land are beacons of their heritage. has become a pilgrimage destination.
 Tourist region Archeology
The Colombian Massif
The archaeological parks of San Agustin and
Isnos were declared World Heritage Sites by
UNESCO in 1995, recognized as “a unique

Tombs for a
and exceptional testimony of a civilization
that has long since disappeared.”

sacred river
Over two thousand years
ago, an ancient society
settled here in the
Colombian Massif. It built
an extensive ceremonial
center, erected enormous
earthen mounds covered
by burial dolmens, and
carved Sarcophagi and
hundreds of monolithic
statues with complex
representations of human
beings, animals, and
mythological entities.

The rural residents of the new

settlements in southern Huila gradually
became familiar with the great stone
monuments, making them their own,
coexisting with their spectral presence
and learning to value the legacy of
ancient societies alongside a scientific
exploration of the site that goes back
over a hundred years.

The statues of the upper Magdalena

are a pre-Hispanic funerary complex
uncovered through archaeological
work to be contemplated and admired.
From the darkness, this sacred and
silent world gave meaning to death
and value to water, the mountains,
and the fauna. This was a site that was
designed for awakening altered states
of consciousness and communication
with other worlds.
On either side of the Magdalena
River, formerly known as the Guaca-
Hayo (the river of tombs), the statues
were erected at an apparently con-
vergent point between the Andes and
the Amazon, the connection between
the world above and the world below
where the birds of prey and the snakes
could meet.
The statues of San Agustín and Isnos place
us before human figures carved in stone and
delineated in auric proportions. Curved and
spiraling lines, staggered, rigid and sinuous,
give account of a humanity in transit from
life to death and back to life. Erect penises
and swollen bellies, masks, necklaces, and
ornaments, canes and a myriad of forms have
turned the rock into a dwelling for eternity.
 Archeology Tourist region
The Colombian Massif
The Tierradentro Archaeological Park in
San Andrés de Pisimbalá, municipality of
Inzá (Cauca) is home to a large number

Tierradentro:
of hypogea and statues.

the symbolism
of the mirror
Much of the evidence of human
occupation of the Colombian
Massif in the distant past comes
from funerary culture, which
produced architectural and
sculptural monuments. These were
erected by earlier humans in an
underground world that replicated
the dwelling place of the living,
thus giving a home to the dead.

One hundred 1,500-year-old tombs

have been uncovered by archaeologi-
cal work since the beginning of the
twentieth century. Known as hypo-
geum (an underground building), they
typically feature large vaults, carved
into the volcanic rock, accessed by
stairs. They are true funerary temples

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The stairs of the tombs
evoke the communication between two worlds
and prefigure the nexus between life and
death. Likewise, their delicate construction and
valuable architecture of steps make us suspect
Tierradentro (Cauca) resonates in
the Colombian imagination with
two meanings: a distant land in the
mountains of the Massif and a place
underground, an underworld of tombs
carved into the rock. The world below
mirrors the world above, with a
arranged in an oval plan, with several
niches or vestibules supported by pro-
fusely decorated columns and red and
black cave paintings rich with geomet-
ric abstraction.
Archaeological studies have
revealed the complex thinking of the
pre-Hispanic cultures of the Massif,
their deep knowledge of systems of
construction, and the refined state
of social and cultural organization
achieved thanks to the imprint of
their funerary universe. Visiting the
spectacular sites of Tierradentro
allows us to deepen our knowledge of
234-235

that the hypogea may have been opened for familiar environment created for the the human condition by illuminating it
some kind of ceremony. beings who have died. from the vantage point of death.
 Tourist region
The Colombian Massif
Thousands of years of
humanity and millions
of years of life
This region is overflowing with archaeological
evidence, ranging from funerary remains, tools,
pottery, and fine gold pieces that shed light on the
occupation and settlement of the human groups
that entered the continent thousands of years ago.
1 La Elvira
On an artificially flattened hilltop in La Elvira,
near the city of Popayán, excavations have
identified obsidian arrowheads, knives, and
scrapers that were used for hunting animals
and preparing them for consumption, and for
cutting plant materials, revealing that these
ancient semi-nomadic settlers were hunters,
fishermen, and horticulturists.
There is evidence of early agricultural
societies in Cauca, Nariño, Tolima and
southern Huila, dating back more
than three thousand years. These
were sedentary communities that
Archeology
had developed a tradition of pottery
production and corn cultivation and
that built agricultural terraces, and
artificial mounds for their dwellings.
The southern part of the upper
Magdalena River valley was settled
by peoples with a sophisticated social
organization. Their complex burial
mounds, sarcophagi, and statues can
be seen in the archaeological parks of
San Agustín and Isnos, in Huila.
In the foothills of the Central
Cordillera, in Tierradentro, in the north-
east of the department of Cauca, lie
impressive catacombs that represent
Pastoral culture 2
in Pupiales
In the town of Pupiales, in the south of the
department of Nariño, archaeological research
has identified numerous ceramic pieces
produced by the Pasto culture. Dishes, cups,
anthropomorphic vessels with extraordinary
geometric designs and symbolic representations
inspired by animals are evidence of a broader
cultural horizon in the Massif that extends beyond
the border with Ecuador.
dwellings in the underworld. Far to the
south of the current department of
Nariño, archaeological traces of potato
 Guamo 3

In Guamo (department of Tolima) and

Ibagué surrounding areas, archaeological research
Enlarged colombia
area is of great significance, because for the
Guamo 3 first time pottery analysis has established
Buenaventura VALLE DEL TOLIMA a two-thousand year time sequence of
CAUCA pre-Hispanic settlements in the Magdalena
valley. These periods of occupation have
Cali
Fósiles en el desierto been labelled the Montalvo (the earliest),
4
de La Tatacoa the undulating Guamo (the classic period)
and the Magdalena Inciso (late).
pacific Neiva
ocean

La Elvira 1 Popayán HUILA

CAUCA
Tumaco
NARIÑO Florencia
CAQUETÁ
Pasto Mocoa
Cultura pasto
2
en Pupiales
PUTUMAYO

Ecuador

Fossils in the 4

Tatacoa Desert

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

cultivation have been found, alongside
other Andean tubers and cereals such
as quinoa. Llamas, whose wool was
used to make textiles, were also domes-
ticated, as were guinea pigs. These
people lived in village groups, in round
houses, and traded with the Pacific
coast, as is shown by the presence of
marine Spondylus shells in the settle-
ments. Their deep-cut tombs (between
10 to 35 meters below ground level)
contained numerous ceramic objects,
The gold that has been found among
grave goods and funerary offerings
has an indisputable sacred component.
The diadems, pectorals, nose rings and
enormous finely-decorated lamellar
plates stand out. Tolima’s gold and
silver work features abstract human
figures with squared extremities cre-
ated using hammering techniques, and
hybrid human-animal figures produced
using the lost wax process.
Paleontology —the study of life on
In the town of La Victoria, in the municipality
of Villavieja (Huila), the Vanegas brothers,
whose dedicated research has led to their
recognition as experts in the fossils of the
Tatacoa desert, have created a Natural History
Museum, which is regularly visited by tourists,
students and researchers.
the Tatacoa desert. Here, thanks to the
variety and abundance of fossils, it has
been possible to identify the evolution-
ary process of vertebrates including
mammals, reptiles, birds, and fish, in
236-237

cups, and dishes, decorated in rich col- Earth through fossils of ancient living a timeline covering more than thirteen
ors and geometric designs. beings— has a privileged role to play in million years.
 Tourist region Gastronomy
The Colombian Massif

The encounter between the

countryside and the city
One of the essential and
constituent elements of a town’s
economic and social life is its
marketplaces. The arrival of
products from the countryside
to the urban world and the
meeting of people engaged in
buying and selling foodstuffs,
merchandise and services are
an essential driving force of the
region, and give identity and
anchorage to the land.

It has rightly been said that the way

to understand the soul of a town is by
visiting the marketplace. This is where
life happens, where social gatherings
are held and economic activity takes
place; the market is a place that forges
memory and tradition. The market-
places of the high mountain areas of
Nariño and Cauca, and a good part of
southern Huila are stocked with a mix-
ture of products from the Amazonian
foothills of Caquetá and Putumayo,
alongside others from the Pacific
coast or the tropical rainforest.
The plaza or marketplace, then,
Potrerillo marketplace
reveals a cartography of encounters
between races and the links between
In plazas like that of Potrerillo, in the city of
Pasto, there is a spectacular abundance of
San Agustín marketplace
the highlands and lowlands. Further fresh products from all altitudes that speak In the market places, each vendor organizes
south, in Huila and Tolima, the plazas of a rich culinary tradition and the protection his or her space differently in a sort of
reflect the fishing activity that prevails of a diverse range of cultural traditions. colorful installation with plenty of fresh,
there and a range of fresh products: fragrant products. Among the highlights
juices, fruit and avena the traditional and celebrates the diversity of the prod- in San Agustín are the achiras and the
oat-based drink that helps mitigate the ucts sold there, the traditions and the handcrafted replicas of its statues.
heat of the baking Magdalena valley. many varieties of human society. In the
The cultural matrix of the plazas of marketplace, where a different order is replete with religious beliefs and
the Massif is particularly alien to mod- reigns, there is no separation between images; there is an abundant supply
ern capitalism, as it rejects homogeneity daily life, products, and food. The plaza of herbs used for healing and to bring

The marketplace of Silvia
The Silvia (Guambía) market, in Cauca, is
held every Tuesday and is characterized by
peasants and the Misak community, with their
traditional dress. It sells local food and drinks,
as well as chumbes, mochilas, jigras, ponchos,
fabrics, hats, and beads.
prosperity, and the atmosphere is
imbued with the aromas and flavors of
the food of the Andean region: soups
(including the characteristic mute),
envueltos (a mash of sweetened corn
wrapped in corn husks), and banana
leaf-wrapped tamales.
In the Colombian Massif there are
hundreds of marketplaces that give
life to the communities thanks to the
continuous exchange of products.
Most of the markets shelter under tra-
ditional architectural structures, which
are central to the layout of towns,
serve as perfect meeting places, and
channel products from the villages of
the surrounding region into a single
bustling space.
The plazas sell corn, potatoes, veg-
etables, cane sugar, fish, and handi-
crafts Some of these products have a
The city of Popayán boasts the markets of Las
Palmas, Bello Horizonte, Alfonso López, and the
Bolívar neighborhood, home of the renowned
Mesa Larga and where all kinds of traditional
dishes from the Cauca region are served. The
people who serve at the Mesa Larga are mainly
women, who have been preserving its food
traditions for more than four decades. Popayán
was declared a UNESCO City of Gastronomy in
2007 because of the varied and exciting food
that can be found there.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Honda market
The marketplace in Honda (Tolima), which has
been declared a National Asset of Cultural
Interest, was built in the early 20th century
on the ruins of an old Franciscan monastery.
Its neoclassical style of slender Doric columns
and large interior spaces lend this historic
inland port an unmistakable spirit.
certified designation of origin, while
unpackaged fresh food is sold at low
prices because fewer intermediaries
238-239
are involved or because producer and
consumer come to an agreement.
 Tourist region Gastronomy
The Colombian Massif

The food and flavors

of the southern Andes
The Colombian Massif is a region with an enormous
variety of typical foods, because of the intense
process of racial mixing there, which is also evident
in other cultural expressions. The indigenous people,
Afro-Colombians, and Europeans contributed seeds,
animals, and preparations to a melting pot that,
in addition to the contributions made by criollos
or the descendants of Spanish settlers born in the
Americas, continues to be renewed and multiplied
over time.

The indigenous culture of Cauca

It is food, with its variety of flavors
and childhood associations, that pro-
vides the greatest sense of attach-
ment to a region. Taken together, the
varied flavors, aromas and textures,
culinary approaches and products
rooted in different customs, table
habits, recipes, techniques, secrets,
methods, and symbolic connotations,
are all a part of the complexity this
culinary universe.
Andean gastronomy is based on the
open fire and the tulpa —a large, circu-
lar, thatched kiosk—, where the heat of
the fire imbues a space that is not con-
fined solely to food preparation. The
tulpa is a space for conversation, learn-
ing, experimentation, and undoubtedly,
of encounter. Here, the ancestors are
evoked in food preparation, smells and
flavors, which grow and are shared in a
culture that enjoys eating.
and Nariño lives on in the foods
they produce on their lands: differ-
ent Andean tubers (ollucos, potatos,
arracacha) and the great variety of
vegetables grown in the small plots
that dominate the landscape, along
with livestock rearing in individual
households.
This is the nature of the food eaten
by the peoples of the Masiff, in which
soups of all kinds occupy a prominent
place. It is here that the Spanish and
Afro-descendant traditions converge to
 The Massif is home to a wealth of corn varieties, including white,
black, yellow, red, round, de fiesta, llorón, ñungo, pintado, thin-
husked, capio and carpintero. Their presence in many sweet and
savory dishes is a reminder of the importance of this foodcrop
to the population. The traditional carantanta (crispy corn)
and birimbí (a kind of sweetened, fermented polenta) eaten in
Cauca, the great variety of soups such as mote and locro, typical
of Nariño, pastel de San Pedro in Huila and the vast range of
arepas and sancochos from Tolima and other regions remind us
of the variety and adaptability of this ancient cuisine.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Peru, Ecuador, and Nariño, in southern
Colombia, share the tradition of eating guinea
pig, locally known as cuy, which are kept in
the family home, often in the kitchen itself,
living on a diet of grasses and herbs. Cuy
is generally roasted and served on a plate
alongside typical Andean products: potatoes,
puffed corn and a peanut chili sauce, similar
to satay. This traditional regional food is eaten
on special occasions and public holidays.
influence the innumerable indigenous
In Tolima Grande (comprising the
departments of Huila and Tolima),
pigs —brought to the region by the
Europeans— became the basic animal
protein present in the rural diet. The
pig, fed with garden waste and kitchen
scraps, gradually became part of an
economy of self-subsistence and also
provided the possibility of saving: a
piggy bank that grows fat and reaches
the table in the form of baked goods,
roasts, and suckling pig, dishes that
This great variety of food on the table would
not exist if the variety of seeds had not been
preserved. Farmers, indigenous people and
agricultural producers from the Massif and
other regions (who collectively make up the
Network of Seed Guardians) have, for many
years, worked to conserve agricultural diversity,
convinced that if the land is not healthy and
food is not grown using sustainable techniques,
it will not be possible to guarantee culinary
diversity in the future. Their world is one where
care, dedication, and partnership prevail and in
240-241

soups based on corn and potato, the are de rigueur at parties, carnivals, which the sense of community is strengthened
region’s most important crops. and family gatherings. by the free exchange of work and products.
 Tourist region Gastronomy
The Colombian Massif

Dining on the
banks of the
Magdalena
The early occupation of the banks of the Magdalena
was due to the ease of river navigation, the fertility
of the lands bathed by the river, and especially, the
relative ease of catching all manner of fish.

As a result of the expert fishing practices in

Recipe for viudo
de bocachico
Cook green plantain, manioc, potato,
and a little arracacha and pumpkin in
a pot with water. Place the skinned,
eviscerated, and marinated fish in a
covered pot to cook for 15 minutes.
Serve with lots of hogao and the
rest of the ingredients. The viudo is
served with onion and cilantro and
comes with sides of rice, patacones
(fried plantain), and salad.
In its course of more than 500 km
through the Colombian Massif from
its source all the way to Honda, the
Magdalena River offers an unbeatable
opportunity to catch a multitude of
river fish, each with a different flavor
and texture. There is archaeological
evidence (in Arrancaplumas, Honda)
that fishermen worked the river more
than twelve thousand years ago, and
that cooked fish was part of their diet.
The indigenous manner of prepara-
tion was either in pots or buried in
the sand on the banks of the river,
wrapped in banana leaves and depos-
ited under the fire. Nineteenth-century
travel accounts describe all kinds of
the river ports, numerous species of fish are
delivered to the plates of the enthusiastic
diners. The most popular are the bocachico,
capaz, dorada, blanquillo, and catfish.
fish-based meals offered by the sam-
pans on the riverbanks during the long
river journeys.
Fish is prepared in soup, fried,
grilled, or as a local dish called viudo.
It is served with manioc, potato, green
plantain, rice, and abundant hogao, a
sofrito made with tomato and onion.
These dishes have turned towns and
cities such as Honda, Ambalema,
Natagaima, Purificación, Flandes, and
Neiva into gastronomic destinations.
 Gastronomy Tourist region
The Colombian Massif

Tamales and amasijos:

the flavor of a region
Dough made with corn, rice, purple arrowroot,
wheat; starches made from manioc and potato:
these are the most important components of
tamales and amasijos, or Colombian pastries. These
dishes require time and patience to prepare, and the
techniques are transmitted through loving hands
that knead and cook together in families.

An indispensable

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Among the most popular snacks in the traditional
cuisine of Cauca are tamales and empanadas de
pipián, made with a dough of threshed morocho
corn aged for two weeks in water.
Amasijos is the name of a broad culi-
nary category enjoyed in this region.
It includes bread, cookies, arepas, and
many kinds of biscuits to go with appe-
tizers, breakfast, or lunch. Both wheat
as well as threshed, aged, white capio,
and mostachones in Nariño and pam-
bazo, cucas, and molletes in Cauca.
Achiras are a snack food emblematic
of this region and are made from
purple arrowroot starch. Achiras con-
nect the region, since the plant is sown
and harvested in Cauca and Nariño but
baked in Huila and Tolima.
Tamales contain a mash of ingredi-
ents wrapped in aromatic leaves. They
are prepared throughout Colombia,
side in traditional dishes from Tolima and
Huila in the insulso, a lump of wheat dough
cooked and wrapped in bijao leaves, plays an
important role in cutting the fat of traditional
dishes such as asado huilense, lechona, and
the Tolima tamal.
ingredients. The tamal from Tolima is
one of the most famous. Its balanced
and generous mixture of peas, rice,
corn, potato, egg, chicken, pork, and
seasoning is wrapped in the lightly
roasted leaves of the popocho banana
tree. The lucky diner then gets to
242-243

and shelled corn are transformed into and the differences lie in the man- open these leaves to deliver a world
arepas de piedra asada, quimbolitos, ner of preparation and the variety of of flavor.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Colombian Massif festivals

Games and satire: the

Negros y Blancos carnival
Carnivals mark a time of renewal, inversion of taboos,
and enjoyment of public space. In Pasto (Nariño), in
the south of Colombia and in the heart of the Massif,
a joyful Andean carnival takes place that invites
exploration of the local social and cultural universe. It
is one of numerous Andean festivals that take place at
the same time throughout the region.

December 31: old year parade

December 28: water games
Every carnival has an opening and a closing. The Negros y Blancos
carnival begins on December 28 with the water games, in which the
objective is to enjoy getting wet. The advice is to be ready for anything.
It is a kind of April Fool’s Day, where the point is to be taken by surprise
and not get upset—it’s all done for sport.
December 31 begins with the parade of años viejos, street bands, and
floats. It functions as a review of what has taken place over the last
year; both local and world events are satirized and critiqued. It is an
act of atonement and healing through the ephemeral artworks of
finely crafted floats that at the end of the day will be set on fire, as is
the tradition.

Pasto’s Carnaval de Negros y Blancos
is a scene of intense coexistence
where total participation and games
prevail (the local phrasing involves an
invitation to “play at the carnival”).
The carnival strengthens intercultural
dialogue, since it welcomes everyone
without exception. People look for-
ward to and prepare for this festival
throughout the year. In the months
leading up to it, many families and
artisans transform their homes into
workshops in which they assemble
the floats, costumes, troupe props, and
choreographies for the carnival.

January 5: black games
January 5 used to be the day off granted by the dominant sector
of colonial society to the enslaved black population. It is a time of
freedom, a time for taking to the streets, dancing to the sound of
drums, and painting the faces of whites with charcoal. To this day,
January 6: white games
The closing of the carnival, January 6, appeared at the beginning of
the twentieth century in response to the black face painting. After the
game involving talcum powder or white paint and streamers, the final
parade opens with troupes, costumes, and choreographies. The artisans
bring out their floats with majestic allegorical figures in papier-mâché,

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

this fiesta de negritos invites us to experience being another through crafted with finesse and artfulness, to show the world the cheer and
human contact, the caress of a paintbrush on one’s face. original compositions of the Colombian Massif.

The carnival takes place in a territory
of indigenous tradition that interprets
a Christian European heritage and
includes the Afro world: a true cultural
synthesis. Most carnivals take place at
the onset of Lent; however, the Negros
y Blancos carnival is celebrated from
December 28 to January 6, in response
to the cultural melting pot of the Andes.
The carnival brings everyone all
together: the children join the car-
regional population and visitors from
the world over revel in the catharsis.
They play the water games, get
black-and-white face paintings, and
they taunt and mock society and power
wrought into the life-size dolls that rep-
resent the year that is dying: the año
viejo. The spirit of the carnival radiates
freedom and conciliation to the whole
region of the Massif through the tri-
ethnic values it embraces.
Day, which in the Christian tradition
includes a black king.
The Negros y Blancos carnival
in Pasto has been included in the
Representative List of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity since
2009, a legacy that expands to the
lands of Putumayo and Ecuador and
resonates deeply in Popayán and
other towns in the region such as
Ipiales, Túquerres, Piendamó, Timbío,
244-245

navalito, the experienced artisans Elsewhere, year-end festivities also Buenos Aires, Caldono, Guapi, and
get worldwide recognition, and the extend until January 6, Three Kings Timbiquí.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Colombian Massif festivals

San Juan and

San Pedro:
saints of fiesta,
saints of dance
Fiestas rupture the routines of daily
life, opening the doors to another
time: that of unbridled celebration
by a united people come together
to indulge in the joy of life,
dancing, music, and traditional
food. These celebrations follow a
cycle, creating moments of truce,
affirming identity and propitiating
a collective coming-together.

Along the Colombian Massif, fiestas are

the product of hundreds of years of cul-
tural and racial mixing resulting from
the long process of Christianization
—with its saints and its culinary tradi-
tions— which created the Americas, in
dialog with the agricultural vocation of
the region.
San Juan -Saint John the Baptistis
an earth saint, symbol of beneficial
water and of fire, representing the full
heat of the sun. He is the final prophet,
announcing the coming of hope and premiere, or inauguration): an abun-
abundance, the longed-for figure who dance of traditional dishes, such as The mythical Taita Puro, from Huila, has its origins
at dawn will bless the Magdalena river, asado huilense and lechona tolimense in the indigenous Pijao culture. He is a mocking
the streams that flow into it, and the and is accompanied by the music and imitation of San Juan, and ever-present lord of
harvest from the lands they water. dance of the sanjuanero. the fiestas: the master of fire and the harvest.
The fiestas de San Juan are replete In Neiva and Ibagué, the capitals
with cultural —especially rural— of the departments of Huila and on June 29. The cities of Ibagué and
expressions seeking to transform the Tolima two festivals are celebrated Neiva organize folklore festivals with
mundane present into new times and on the dates of the Catholic calendar beauty pageants and bambuco, a tra-
a new life. These festivities are ush- with particular fervor: San Juan on ditional dance that is emblematic of
ered in with the estrene (literally, the June 24 and San Pedro y San Pablo both departments.
The San Juan y San Pedro celebrations, like the other
festivals in the region, provide an excellent opportunity
for the costume-makers and craftspeople who make
the disguises and the figures that sit atop the floats.
Above all, they are an opportunity for the makers of
the splendid costumes worn by the young people who
choreograph dances and spread the regional music.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The paintings of the artist Alfonso
Ramírez Fajardo (1920-1969) portray rural
festivals of San Juan y San Pedro in the
1950s with great visual richness.
Visitors come from all over
Colombia, drawn to the festivals by
the nationally famous invitation,
péguese la rodadita or come come
floats and troupes that take part in
the procession of the elaborately dis-
guised matachines and other popular
traditions. In the mid-20th century,
the status and profile of the festivals
multiplied, and they fulfilled an impor-
tant task of reconciliation, helping
bring peace to the region, which was
wracked with violence at the time.
Held in large cities, these festivals
have influenced other warm-weather
towns in the Massif, such as the bal-
lads or rafts on the Magdalena River in
Espinal and Natagaima. These celebra-
The Massif,
permeated as it is by these festivities and their
quintessential musicality, is also home to other
events, including the Festival de la Rumba
Criolla in Fresno, the Encuentro Nacional de
Tiplistas in Mariquita, the Encuentro de Músicas
Tradicionales in Pitalito, the Festival de Música
Campesina in Cajamarca, the Festival Nacional
de Música - Mangostino de Oro and the Concurso
Nacional Príncipes de la Canción in Ibagué.
between copleros and rajaleñas sing-
246-247

and join the party. The festivals take tion involve a range of other activities ing popular, often poetic, songs), band
over the streets, filling them with including horseback riding, contests music, and beauty pageants.
 Tourist region Urban
The Colombian Massif culture

The birth of the city, or

foundational squares
The city was reinvented in the
Americas. From the earliest
days of the 16th century the
Spanish conquerors pursued a
strategy to imprint themselves
on the region through the
cities they founded and the
central squares –or plazas
mayors— around which they
were built. This was a new
social and spatial order that
had an impact on the entire
New World.

The Spanish marked out their new

territory according to a rigorous
and consistent plan. They expanded
frontiers, conquered coasts, valleys,
highlands, and rivers, and subdued
the native population by employing a
sacred ritual that invoked the name of
a Catholic God and the King. A central
strategy of their project involved the
establishment of new urban centers.
They founded cities, towns, and
parishes, all of which followed the
The plazas
same architectural model: houses contain symbols and memories.
arranged in blocks around a plaza, or That of Timaná (Huila) tells of years
square, itself presided over by a church, of intense mixing between ethnic
whose theocratic power would forever groups and encounters between
mark the life and social order of all the different traditions of power: the
regions that now make up Colombia, monumental cathedral of San
and in particular the Colombian Massif. Calixto dominates the plaza, in
The early years of the Conquest and the center of which stands a great
the foundation of towns that accompa- ceiba tree, symbol of freedom, next
nied it left a distinctive urban imprint to a statute of la cacica Gaitana,
on Colombia’s south, revolving around the legendary indigenous leader
the leading role of the church, whose who triumphantly holds up in
aisles extended metaphorically into the her hands the head of Pedro de
plaza and, punctuated by the sound Añazco, founder of the town.

Nowadays, the plazas and parks continue to
play a central role in the life of the towns and
villages of the Massif. With their architectural
legacy, their exuberant vegetation, and their
important commercial role, they are an
essential part of the street plan, and provide
an essential link with the past. The streets
in their checkerboard pattern, emanate
from the four corners of the plaza, while the
length of each of its sides determines the
dimensions of the blocks of houses.
of its bells, watched over, managed,
and guided everything that happened
in the Andean settlements of Cauca,
Nariño, southern Huila and Tolima.
Given the Massif’s large indigenous
population, the plaza became the heart
of these towns, acting —as dictated
by the efficient parish model— as an
administrative center and locus of
social, religiou, and political control.
Over time, the colonial plaza was trans-
formed into its Republican counter-
part, often renamed parque (park) and
given the name of one of the leaders
of the independence struggle: Antonio
Nariño, Francisco José de Caldas or —
most commonly— Simón Bolívar.
Hundreds of plazas were built
during the early colonization of the
Massif: small and simple; majestic and
In the densely populated departments
of Cauca and Nariño, there are
numerous plazas that, along with the
eternal presence of the church, are
ideal spaces to hold the market, for
people to meet, and for the erection
of monuments that celebrate national
symbols, leaders, and the culture
that provides the inhabitants of the
region’s towns with an identity.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Majestic trees stand in the central squares of
many of the towns in the Massif, symbolizing
roots, memory, and freedom. Here, nature and
urbanism come together: the churches are
surrounded by ceibas, Andean walnuts, rubber
trees, rain trees, pink pouis and mesquites,
among many other species, gracing the space
with their trunks, canopies, and flowers.
architecturally rich (as in Popayán);
exuberant in vegetation (as in Ibagué);
imposing and sublime by their impres-
sive churches (Pasto); or with a “capilla
248-249
doctrinera” (missionary chapel) stand-
ing beside a cathedral (Neiva).
 Tourist region Urban
culture Quibdó
The Colombian Massif

CHOCÓ Museo del Río

Magdalena, Honda

Culture preserved Museo Panóptico,

and interpreted
Ibagué

TOLIMA
VALLE DEL Museo Arqueológico y
Buenaventura CAUCA
Paleontológico, Prado
The towns and villages of this pacific
ocean Cali Observatorio Astronómico
region are home to at least de la Tatacoa, Villavieja
50 museums and exhibition Museo Arqueológico
Regional del Huila, Neiva
centers. Their role is to
interpret the history of the Museo Arquidiocesano de Museo Parque Arqueológico
Arte Religioso, Popayán de Tierradentro, Inzá
region for the local population
HUILA
and to create a compelling Hacienda
Coconuco, Puracé
Casa Museo Juan
educational story to help them CAUCA
Friede, Isnos

understand their own past and

encourage them to reflect on NARIÑO Florencia

Casa Museo
their own history and identity. Taminango, Pasto
Museo comunitario
Centro de Memoria Mocoa CAQUETÁ
Histórica, Iles

PUTUMAYO
Ecuador

Enlarged colombia
area

Museums play a leading role in explor-

ing and communicating the archaeo-
logical realities of a region with a long
history of human habitation stretch-
ing back to pre-Hispanic times. They
include the Anthropological Musem
at Universidad del Tolima and the
Banco de la República’s Gold Museum
in Pasto. Initiatives established to
recover the ethnographic riches of
the region’s indigenous communities
include, for example, the Colección
Mundo Sonoro museum, in Ibagué.
There are also many rooms exhibit-
ing images of politicians, missionaries,
and poets or with displays detailing the
role the region played in the country’s
independence and the subsequent
establishment of the Republic. Given
the Massif’s natural wealth, there are
natural history museums, orchid and
botanical gardens and, notably, an
exhibit dedicated to its main river —the
Magdalena River Museum— as well as
Ibagué’s Panopticon Museum.
Finally, the region’s craft traditions
mean that there are a fine selection
of museums displaying crafts and reli-
gious and contemporary art, such as
the Tolima Museum of Art, the Huila
Contemporary Art Museum and the
Casa Museo Negret in Popayán.
 Urban Tourist region
culture The Colombian Massif

The houses of the dead

We, as the living, have the enormous
challenge of exploring the infinite
realm of the dead in the form of
a community’s greatest and most
valuable heritage: their cemeteries.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Like any other city, cemeteries —cities of
the dead— represent a social order and a
stratification that tells us clearly about the
territory and the society of the living.
Cemeteries are privileged in their
connection to memory, with the his-
These are places for meetings, con-
versation, and the strengthening of
bonds, which show the deceased how
important they are to the living. Every
cemetery has its own signs, markers,
architecture, and funerary art. Tombs
and mausoleums tell us much about a
region’s social, political, and cultural
history, communicated through the
stylistic choices and materials used to
build the structures.
The Massif is home to more than a
The cemeteries in
Pasto, Popayán, Neiva, and Ibagué are rich
historical records of their cities. However,
even the simplest cemetery of any small town
is full of rich symbolism and stories of lives
lived, hosting a great diversity of burial forms
and a visual and audible communicative act,
loaded with memories, affection, and beliefs.
(in Tolima), Guaitarilla or Chachagü (in
Nariño), and Santander de Quilichao
and Tunía (in Cauca), as well as two
250-251

tory of a cemetery reflecting and hundred cemeteries, such as Villavieja great pre-Hispanic necropolises (San
representing the society that built it. (in Huila), Ambalema and Santa Isabel Agustín and Tierradentro).
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The Colombian
Amazon
Orinoco Mocoa
Florencia

CAQUETÁ
PUTUMAYO

Living culture » 256 - 276

Religious and spiritual tourism » 260 - 282

Archeology » 262 - 283

Peru
Towns with heritage » 264 - 284

Gastronomy » 268 - 288

Fairs and festivals » 272 - 290

Urban culture » 274 - 292   

 Arauca

ARAUCA

Yopal CASANARE

Puerto Carreño

Villavicencio

VICHADA

META

Venezuela

Puerto
San José del Inírida
Guaviare

GUAVIARE GUAINÍA

Mitú

VAUPÉS

AMAZONAS

Brazil

Leticia
 Tourist region
The Colombian
Amazon and Orinoco

INTRODUCTION

Lush plant life,

diverse human life
Characterized by its lowlands, lush
rainforests, and an impressive
drainage network —whose
main arteries are the Caquetá,
Putumayo, Apaporis, Vaupés, and
Guainía rivers— the culture of this
region is determined by its vast
geography and is encrypted in the
diverse and age-old ways of life of
the people who live in this territory.

This region —a section of the world’s

largest hydrographic basin that is
shared by eight countries and is the
largest area of tropical rainforest on
the planet— comprises approximately
41.8% of Colombian land. To under-
stand its cultural significance as well
as its economic and social dynamics,
two relatively distinct territories must
be recognized in the region. The first,
predominantly made up of urban
settlements and mestizo farming com-
munities, is the northwestern Amazon
(the piedmont), which corresponds
to the departments of Putumayo,
Caquetá, and Guaviare. The second,
whose population is mainly indig-
enous, is the southeastern Amazon
(the plain), which includes the depart-
ments of Amazonas, Vaupés, Guainía,
and southern Vichada. This sub-region
with extensive constitutionally pro-
tected indigenous reserves is home
to a large part of the country’s ethnic rituals of the young Ticuna women
and linguistic richness. It is from here make sense. And it is here that the
that the malocas radiate their sense cuisine takes advantage of the com-
of community, their festivals, their plexity and variety of its ecosystems,
exchanges. It is here that the knowl- for this region is home to 10% of the
edge of the Yurupari jaguars and the planet’s biodiversity.
 INTRODUCTION

Vast plains,
home of tight-
knit communities
Orinoquia, a region known within
Colombia as the Llanos Orientales or
Eastern Plains, is part of the Orinoco
River basin, shared with Venezuela,
and which holds 65% of its watershed.
Arauca, Meta, Casanare, and Vichada are
the bastions of Colombia’s Eastern Plains,
home to age-old indigenous cultures and
mestizo farming communities.

people took up hunting cows as a

indigenous communities along the
way. Behind the conquistadors came
the priests, and both believed that the
indigenous people could be persecuted
way to recover what they had lost. In
the nineteen fifties, the region was
transformed by the arrival of farmers
displaced by La Violencia and the cre-
ation of estates by large landowners.
Colonization first expanded towards
the Sarare Araucano, Casanare, Ariari,
Güejar, and Vichada rivers. The land-
owners then came to exterminate the

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Fundamental chapters of Colombian
history have been written in the
Eastern Plains. The wide horizons of
its savannas, crowned here and there
by patches of jungle that owe their
shapes to the rivers and streams, was
the crucial setting of the liberation
campaign, the route through which
Bolivar won Colombia its indepen-
dence. But before that, in the sixteenth
century, the plains were where the
and killed. Thus, they extinguished the
great Guayupe nation, as attested to
by the archaeological remains found
in Orinoquia over the last thirty years.
The missionaries also introduced
cows and established herds. This pro-
duced an ecosystemic and cultural
change of immense proportions, since
the livestock required the land that
actually belonged to the indigenous
communities, who were forced to take
refuge deeper in the savannas, farther
and farther away from water sources.
Given the restrictions imposed on
roaming the territory in search of açaí
indigenous people to defend their
cattle and accumulate more land, a
genocide called las guajibiadas.
The discovery of oil reserves
accelerated colonization. The llanero
rancher archetype, with his indomi-
table spirit, continues to sing of love
and the savannah. The indigenous
people, fighting for their lands, won
titles to their reserves. One of the
most emblematic is Caño Mochuelo,
currently home to ten indigenous
communities. Today, cowboy songs,
indigenous rituals, monocultures, and
oil coexist in these plains, a cultural
254-255

Spaniards arrived in search of the and moriche palm fruits and on hunt- heritage shared by Colombians and
legend of El Dorado, devastating the ing fish and turtle eggs, the indigenous Venezuelans.
 Buenaventura VALLE DEL
CAUCA
TOLIMA
Cali
Tourist region Living
pacific
ocean
The Colombian culture
Amazon and Orinoco
Neiva

CAUCA

A rich mosaic
Popayán HUILA

of language
Tumaco Páez
Florencia
NARIÑO
Macaguaje

and culture
Pasto Mocoa
Cofán Coreguaje
Siona
PUTUMAYO
Pu

tum
ay Uitoto
Over 60% of the territory o Ri
ver

of the Colombian Amazon

region is part of indigenous Ecuador

reserves and reservations

systems, home to hundreds
of small native settlements
with villages that express a
great cultural diversity.

The region’s rich mosaic of cultural

manifestations and traditions has
survived the impact of the “majority”
society’s colonization, which began
centuries ago, and has been main-
tained over time thanks to the passing
on of knowledge between generations,
and is still reflected in many aspects of
the cultural identity.
The models of traditional social
organization, knowledge and oral
traditions, types of ceremonies and
rituals, specialties in the management
and use of the forest, architecture,
handicrafts, culinary arts, and above
all, the more than fifty languages,
group, roughly speaking, four major
socio-cultural and linguistic complexes
that configure this region.
The Ticuna people (men painted
black) live in communities in the
Colombian Amazonian Trapezoid,
located between the Putumayo River
and the Amazon River, extending
along the river into Brazil (Solimões)
and Peru. They speak the Tikuna
language (which gives its name to a
linguistic family), and are the most
numerous indigenous peoples in this
transboundary region.
The people of the center, or of
coca, ambil, and sweet manioc, in the
Caquetá-Putumayo interfluve, peoples
of the Uitoto linguistic family, whose
ancestors were victims of the Peruvian
rubber companies, such as the infa-
mous Casa Arana, at the beginning of
the twentieth century.
The people of Yurupari kinship,
located in the Great Reservation of
Vaupes, and in the department of
Amazonas on the Apaporis and Mirití-
Paraná rivers, which groups more than
30 ethnic groups and peoples whose
languages are classified in the lin-
guistic families of the Eastern Tucano,
Arawak, and Makú Puinave.
Finally the yagé people, located
along the Putumayo River and the
upper Caquetá with the western
Tucano people, speakers of Inga and
varieties of Quechua, the Kamëntsá
language of the Siona and Coreguaje
peoples, the Cofán people of the
Sibundoy Valley, as well as the Awá
and Nasa.
To the south and east, this large
Amazonian bioregion extends into
the neighboring countries of Ecuador,
Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela, enhancing
its great cultural diversity.
 Inírida
VICHADA

META

Nükák Piapoco Puinave Venezuela

Guayabero GUAINÍA Curripaco
San José Del Guaviare
Guainía River
Baniba
GUAVIARE

Carijona Cubeo
VAUPÉS
Mitú
Vaupés River
River Guanano
u és
Yurutí Tucano Vap Piratapuyo
Carapana Desana
Siriano Tucano
Kabiyarí Cananarí Ri Tuyuca
v
Ap Barasana er
CAQUETÁ apo
r is R Tatuyo Tiquié Rive
iver r
Makú
Makuna Pir
áP
ora colombia
aran

T
Tanimuka ira
Uitoto Andoque Ri
v
á River

Yukuna

er
Enlarged
Uitoto Caquetá Muinane Matapí area
River
Yauna
Mirití Pa
ran
Putu Uitoto Miraña áR
ma ive
Muinane Bora r
Ca q uet á Ri
yo

ver
R iver

Brazil
AMAZONAS

Put
um
ayo
River
Peru

Yagua

Cocama
Ticuna
Am
az

Ri
on

ver
Leticia

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Native
Languages Day
Indigenous Languages Day was
established in Colombia by Law 1381
of 2010, which declared February 21
as the date to celebrate the nation’s
linguistic and cultural wealth, along with
256-257

the International Mother Language Day

proclaimed by UNESCO in 1999.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian culture
Amazon and Orinoco

The universe of
Casa Grande
The maloca or Great Communal
House is the archetype of the
spatiality, territorial organization,
and material culture of many
societies in the Colombian
Amazon. It serves as a dwelling;
ceremonial space; and, for some
communities, as a burial site.

The stanchions, strong beams that

structure and support the big house,
are the hills that surround the terri-
tory and symbolize protection and
the arduous path to learning ances-
tral knowledge. The roof, made of
beautifully woven leaves of puy or
caraná palm (Lepidocarium tenue),
represents the sky, the outer space
through which the constellations pass Today, the Amazon is inhabited
throughout the year. On the ground, mainly by settlers in rural and
the path between the entrance doors urban environments. Indigenous
to the maloca, located to the east, and groups make up 17% of the
the exit door, to the west, represents Amazonian population and
the path of the Milky Way, the noctur- most of them live in extensive
nal river that devours the sun at the collectively owned territories
end of each day. The maloca’s empty (reserves), which are inalienable,
central space the stage where ceremo- imprescriptible, and unseizable
nial dances are performed in the main under the Constitution.
sacred sites of each ancestral territory
at the arrival of each new season.
The maloca is divided east-west into
two identical and symmetrical areas:
the eastern half of the house repre-
sents the masculine part, the origin,
the mouth of the rivers or Puerta de
las Aguas through which the ancestors
of each of the peoples arrived. This
is where mambe —a ritual substance
made of powdered coca leaves mixed
with yarumo (Cecropia) ash— is made
and then used at night for ceremonial
discussion circles, and teaching and
 The maloca, a house
for thanksgiving and healing, a space to connect with tradition

Analogous spaces where life develops

Where physical and spiritual food is made
Where protection and shelter are found
Where people dance to heal, thanking the cosmos
Where sharing wellbeing with all of nature’s creatures
Where tradition is taught

212
reserves
which cover nearly 25 million
hectares, i.e., more than 50% of
the Colombian Amazon biome.

in Amazonas, has a circular base and

two triangular skylights at the top
that serves as a sundial. The Ticuna
maloca is oval and uncovered on the

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

1 Maloca barasana
traditional healing. It is also where
visitors stay. The rear west side repre-
sents the feminine part, and is where
women process yuca brava and cook
the food. It is a domestic space where
the owners of the house stay. The
western door is also where shamans
2 Maloca macuna
Notwithstanding these common
aspects, the details of the structure and
external shape of the malocas vary for
each large cultural complex to which
each of the communities belongs. For
example, the malocas of the peoples
of Vaupés, such as the Barasana,
Tatuyo, Eduria, Desana, Tuyuca, and
Bará, among others, are rectangular
flanks. Finally, the Macuna and Letuama
maloca is also round, but has beautiful
carved shapes on its sides.
Territory and maloca are analogous
spaces where life develops; where pro-
tection and shelter are found; where
physical and spiritual food is made;
where tradition is taught; where his-
tory is remembered; and where people
dance to heal, thanking the cosmos, and
sharing wellbeing with all of nature’s
creatures. For the indigenous people of
the Colombian Amazon, the maloca is
their dwelling place, a temple, a model
of the cosmos, a physical expression of
258-259

and elders expel the negative energies and completely closed at the top. The knowledge that allows the community
at the end of ritual healings sessions. Yukuna, Matapí, and Tanimuka maloca, to live in harmony with nature.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Colombian spiritual tourism
Amazon and Orinoco

The new young

woman’s rite
of passage
This initiation ritual of a
girl making her transition
to adulthood is part of the
very essence of the life and
tradition of the Ticuna, a
group made up of some forty
thousand people, distributed
along the Putumayo and
Amazon Rivers in Colombia,
and along the Amazon River
(Solimões) in Brazil and Peru.

This transition ritual is called La

Pelazón because the new young
women’s hair is shaved off, signal-
ing the end of her childhood and the
beginning of a new life as a woman. The
ritual has endured over time and has
been adapted to the new realities of the
Ticuna communities.
When the girl reaches the age of
menarche, she is enclosed in a pen made
of canagucho palm —like a chrysalis in its
cocoon—, given that it is a time in her life
when she is very vulnerable. The dura- Traditionally in this ritual, the girl’s hair was
tion of the confinement varies and can pulled out by hand, and although they used
last for several months. Grandmothers vegetable substances that loosened it from
say that the longer she is kept there, the scalp, it was still very painful. However,
the better, as she will receive better food Colombian Ticuna communities which still
and more advice from her mother. practice this ritual today, such as the Arara, of red macaw, green parrot, and white
Once she comes out of her seclusion, San Antonio de los Lagos, San Sebastian, heron feathers, and dressed in a cos-
a great ritual begins that lasts three El Vergel, Macedonia, Mocagua, San Martin tume made of vegetable bark cloth, or
days. The pubescent girl is painted de Amacayacu, and Cothué, most of them a red cloth skirt. Her family then wel-
black with huito (Genipa americana), located on the Amazon River near the city comes guests from the forest and the
which has been conjured by the sha- of Leticia, have been cutting the girls’ hair spirit world with copious amounts of
man as a sign of protection. She is then with scissors for several decades, to avoid fermented manioc drinks (masato and
adorned with beautiful headdresses causing her any pain whatsoever. payawarú) and other foods.
 AMAZONAS

r
ve
San Martín de Amacayacu

Ri
az

on
Am
Mocagua
Macedonia

El Vergel

San Antonio

Am
Peru az
on de los Lagos
Ri
ver

San Sebastián,
Arara

Leticia

Brazil

colombia

Enlarged
area

beginning. Faced with the predatory

attitude of the males dominated by their
instinct, the girl stops the “animals” and

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Woreküchiga
In the Ticuna language, this rite of
passage is called woreküchiga, “the
day of the young woman’s word.”
The main actors of the rite are
masked dancers, who embody the
main animal chiefs of the jungle, among
them the capuchin monkey (Cebus
capucinus). Despite being afraid of
them and their instinct to symbolically
try to deflower her, the new girl dodges
them and contains their “attacks,” sup-
It is through these dances and the
general revelry, the onslaught of the
“animals,” the uncertainty and anxiety,
that the young girl reaches the initiatory
catharsis thanks to which she assumes
sends them back to the forest. They can
no longer harm her. Thus, she begins to
take control of her life and to make her
own decisions. A true metamorphosis.
Once her hair has been shaved off by
her wise relatives, all of whom are older,
the new girl is transported to the river
where her mother bathes her, thus cul-
minating the ritual. Enlivened by manioc
liquor (payawarú), the party continues,
with songs and dances, until dawn.
After this period of separation from
her family, seclusion in her cocoon, and
ritual reincorporation into the commu-
nity and life in the jungle, nothing will
260-261

ported by her mother and other older her state of adolescent fragility and ever be the same again. Initiation into
women in her family. the challenge of the new life she is adulthood is a path of no return.
 Tourist region
The Colombian Archeology
Amazon and Orinoco
SERRANÍA DE CHIRIBIQUETE
NATIONAL NATURAL PARK

Rupestrian art in
PNN boundary

Indigenous reserves

the Chiribiquete pacific

ocean

and La Lindosa
mountain ranges
Declared a National
Natural Park in 1989, the
Chiribiquete mountain range,
located in the western part
of the Guiana Shield, and
under the authority of the
departments of Guaviare and
Caquetá, contains the oldest
pictographic complexes in
the Americas with more than
70,000 pictographs of high
archeological value.

It covers a total area of approximately

4.3 million hectares and is strikingly
situated between the plains of the
Orinoquia, the Andes Mountains, the
Guyanese Shield —the oldest rock
formation on the continent—, and the
Amazon rainforest. This makes for a
wide mosaic of landscapes that harbor
very high levels of endemism, which in
turn position it as one of the most bio-
logically diverse areas on the planet.
Its majestic landscape is character-
ized by rock plateaus or tepuis, which
emerge from the plains and rainfor-
ests reaching portentous heights —of
up to 900 meters— from the jungle.
Along these rocky shelters there are
cave paintings dating from the Ice
Age (between 10,000-12,500 years old
approximately) that extend for more
Marmita Gigante, an immense 260-meter
crater inside a tepui, with rock walls almost
100 meters high, is one of the icons of the
Chiribiquete mountain range. Together with
the majestic jungle surrounding it, it can only
be seen from great heights, as the only visits
allowed are overflight visits.
than 12 kilometers of cliff, making them
one of the largest collections of prehis-
toric paintings in the world.
These pictograms display extinct
animals, such as carnivorous mast-
odons, camelids, armadillos, and giant
sloths, but also present-day fauna such
as jaguars, deer, tapirs, caimans, bats,
monkeys, turtles, and snakes. You can
also observe unique images of the life,
ceremonies, hunting, and coexistence
of possibly the first inhabitants of the
continent.
Chiribiquete is a living testimony of
one of the great periods of the Earth’s
history, including ancient geological
processes, linked to the development
of landforms, and natural landscapes
that represent a great biodiversity for
 Inírida

META

Neiva
GUAINÍA
CAUCA
HUILA San José Del Guaviare
Popayán

Llanos del Yarí GUAVIARE

Yaguara II
Florencia
NARIÑO
Mitú
Pasto Mocoa

VAUPÉS
Parque Nacional Natural
Serranía de Chiribiquete
CAQUETÁ
PUTUMAYO

colombia

Enlarged AMAZONAS Brazil

area

Peru

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

the planet. It also houses thousands of
pictographic works made with ochre
clay paint that have been preserved
over time. In 2018, this protected area
was declared a UNESCO World Heritage
Site —granted to places on Earth that
possess “outstanding universal value”—
in recognition of both its natural wealth
and its cultural importance.
discovered in Chiribiquete’s area of
influence, in the La Lindosa mountain
range, located only six hours from
Bogotá, near San José de Guaviare.
Thousands of paintings have been
reported so far, distributed in the multi-
ple rock shelters and stone murals that
characterize it, and represent an invalu-
able record of Colombian rupestrian
Visitors are not allowed to enter Chiribiquete
National Natural Park to avoid jeopardizing
the integrity of this unique site. Given the
importance and vulnerability of the pictographic
complexes, the only way to visit them is by flying
over them with permission from the Colombian
Air Force and National Parks.
Anthropology and History to declare
262-263

Another of the country’s oldest and art. In 2018, the dimension of these the La Lindosa mountain range a new
largest artistic jewels was recently findings led the Colombian Institute of Protected Archaeological Site.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Colombian heritage
Amazon and Orinoco

Jaguars shamans
of Yuruparí Tours in the macro-
territory -Iko ~Hido
Utuya
Waiya Opee

The Pirá Paraná River, in the department Puerto Cordoba

of Vaupés, is home to several indigenous

~Heda Booto
peoples who recognize themselves as
descendants of Anaconda ancestors and
custodians of ancestral knowledge. ~Bedi ~Kuburo

Yebai Bota Gaseka

The Pirá Paraná River (Waiya) is home ~Yokoi Bota Puerto Ortega
to the Ide Masa, Water People or chil- Gita ~Gubua
dren of the Water Anaconda, now
known as the Macuna; the children Sonaña

of Anaconda of the Sky, now known

as Tatuyo; Iko Jinoria or Eduria, chil- Villa Nueva
dren of Anaconda Remedio; Wai Masa,
Fish People or children of Anaconda Gita ~Gubua
Pez; and Barasana, Janera, Itana, San miguel

Weseganá and Riatuna, children of Hasa Tutu

Anaconda of the Earth, all speakers of
different languages belonging to the
Eastern Tucano linguistic family.
According to these people’s origin
myths, the traditional knowledge of
the Yurupari jaguars was handed down
to their ancestors by the spirits “owners
of the knowledge of life,” and continues
to be transmitted, even today, to the
most advanced apprentices of this
cultural tradition. Their traditional
government system is headed by the
hee gua, Yurupari jaguar shamans, or
“world healers,” whose mission is to
periodically restore the harmony and
balance of the world, along with the
well-being of its people and other living
beings through rituals and offerings to
the guardians and spiritual owners of
the territory’s sacred sites.
The hee gua emphasize that human
beings are part of nature and that,
therefore, human well-being depends
on the well-being of the different ter-
ritories. In this sense, forests, animals,
fish, as well as rivers and their super-
natural inhabitants, have the same
colombia Badi Serero
Enlarged
area
Water from the source of the Pirá
Paraná flows into two main tributaries
Tours in the macro-territory
of the great Amazon River, the Caquetá -Yeba ~Hido- (Barasana)
(Japurá) and Vaupés (Rio Negro).
right to exist as humans do, and to
benefit from the healing and blessings
of shamans.
This profound millenary knowledge
is manifested in rites, ceremonies,
social behaviors, as well as in economic,
productive, and ecological practices. The jaguar shamans of Yuruparí guard the
In addition to being full of meaning, traditional knowledge of the indigenous
and containing important technical groups of the Pirá Paraná river, and this
information related to the territory’s knowledge was inscribed on the UNESCO
environmental management, its forms Representative List of the Intangible Cultural
are of remarkable beauty. Heritage of Humanity in 2011.
 ANCESTRAL LANDS OF THE
PIRÁ PARANÁ ETHNIC GROUPS

Anaconda Remedio -Iko ~Hido- (Eduria)

Anaconda of the Sky -Ibia ~Hido- (Tatuyo)

Anaconda Yeba -Yeba ~Hido- (Itana)

Anaconda Yeba -Yeba ~Hido- (Barasana)

Water Anaconda -Ide ~Hido- (Macuna)

Anaconda Metal -~Kobe ~Hido- (Rase -Gada)

Tours in the macro-

territory -Ibia ~Hido-

Tabotiro
Puerto Amazonas

Santa Rosa Brazil

Puerto Ina

Piedra Ñi
Santa Isabel

San Luis
Tours in the macro-territory
-Yeba ~Hido- (Itana)

Toasaro

Puerto Esperanza
Toaka

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Ihawari Tours in the macro-
territory -Ide ~Hido-
Puerto Antonio

The Pirá Paraná river basin

The Pirá Paraná river basin is very remote, with no direct access either
via river or over land that connects it to any urban center in the region or
Center for Indigenous
in the county’s interior. This inaccessibility, and the Pirá Paraná’s difficult
Ancestral Lands
~Bada Itara navigability due to many impassable stretches, meant that the Colombian
Sacred Houses of the Origins State did not establish its presence there until the 1960s. This late contact
of Indigenous Groups ~Basa
with “the whites” had a positive impact on the conservation of this
Yuhiri Bikia Wiri
indigenous groups’ cultural heritage: the Special Safeguard Plan, approved
264-265

Communities
in 2010, establishes, among other measures, the prohibition of tourism
activities on their lands.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Colombian heritage
Amazon and Orinoco

The last remaining

uncontacted peoples
Peru

Although there are

indications of the existence
of 18 other groups, the
Yurí and the Passé are the
two confirmed indigenous
groups in voluntary isolation
in the Colombian Amazon.

The first contacts of the Amazonian

peoples with the white man (Spanish
and Portuguese) occurred in the 16th
century. These contacts were, in most
cases, disastrous for the indigenous
people caused by the lethal conta-
gion of diseases such as influenza,
measles, or smallpox, and because of
the enslavement and extermination to
which they were subjected.
As a result, from that first moment
of brutal conquest, some ethnic
groups decided to isolate themselves
in remote places, to completely avoid
contact with people outside their
groups, and to remain forever free
from the conditioning of the Western
world and its evils. exclusively to protecting the tradi-
The Yurí (or Caraballo) and Passé tional way of life of these peoples in
are currently located in the headwa- voluntary isolation. In 2004, the Colombian Ministry of Culture
ters of the Puré river basin (in the In the 1970s, the Nükák people lived declared “the knowledge of nature and oral
Colombian department of Amazonas), between the Guaviare and Inírida riv- tradition of the Nükák Makú” as a Cultural
where they are protected by dense ers, and had still not established con- Asset of National Interest. The purpose
forests and swamps. However, in the tact with the “white man.” They were of this declaration was to implement
Brazilian part of the river, towards its nomads who migrated freely within measures to guarantee the physical and
mouth in the Caquetá River (which their ancestral territory guided by their cultural survival of the Nükák people.
takes the name of Japurá in Brazil), shamans in search of wild foods, while
there are many threats to their sur- teaching the new generations to man- territory and went to the municipalities
vival due to the presence of traffickers age and fertilize their universe, and to of Calamar and San José del Guaviare
and exploiters of all kinds in the area. avoid the risks they faced during each in search of medicines to tackle a flu
For these reasons, the Colombian climatic season of the annual cycle. epidemic brought by settlers. From the
part of this basin was declared a The Nükák, with their shaved heads second half of the 1990s, the situation
Colombian National Natural Park in and eyebrows, were officially con- of the Nükák became more complex
2002: one million hectares dedicated tacted in 1988, when they left their due to epidemics that decimated
 VAUPÉS
CAQUETÁ

Sede PNN
La Pedrera

Sede PNN
Cahuinari National San Bernardo colombia
Natural Park

AMAZONAS
Enlarged
area

Rio Puré National

Natural Park Sede PNN
Puerto Franco

Brazil

Sede PNN
Tarapacá

Amacayacu National
Natural Park

Leticia

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

In 2013, the Colombian Ministry of Culture
included the cultural manifestation
“El proceso de formar-vivir como
Gente Verdadera (Nükák Baka)” in the
Representative List of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage of the Nation and
approved its Special Emergency
Safeguarding Plan (PES-U), which involves
all the Nükák people’s mechanisms of
appropriation and territorial significance.
their population and increased hostile
As a result, in 1993, the government
recognized the Nükák Makú people’s
right to their ancestral territory by
creating the Nükák Makú reservation,
which was expanded in 1997 to almost
one million hectares. Despite this legal
recognition and the end of the armed
In 2018 Colombia’s Ministry of the Interior
issued a decree establishing special
measures for the prevention and protection
of the rights of indigenous peoples in
isolation or natural state and creating the
266-267

actions by armed groups in their tra- conflict, the Nükáks are still unable to National System for the Prevention and
ditional territory. return to their lands. Protection of the rights of these groups.
 Tourist region
The Colombian Gastronomy
Amazon and Orinoco

Mojojoy

The wisdom and

In the Amazon, edible larvae (or
worms) called mojojoy (Rhynchophorus
palmarum) are collected from inside fallen

flavors of the forest

Canangucho or Aguaje palms. These fat-
and protein-rich larvae also grow in the
fallen trunks of other palms and are a
special part of the indigenous diet. They
are usually roasted or smoked over coals,
wrapped in banana leaves, cooked in
To talk about the cuisine of the Amazon is boiling water, or fried in their own fat.

to delve into a complex universe, unknown

to the vast majority of us. This universe is a
reflection of the richness of its aquatic and
inland ecosystems, and of the understanding
and management of nature by the region’s
different cultures.

The cuisines of the Amazon are a liv-

ing and dynamic heritage of its indig-
enous, mestizo, and riverine peoples,
whose knowledge is reflected in agro-
ecological calendars, marking the
precise times for planting, harvesting,
gathering, fishing, and hunting. This
knowledge guarantees the optimal
use of the wide seasonal availability
of wild foods, including fish, game,
flowers, and palm fruits, edible fungi
and insects, as well as horticultural
products, cultivated by the women
throughout the year.
The cuisine of the Amazon is very
elaborate and is marked by transfor-
mation processes such as maturing or
fermenting yuca brava, and moquiado
or smoking fish and wild meat, using
Wild fruits
The forest provides a variety of delicious
wild fruits such as the drupes of the Aguaje
or Canangucho palms (Mauritia flexuosa),
the milpesillo (Oenocarpus bataua), and the
milpesillo (Oenocarpus bacaba), as well as
copoazú (Theobroma grandiflorum), guama
(Inga feuilleei), quinilla or balata (Manilkara
bidentata), and zapote (Manilkara zapota),
among many others.

different types of firewood and
leaves, according to the smell and
flavor required.
The local knowledge about the
nature of the food and its prepara-
tion is important to highlight. In this
respect, some of the most important
recipes include manioc cake; black
chili sauce or tucupi, which accompa-
nies almost every meal and enhances
the flavor of broths and fish; fish
patarascas, wrapped in banana leaves
and cooked slowly over a grill made
of sticks, placed at a certain distance
over the embers of the stove; and
the raw fish ceviches, seasoned with
lemon juice, red onion, and chili.
These transformation techniques
reveal the local knowledge about food
preservation, and the body’s nutri-
ent uptake. For example, fermented
manioc provides live enzymes that
help digest fats, allowing the body to
assimilate nutrients without expend-
ing too much energy. This helps to
sustain the body, so that it can cope
For Amazonian peoples, obtaining, preparing,
and enjoying food is an integrating principle
where food is collected by bartering with its
“spiritual owners” and is shared with family,
neighbors, and visitors. The community is united
around food, strengthening the social fabric; the
act of eating transcends the individual.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
with work in a hot and humid climate,
as well as the long local rituals and
ceremonies.
An important part of the dietary
regimes of the indigenous peoples
of the region are the special diets
or dietary restrictions that mark dif-
ferent stages of life and that have to
be strictly followed when it comes
to learning the cultural knowledge.
Underlying this system of diets is
a web of meanings that relate food,
body, and culture. Diets are essential
to preserving knowledge and clean
268-269
thinking, for traditional protection
rituals and to ward off illnesses.
 Tourist region
The Colombian Gastronomy
Amazon and Orinoco

The gastronomy
of the Amazon
In Amazonas, it is the women who
are in charge of growing crops
and making earthenware and clay
pots, in which they prepare casabe
and cook their food. The men are
responsible for providing food by
fishing, hunting, and gathering fruit
from palms and the forests’ trees.

The forests’ palms and vines provide the wild

Yuca brava (Manihot esculenta) is the
most important plant in the regional
gastronomy. As a poisonous tuber,
it has to be carefully processed to
remove its toxic component (cyanide).
To do this, it is first soaked in water for
several days in a basket submerged in
a river or a well, and then peeled, and
grated. The resulting mass is placed
into a cylindrical squeezer made of
vegetable fiber —called sebucán or
matafríos— which hangs from a beam,
to extract its poison.
This juice is then cooked for a long
time, until it is no longer toxic and
turns into a sweet drink called mani-
cuera, which, if left to boil for two
to three hours until it thickens into
a dark-colored creamy liquid with a
slight fermented smell, which is mixed
fruits —canangucho, chontaduro, milpesos,
ibacaba, copoazú, asaí, guama and caimo—
used to prepare the juices and drinks that
are a fundamental element of traditional
ceremonies (caguanas and chichas).
with chili, to make the exotic tucupi
dressing. The dried mass, and the
starch that separates when the poi-
sonous juice is left to decant, is used
to make casabes that are eaten with
broths and fish.

Fish is the most important protein
food in regional culinary prepara-
tions. Fishing is a daily activity that
requires extensive knowledge of the
behavior of fish, the best places to
fish, the level of the rivers, the spawn-
ing seasons, the rules that restrict or
prohibit the use of certain places, and
the most appropriate fishing gear.
Fish is usually prepared in very spicy
broths, roasted directly over coals,
or wrapped in banana or bijao leaves
placed on the coals.
For indigenous peoples, certain fish and game
animals require ritual purification — performed
by traditional healers— through prayers before
they can be eaten, as they could cause illness.
The regional gastronomic offer
also includes a number of insects,
among them, ants (Atta laevigata),
which are used as a condiment;
along with succulent butterfly lar-
vae and caterpillars, considered
regional delicacies. These include the
Black chili sauce
An example of the extreme refinement of
Amazonian gastronomy is the tucupí, the black
chili sauce, also called casaramá, or omai. Made
using the juice extracted from the yucca process,
where the toxins are concentrated, it is one of
the most important specialties of Amazonian
indigenous cuisine. Once the juice has settled and
fermented, it is cooked for two to three hours
to eliminate the poison, resulting in a thick dark
colored liquid, which is mixed with chili.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
mojojoy (Ancognatha scarabaeoides
or Rynchophorus palmarum), which
grows inside fruit palms such as the
canangucho (Mauritia flexuosa) or the
patabá or milpesos (Jessenia bataua),
270-271
from which they absorb their exqui-
site flavor.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Colombian festivals
Amazon and Orinoco

The Feast of the

Animal Spirits, the
chontaduro dance
The time of the long dry
season —at the beginning of
the year in the northeastern
Amazon Rainforest— once
the white, edible chontaduro
flowers have fallen from the
tall palm trees announcing
their future harvest, is when
the animal spirits dance
begins (Ribia Sahare, in
the Macuna language).

The great clusters of ripe drupes of

the pupuña palms (Bactris gasipaes)
announce the Amazonian peoples’
celebrations of this season. They invite
the fish from the rivers and lakes,
and other animals from the forest,
to join them for their dances in the
great ceremonial houses, hopeful
of receiving generous rations of
smoked game and fish, but, above
all, totumas, full of the nutritious and
tasty fermented chontaduro chicha.
The elders from the different jungle
tribes recount that way back when, in
what is now Lake Boraitara (Lago de
Muñeco) on the Apaporis River, one of
the main shamans of the time saw the
fish in the lake dressed in costumes
made from the bark of a special tree,
and with their heads covered with
balsa wood masks. They were dressed
up as different forest animals and
danced for three days and nights, while
singing verses from the origin story
and drinking large quantities of chicha.
Despite doubting his own sanity at
witnessing what had happened in the
Maloca de los Peces del Lago, days
later he returned to the same lake,
to find all the masks and costumes
made of bark and balsa wood that the
fish had used in the festival hung up
to dry in the sun on stakes along the
lake’s shores. Every year thereafter,
the masks and costumes continued
to appear by the lake, indicating that
the rite had been concluded.
This is how the great ancestral
shaman learned how to celebrate the
event, how to make the costumes,
The Fiesta del chontaduro, or Baile del
muñeco, is a ritual of exchange between
malocas that reaffirms the links between
peoples and communities. Thus, those who
are first invited to dance, invite their hosts
to a similar party days later. This annual rite
strengthens their links with the world of
animals and spiritual beings, with the water
and the forest, and enhances their vitality.

This ritual
is currently performed by many peoples of the
northeastern Colombian Amazon, including the
Macuna, Letuama, Yucuna, Matapí, Tanimuka,
Miraña, Bora and Andoque, among others.
how to direct the choreography, and
to remember the songs. He then
taught his people, giving rise to one
of the main magical-ritual celebra-
tions of the great Amazonian region:
The chontaduro (in the Amazon and
Pacific coast), or pupunha (in the Brazilian
Amazon), pupuña (in Vaupés) or cachipay (in
the interior of the country) is a plant native
to the tropical and subtropical regions of
America of the Arecaceae family. The palm
reaches a height of up to 20 meters and
its fruit, of great nutritional value, and the
tender bud are used to extract palm heart.
the dance of the spirit of the animals,
popularly known as the baile del chon-
taduro or the baile del muñeco (doll
dance). Although initially, it was only
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
celebrated by this ethnic group, little
by little other neighboring towns were
taught about the event, until many of
the region’s towns incorporated it in
their annual calendar. The event is still
celebrated today.
It is through this annual celebration
that the shamans and chiefs of each
village give thanks, offering food and
healing blessings to the water and to
all the species of the jungle that are
useful to them. The masked dancers
from neighboring communities and
malocas consume, on behalf of the
animals, the physical and spiritual
272-273
gifts given to them by their hosts with
each dance.
 Tourist region Urban
The Colombian culture
Amazon and Orinoco
cia, Colombia
L et i

Little Leticia
on the triple
border
In southern Colombia, at
the southern end of the
Amazonian Trapezoid, lies
the small city of Leticia,
capital of the department
of Amazonas. It is bordered
to the south by the Amazon
River, which separates it
from Peru, and to the east
by the Brazilian city of
Tabatinga, with which it is
united to form a binational
tri-border urban conurbation.

The Leticia-Tabatinga conurbation

has a highly culturally diverse popu-
lation of more than one hundred
thousand people united by forms of
coexistence and close social, family,
commercial, and labor ties, despite
their different languages and origins.
These peer cities began to take
shape as indigenous settlements,
in the vicinity of which the Brazilian
military fort of São Francisco Xavier de
Tabatinga was established in 1766. A
century later, in 1867, the Port of Leticia
was founded to trade cinchona and Peru
latex, which was in great demand by
the Peruvian government at the time.
It is not until 1922, that the Amazonian caused the famous “Peruvian-Colombian reservations, and communities in these
Trapezoid became part of Colombia conflict” that ended a year later in favor three countries. For example, the Solimões
thanks to a treaty with Peru, which of our country. River will take you to legendary cities
adjusted the border’s jurisdictional Sailing down the majestic Amazon such as Manaus, at the confluence
boundaries. However, in 1932, it was River from Leticia to Tabatinga, will with the great Rio Negro, where the
again taken by rubber traders, which take you to remote villages, indigenous famous Amazon Theater is located; or
 AMAZONAS

Puerto Nariño
r
ve

Ri
az

on
Am

Brazil

Am
zo
nR

a
Peru ive
r

Leticia

colombia

Enlarged
area

The Amazonas department is made up

of two municipalities, Leticia and Puerto
Nariño, and nine non-municipalized areas.
The municipal capital of Puerto Nariño is
an indigenous town located 75 kilometers
from Leticia on the banks of the Amazon
River, which was certified by the Ministry of
Commerce, Industry, and Tourism as the first
sustainable destination in Colombia. This is
due, among other things, to the good use of
water and energy resources, being free of
motorized vehicles, and having implemented

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

strategies to protect its flora and fauna.

Leticia is a cosmopolitan city where

Taba
tinga, Brazil
to Belém do Pará, at its immeasurable
mouth in the Atlantic Ocean. Upstream
you can reach the famous Peruvian
jewels of the rubber era, for example
its famous monuments which include
89 buildings categorized as National
people of different nationalities and
cultures converge and which hosts
truly inspiring and genuine cultural
activities, ranging from sharing tra-
ditional life in the malocas and indig-
enous communities, to visiting the
Ethnographic Museum or the handi-
craft shops, listening to music groups
and watching folkloric dances from dif-
ferent parts of Brazil, to participating
in carnivals such as the Boi Bumba or
the Confraternidad, as well as enjoying
274-275

city of Iquitos, epicenter of many Cultural Heritage, among which the its wide culinary offer with traditional
historical events and architectural famous Casa de Fierro (or Casa Eiffel). dishes from all three countries.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian culture
Amazon and Orinoco

Walking the
Enlarged
area
colombia

savannah
The Orinoquía has been
ancestrally inhabited
by indigenous peoples
belonging to four linguistic
families: Arawak, Guahibo,
Saliba, and Chibcha. As
sons and daughters of these
jungles and savannahs, they
understand the rhythms of
the land and know how to
decipher all its secrets.

The original indigenous peoples of

these plains and jungles, now part of
Colombia and Venezuela, recognize
the rhythms of the earth, and know
how to interpret the whistling of the
wind, and the flow of the waters. They
have learned to manage the fire, which
during the dry months sets light to the
savannah to give way to new shoots
of grass, ready to feed the deer, tapirs
and capybara, cows and peccaries, and
other animals that roam these lands.
They have walked these jungles and
plains for centuries, they know their
cycles —which they have captured in
ecological calendars—, and they chant Some representative work objects of the
songs and prayers to cure the diseases material culture of the Orinoquia are the
that attack humans, animals, and sebucán or matafrío, used to squeeze yuca
the territory itself. Their ecological brava, one of their food sources; the cacure, a
knowledge and cultural heritage have fishing trap; and the catumare, a basket woven of the rituals are celebrated by several
allowed them to survive in sometimes from mamure (Heteropsis flexuosa) fiber used groups. One of the most representa-
hostile natural environments, and in to transport the products of the conuco, as tive is the Rezo del Pescado, a ritual
the midst of social, political, and eco- well as to carry firewood and personal objects shared by the Cuiba, Sikuani, Piapoco
nomic dynamics that have put their such as the chinchorro (hammock). and Saliba people, held when the baby
survival at risk. is weaned from its mother, as well as
Each community has its own lan- food is born. For the Piaroa, the Kareru with a woman’s first menstruation.
guage, and each language tells a story tree produces the sap of knowledge, This ritual marks the beginning of a
of origin. For the Sikuani, life sprang the first tree, and the father and new stage in life, in which the man-
from the Kaliawiri tree, from which all grandfather at the same time. Some woman-nature balance is fundamental.
 NORTE DE The Orinoquia has historically been populated
SANTANDER by the Achagua, Amorua, Betoye, Kurripako,
Hitnu, Jiw, Mapayerri, Piapoco, Piaroa, Saliva,
Cúcuta Venezuela Sikuani, Tsiripo, Masiguare, Kuiba, Waupijiwi,
Mariposo, and Wipiwe communities.

Bucaramanga Arauca Chiricoa

Betoye
ARAUCA Makaguaje
SANTANDER
Sikuani Puerto
Carreño
Masiguare
BOYACÁ
CASANARE Amorúa
Tunja
Yopal Sáliba
Kuiba
CUNDINAMARCA
Piaroa
Bogotá D. C.
VICHADA

Villavicencio
Piapoco
Achagua Puinave

META Kurripako

jiw GUAINÍA
San José Del Guaviare

GUAVIARE

Mitú
VAUPÉS

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

In the past, some groups such as
the Sikuani, Macaguaje, Cuiba and Jiw
were nomadic hunter-gatherers, while
others have always been farmers with
settlements along the water bodies.
Some —the Piapocos, Achaguas and
Kurripakos— have been warriors, while
been guardians of a material culture rep-
resented by work tools, ritual elements,
and objects for their daily activities, built
with the resources of their environment,
fruits and plants such as the moriche
(Mauritia flexuosa), the chiquichiqui
(Leopoldinia piassaba), and the mamure
Sikuani bench
This ritual object is carved in machaco wood
(Simarouba amara). Each bench is made to
celebrate a specific rite and is decorated with
paintings from sacred animals such as the
turtle, the snake or the chigüiro. For example,
in the fish rite —a celebration of girls becoming
women— the girl cannot touch the ground until
the end of her menstruation, so she spends
most of the time in her chinchorro, with her feet
resting on the ritual bench built by her father.
indigenous people need to know how to
276-277

others —like the Piaroa— have been bejuco or yare (Heteropsis flexuosa). make the objects on which the family’s
peaceful. All, without exception, have Before they can be considered adults, wellbeing, food, rest, and rituals depend.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian culture
Amazon and Orinoco

Me on my horse
and my hat on me
In the Colombian-Venezuelan Orinoquia,
the term trabajo de llano or the work of the
plains refers to everything the Llaneros do
to raise their cattle in the many haciendas
and estates scattered throughout the great
savannahs of Colombia’s eastern plains.

consolidation of political and economic

Cattle are a major part of what we
know today as the Llanero culture.
There is no Llanero without a horse,
without a hat, and without cattle,
just as there is no savannah with-
out mastranto and morichal. But
where did the cattle come from?
Who brought cows to this vast ter-
ritory? The first cattle to set foot on
what is now recognized as Colombian
territory arrived on Columbus’ second
voyage in 1493. However, it was the
La campechana
A chinchorro (hammock) made in leather
and used by the Llaneros to rest in at the
end of a long day’s work. The leather is
washed and dried, then cut and woven.
Society of Jesus that established,
at the beginning of the 17th century,
the cattle hacienda and ranch model
in the Orinoquia as part of its strat-
egy for territorial control and the
power, which had already been tested
with the Argentinean gauchos.
These ranches, tended to by indig-
enous workers, were part of the cattle
trails that supplied meat to the main
cities of the time, such as Santa Fe and
Tunja. Thus, cattle ranching also played
a role in interconnecting the vast, dis-
tant, and disconnected plains with the
Andean region, which concentrated the
country’s economic and political power.
Work on the plains is daily and consti-
tutes an economic, social, and cultural
landscape in the midst of which the
Llaneros learn everything there is to
El sombrero
Any self-respecting Llanero has at least
two hats. His working hat and his party
hat. The working hat must be heavy and
have a wide brim to make sure the wind
doesn’t blow it off while herding. The party
hat is usually a Peloeguama originally
made in Czechoslovakia, exclusively for
the Colombian-Venezuelan Orinoquia.
El coleo
When cows left the herd, they were
coleado (pulled by their tails as they ran
until they fell to the ground) and forced
down by the Llaneros on horseback.
know about raising cattle from their
parents at a young age: milking, herd-
ing, roping, and driving the cattle, and
shoeing, taming, riding, and looking
after the horses. But raising these
animals is not just about working with
them and loving them, they also have
to learn how to slaughter them, clean
them, and use their every part without
wasting anything.
Leather is used to make ropes,
muzzles, eye covers, campechanas,
espadrilles, and whips. Their fat is used
to make candles and soap. Their meat
feeds the family for several days and
nights, and a variety of techniques are
used to preserve it. Even the sun-dried
bladder, no good for anything else, is
El hato
The hato or ranch is the territory around which
the productive, economic, cultural, and social
organization of the Llanero revolves. It can house
1000 head of cattle or more, with their respective
corrals and all the staff needed to manage them.
They are also used to grow different types of
crops. The farm maintains the structure of a
ranch, but is smaller. The name hato has been
with the settlers for decades, as they have been
opening up the forest, founding lands for work.
used to make whoopee cushions for
some childish afternoon fun; a playful
humor typical of the horse-riding, hat-
wearing inhabitants of the plains.
The cultural practices of the
Llanero are inscribed in this world of
the work of the plains: clothing, sad-
dlery products and handicrafts, hats,
and espadrilles, are part of this world,
which also includes the gastronomy
and music, the manner of speech, and
the economic dynamics of the region’s
inhabitants, the legends, and the reli-
gious feeling, impregnated with shades
of syncretism.
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Coleo, today a sport in which Llaneros
on horseback chase after the cattle at
high speed and try to make them fall,
comes from the days of cow-herding,
when herds were taken on long journeys
from one region to another. When the
cows left the herd, the Llaneros would
drive them back. They say that a cow
that has been coleada never runs away
again. In time, coleo became popular in
festivals and regional celebrations in
Colombia and Venezuela, becoming a
sport in which at first the cattle were
coleado on a precarious track and rid-
ing on a criollo horse, to later give way
278-279
to more elaborate and safer tracks and
quarter horses.
 Tourist region Living
The Colombian culture
Amazon and Orinoco

The sounds of
the Mastranto
For the Llanero, music is a fundamental
part of daily life. It is through music that
the memory and spirit of the Llanero lives
on as stories and legends that recreate
his work, loves, and landscapes in lyrics.
The work songs and funeral songs are at
the heart of the culture, as is the joropo,
parrando, and celebration music.

Work songs have accompanied the

Llanero during his work days for
as long as the Llanero has been a
Llanero. There are four types of
work songs: milking songs, for early
mornings when the cattle are milked;
cabrestero songs, through which they
guide the herd on the long journeys
between regions; the vigil songs,
sung at night to stop the herd from
disintegrating and the cattle getting
lost in the immensity of the savannah;
and songs for taming the animals:
japeos, whistles, calls, and shouts. As
well as accompanying the Llanero,
these songs, usually sung in a cap-
pella, serve as a work tool that allows
them to establish a more intimate
Working songs
in the Llanos
UNESCO declared the cowboy songs of the
Colombian-Venezuelan plains as Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2018.
relationship with the animals they
have to milk, herd from one place to
another, and tame.
The wake songs, sung mainly by
men, result from the syncretism
between the indigenous and peasant
beliefs inherited by the criollos —as
the Llaneros call themselves— and
the Christian tradition brought by
the missionaries beginning in the
XVI century. These songs are used
to make offerings to the saints, to
ask for favors, or to accompany the
souls of sick children so that they get
better, or follow the right path after
death. Today these songs have almost
completely disappeared, but they can
still be heard in some places such as

Lejanías de Juriepe, Tame or Cravo
Norte (Arauca), in the voices of the
elderly who refuse to forget.
Just as the work songs accompany
the Llanero throughout his working
days and the wake songs during rituals,
parrando music is for his moments of
rest and celebration. The cuatro, which
they carry on their shoulders at sunset
when it is time to rest, plays along with
The harp
Brought to America by missionaries at
the end of the 17th century, the harp was
first used for religious music and little by
little it gained ground among the general
public. Although it remained part of the
instrumental style of certain popular music
in several Latin American countries, it
was mainly in Mexico, Paraguay, and the
Colombian-Venezuelan plains where it
found its niche, becoming the characteristic
instrument of Llanero folk music.
the verses that describe the Llaneros’
landscape, love stories, and sorrows.
And in the evenings, when the com-
munity gathers, this cuatro is joined by
Parrando Llanero
For decades, the parrando has served as a
popular spot for Llaneros to meet and relax.
On their long journeys, taking cattle from
one town to another, when they reached
the hamlets, people would gather and drink
aguardiente, play joropo, and dance. These
parrandos still exist in villages and hamlets,
and have become a fundamental part of the
region’s great musical festivals.
the bandola, the harp, and the mara-
cas, and the joropo’s contrapunteo and
rhythmic stomping. And this sounds
like a pasaje, a zumba que zumba, a
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
quirpa, a periquera, galerón, pajarillo,
merecure, carnival, or a gabán.
Indigenous peoples also tend to
have two types of music, one sacred,
used in ceremonies, and the other that
is part of the profane, of festivities
and leisure time. Indeed, the Piaroa,
the spirit of creation, created music,
differentiating it between the sacred
—to invoke fertility, abundance, and
health— and the mundane. Musical
instruments were created to express
each emotion, and to be played by
men or women, according to each
clan and using raw materials such as
280-281
turtle shells, gourds, seeds, beeswax,
and fine woods.
 Tourist region Religious and
The Colombian spiritual tourism
Amazon and Orinoco

Syncretism and
miscegenation
During the last centuries, the lands of
the Orinoco have received the influence
of several cultures —indigenous, African,
and European— which have shaped the
identity of the Llanero to the point of
becoming intertwined with the territory,
in a network of cultural practices in
which these heritages still survive.

The Llanero culture is the fruit of the

syncretism and miscegenation that
has taken place in the great savannahs
of the Orinoco for over five centuries.
These territories, once populated by
nomadic communities belonging to dif-
ferent ethnic groups, eventually became
the melting pot which gave rise to the
Llanero, whose identity was established
in phases. The first, before the conquest,
corresponds to the miscegenation
between different indigenous peoples,
the result of inter-ethnic marriages
and wars. Then, with the conquest of
America and the first missions, came a
new identity resulting from the mixture result, the indigenous vision survived
of European and indigenous peoples. through the Catholic saints’ calendar
The third phase relates to the arrival and some indigenous or black healing
of Africans to the continent, which con- practices survived by intertwining with Catholic prayers and offerings to the
tributed a third root to this process of Catholic prayers and mestizo chants saints. One of these plants is tobacco,
miscegenation, which remains evident (as in the case of the angelitos, or little which is sacred for some indigenous
even today in the syncopated rhythms angels). Regional stories feature beings communities. In Orinoquía, the llaneros
of the joropo. Finally, the fourth phase, from the indigenous and African worlds process it with water and over a slow
has to do with migratory processes, and are told with some Catholic over- fire, amidst prayers. They make a paste
known as colonization, resulting from tones and in native Spanish, which in called chimó, which is used to raise
various forms of violence and the search itself is the result of the miscegenation energy, relieve hunger, and even cure
for better opportunities for people from and transformation it was subject to in some insect stings.
the country’s inland areas. the territory. This miscegenation and syncretism
The missions —and the processes The indigenous peoples have been crystallized in the music, dance, gas-
of evangelization— that arrived in the acquainted with the plants in the tronomy, and legends, in some religious
territory starting in the 16th century region and have passed on some of this and medicinal beliefs and practices, and
resulted in the merging and transfor- knowledge to current generations, often in the language itself, are embodied in
mation of traditional medicine. As a combining the use of these plants with the Llanero.
 Tourist region
Archeology The Colombian
Amazon and Orinoco

An archaeological
treasure waiting
to be discovered
Besides the immensity of the
eastern plains, and the ideas
about their peoples, it was
believed that the land would
not hide greater treasures of
ancient material culture. The
excavations performed over
the last thirty years refute this
hypothesis and invite us to
continue opening the door to
the archaeology of the plains.

the archaeological research is concen-

trated, one of the main discoveries has
been that the ceramic remains and
other objects found belonged to the
Guayupe indigenous people.
Many important archaeological dis-
coveries have been made during the
development of civil works or extrac-

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

The conquistadors, who entered the
region in 1535 looking for El Dorado,
were disappointed not to find towns full
of gold and propagated an idea of the
plains as a space barely inhabited by
a few savages. This image, reinforced
by the missionaries, was adopted
by Colombian archaeology, which
focused on regions like the Andes or
the Caribbean.
Even though the eastern plains do
not have large structures or murals
Some hypotheses point to the Guayupe as
specialized potters who dominated a very
large part of the southeast of the plains.
since the 1970s, mainly in Arauca and
Meta, indicate that they are far from
the colonial idea of the plains as a no
man’s land.
Researchers have found ancient
cemeteries, garbage dumps with lithic
and ceramic elements, seeds and other
carbonized plant remains, as well as
tive activities. This is the case for the
funerary urns and bowls found in 1990
in the hamlet of Puerto Santander,
in the municipality of Fuente de Oro
(Meta). Today it is estimated that these
objects, which rest in the Guayupe
Archaeological Museum, could have
been manufactured between 1310 and
1630 AD. The findings also point to Meta
as an important meeting point between
peoples of the Andes, the Orinoco, and
the Amazon. The Llanero foothills could
hold many clues to understanding the
relationships between pre-Hispanic
peoples, and their migration routes.
282-283

that attract immediate attention, the samples of soils used by humans for Both archaeology and the Llanos still
archaeological excavations carried out agriculture. In Meta, where most of have many stories to unearth.
 Tourist region Towns with
The Colombian heritage
Amazon and Orinoco

The lion’s
Enlarged
area
colombia

last thrust
The last effort of the patriot
troops to free themselves Betéitiva Socha
Bonza
from the Spanish yoke, whose Paipa
Gámeza
imperial symbol had been a
Pantano
lion since the time of Leo III, is de Vargas
called La Ruta del Libertador Tunja

or the Route of the Liberator. Puente de Boyacá

BOYACÁ
It took seventy-seven days —
nineteen of which were spent in
the savannah of the Orinoco—
CUNDINAMARCA
to gain the independence of
the territory today known as
the Republic of Colombia.
Bogotá D. C.
Following the installation —on February
15, 1819— of the Congress of Angostura
in Venezuela, where the idea of the
Great Colombia was established and
in which deputies from different
regions participated, including the
Casanare region (the only region free National Cultural Villavicencio
from Spanish presence), Simón Bolívar
crossed New Granada through the
Heritage
Arauca River. This occurred just after Arauca and Tame (in Arauca) and META
the battle of Las Queseras del Medio, Hato Corozal, Paz de Ariporo,
during which General Páez defeated Pore, Támara and Nunchía (in
Morillo’s troops, earning Bolivar’s Casanare) that were part of the
admiration and allowing him to change Liberation Route were declared
the liberation strategy by deciding National Cultural Heritage under
to cross New Granada through the the Bicentennial Law celebrating
Arauca plains and not through Cucuta, the Liberation Campaign of 1819.
as the Spanish army expected. They
thus embarked on what is known as Llaneros —people who joined the cam-
the Route of the Liberator, in which paign along the way—, women, children,
they crossed part of the Colombian and even some factions of the British
Orinoquia to then ascend to the Pisba army, 77 days to cross the flooded
paramo in Boyacá and finally defeat plains in the winter of 1819.
the Spanish armies on August 7 dur- The women who accompanied the
ing the Battle of Boyacá, liberating liberating army played a very impor-
the territory from Spanish rule. It took tant, yet somewhat forgotten, role in
 NORTE DE
SANTANDER Venezuela

Arauca
The patriots’ route
Arauca, Tame, Hato Corozal, Paz de Ariporo, Pore,
Tamará and Nunchía are some of the municipalities
of Arauca and Casanare that the troops of General
ARAUCA Bolívar and Santander passed through before crossing
the mountain range on their way to Bogotá. Each of
Tame
these towns hosts monuments, objects, constructions,
and stories that describe that heroic deed.

Morcote

Pisba

Paya

CASANARE

Yopal VICHADA

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

weapons, helped recruit troops before

the struggle for independence. They
were called the Juanas, and they were
women of the local elite and peasant
women, without whose support the
army would have been weakened.
the battles and, in some cases, even
wielding their weapons in battle.
For today’s Llaneros, this episode
of history marks a milestone that has
determined their identity and always
reminds them of their free and combat-
Meeting General Santander
In March 1819, General Santander, “the man of
the laws,” settled in a large house on the corner
of the main square in Tame while his men were
patrolling the surrounding area. It was there
that he met with General Bolivar and sealed the
alliance with which they would defeat the Spanish
284-285

They were the ones who took care of ive spirit, as children of the immense army. This mythical alliance totaled approximately
the sick, fed the troops, cleaned the Colombian-Venezuelan savannahs. 4,000 troops, which left for Casanare on June 18.
 Tourist region
The Colombian
Amazon and Orinoco
Of ports
and harbors
The ports of Orinoquia,
a region of multicolored
rivers, hold stories of
evangelization, commerce,
and literature, and have
become places holding a
special kind of dynamism.
The Colombian Orinoquia is crisscrossed
by an extensive network of rivers that
constitute the arteries of this terri-
tory and connect —in many cases due
to the lack of roads and airports— the
Llanos, isolated by the immense Eastern
Cordillera, with the rest of the country.
This fluvial map has been so important
that in colonial times the merchants in
Cartagena sought to prohibit naviga-
tion on the Orinoco River, fearing that
these routes would threaten their trade
monopoly with Europe.
It was also through these roads
that a significant part of the Llanos
was colonized: many years ago, they
allowed Jesuit missionaries to evan-
gelize indigenous communities that
inhabited the remote territories of
the savannahs and gallery forests, and
today they make it possible for fami-
lies and travelers to reach further and
further away, to make their own way
and begin their own history anew. Port
cities and towns thus end up becoming
strategic from economic, social, politi-
cal, and cultural standpoints.
This river route, which expands the
agricultural frontier, transports sup-
plies, and forms an intermodal cor-
ridor that connects the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, is punctuated by vari-
ous important ports, including the city
of Puerto Carreño, capital of Vichada
and bordering Venezuela.
Towns with
heritage
The Bita River
Another important river in the Orinoquia
region is the Bita, whose basin is one of
the richest in biodiversity, which is why it
entered the Ramsar list (the List of Wetlands
of International Importance) in 2018.
Enlarged
As well as being the main port on area
colombia
the Orinoco River, it is also bordered by
the Meta (to the north) and Bita (to the
south) rivers. Located on the Guiana
Shield, its hills —geological formations
of exuberant beauty that stand out
over the vast plains— offer a view of
one of the epicenters of the town’s
nightlife: the port and the pier, origi- the steamers carrying tiger hides,
nally built in 1970 and remodeled in heron feathers, and rubber set sail to
1999 by the architect Rogelio Salmona. its waters—, today continues its com-
Further inland in Casanare lies mercial and tourist work. It is also
Orocué. Its name comes from the known for its boardwalk, for being a
language of the Yaruros, one of the point of arrival and departure of fast
indigenous communities that have boats and for the places that hold
populated the territory, and means memories of La Vorágine, includ-
“place of rest.” This port on the river, ing the house where José Eustasio
which in the 19th century allowed the Rivera was inspired to write this work
exchange of goods with Germany, and which, since 2018, serves as Casa
France, and Venezuela —from where Museo La Vorágine.
 The Meta River
The largest and most abundant river in this
region, its basin, which includes parts of the
Eastern Cordillera, foothills, and savannahs,
is part of the Colombian-Venezuelan Orinoco
macro-basin. It runs from east to west through
the departments of Meta, Casanare, Arauca
and Vichada and its navigable section runs
from Puerto López, passing through Orocué,
to Puerto Carreño, on the Venezuelan border,
where it flows into the Orinoco River.

NORTE DE
SANTANDER

Cúcuta

Venezuela
Arauca

ARAUCA
Puerto Carreño
r
ive ive
r
aR aR
t
Me

Bit

CASANARE

Yopal
Orocué
River VICHADA
Orinoco Rive

eta
M

Puerto Puerto Gaitán

López r
ive

Villavicencio
r

Inírida
ías R

ia re River
ua v
acac

META G
an

GUAINÍA

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

It is one of the most important ports

Then there is Puerto Gaitán, on
the banks of the Manacacías River, a
destination for its landscapes, extreme
sports, festivals, and the two-kilome-
ter boardwalk designed by architect
Simón Vélez.
Not far from here is Puerto López,
on the Meta River, whose waters con-
nect it with the entire Llanos, until it
flows into the Orinoco River. The town
is located just ten minutes from the
Alto de Menegua, known as the navel
286-287

town that gradually grew around its founded on May 1, 1935 and the first flu- of Colombia, an obelisk at the coun-
oil activity, but has become a tourist vial port of the Colombian Orinoquia. try’s geographic center.
 Tourist region
The Colombian Gastronomy
Amazon and Orinoco

Flavors of the sun

and smoke
They say that to taste a
region’s cuisine is to know its
landscape through a pot and
this is definitely the case for the
Orinoquia. Llanero food speaks
of savannah roads traveled with
the unrelenting sun beating down,
where carrying any load is a
struggle. It speaks of rivers with
a diversity of fish, turtles, and
armadillos. It speaks of the bush,
of palms and capybaras, of fiestas,
deer, and cows. It speaks of the
dialogue of knowledge between
the indigenous and the criollos.

The Llaneros’ long cattle runs are

part of the identity of their food.
The ways in which they preserve and
cook food honor the ingenuity of the
indigenous communities, who trav-
eled the savannah on foot in pursuit
of wild palm harvests, fish swimming
upstream, or migrating ducks from
the north. They also reflect cowboys
on the trail, with little space to load
and much hunger to cope with. They
speak of the hospitality and joy of
being together after long days of
work, of Llanera-style beef, roast
capybara, manioc, and chili.
To see a Llanera table is to travel
through its landscape of great hori-
zons, it is to discover the treasures
hidden in the bushes and the animals
that inhabit the depths of the black
waters or stealthily roam the savan-
nahs. The Orinoco’s cuisine is full of
Hallacas
A tradition shared with neighboring
Venezuela, hallacas are a classic in
celebrations, especially in Arauca.
Unlike tungos, they are made of corn
and stuffed with pork, beef, chicken
and, on special occasions, turtle
(galápago), and wrapped in bijao leaves.
catfish broths, turtle or heron eggs, Any self-respecting Llanero knows
palm hearts and moriche fruits, salted that sun, smoke, and salt are a funda-
and smoked capybara, deer, turtle, mental part of food preparation. They
armadillo, fish, and beef, as well as know that meat can be preserved with-
many kinds of leaves in which to out a refrigerator, as long as it is well
smoke and transport food. salted, and dried in the sun. They also

Tatuco
This is another way of cooking food with fire and
earth, this time using local bamboo called guadua.
Typically, the main ingredient is fish, but it can also
made with iguana, paca, or chicken meat, which
is stuffed into a hollow length of guadua. The
stuffed tube is placed in a hole in the ground and
covered with banana leaves and earth. A bonfire
is lit on top and, two hours later, the guadua is
uncovered, cleaned, and its contents served on
banana leaves.
know that if there are no pots, there
is mud in the canals and streams that,
if there is a decent fire, can be used to
cook a variety of dishes such as gallo al
barro. Building ovens by making a hole
in the ground and lighting a bonfire on
top to cook dishes such as tatuco or
smoked fish is another classic of the
region. On the Llaneros’ great cattle
runs, these methods mean that they
can have hearty meals without need-
ing pots or large infrastructures.
These dishes come with manioc, fariña
(yuca brava) or gofio, all of indigenous
origin. The old Llaneros tell us that
during their cattle runs, the cowboys
would slaughter cattle and part of
the meat would be kept between the
Mamona or ternera
a la llanera
This is the most famous of the Llanero
delicacies. Four classic cuts: la osa, los
tembladores, la raya and la garza, which are
baked in the oven and then roasted in burros
(wooden constructions built around the fire)
over a very slow fire for about four hours. The
fire should never be stoked so as not to burn
the meat, nor should the meat be chopped or
pierced, to make sure it keeps all its juices.
Catfish broth
COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
Having catfish broth for breakfast
is a real treat, especially if you had
one too many the night before.
horse’s skin and the gualdrapa, where
it was preserved thanks to the salt in
the animal’s sweat.
Dried plantain cocuma for children;
fariña in tambaqui head broths as one
of the most famous levantamuertos, i.e.,
a food nutritious enough to raise the
dead; ripe pineapple; and peach-palm
chicha remind us that the Orinoquia
and the Amazon are sister regions that
288-289
know the secrets of smoke, sun, fish,
plantain, and yuca brava.
 Tourist region Fairs and
The Colombian festivals
Amazon and Orinoco

Celebrating
the Llano
In the Colombian
Orinoquia, fairs, parties,
and festivals are crossing
points, meeting places
where the region’s
different towns converge,
each one bringing the best
of its music, gastronomy,
songs, and handicrafts.

The Colombian Llanos host fes-

tivities and celebrations throughout
the year and across the length and
breadth of the territory. We could
almost say that each municipality
has its own celebrations —over 100 in
the whole region—. There are patron
saint festivals, fairs, and music festi-
vals, those that narrate emblematic
events of the Llanera or indigenous
culture, and historical episodes that
were decisive for the settlers, such
as the mestizaje, the conquest, the
colony, and some legends or battles,
such as the San Martín squads in
Meta. Some focus on biblical events
and others revolve around different
aspects of the inhabitants’ agricul- El festival del Corrido
tural and livestock activities.
These events provide an opportu-
Llanero
nity to bring together all the cultural This festival has been held in April every
heritage of the different communi- year in Puerto Carreño (Vichada) since
ties. Songs and instruments, cowboy 1987. It brings together the Venezuelan and
rhythms and the contrapunteo Colombian Llanos, which are divided by
coincide with the coleo, criollo and historical contingencies rather than for any
indigenous cuisine, hats, and other fundamental reason. For them, the Llano
implements typical of daily life in is the Llano and the spirit of the Llanero is occasion to highlight the intelligence
the plains. one and the same, with no borders between of the copleros and the virtuosity of
The fairs speak of the history of the two nations. Among the categories that the instrumentalists, to appreciate
the Llanos and are the modern ver- are awarded each year are the voces recias the rhythmic stomping of the joropo
sion of the gatherings that were (male and female), dance couples, copleros, and the coleo, and to enjoy the food
once held in the region. They are the and corrío llanero (the main distinction). and hospitality found on the long
 Arauca’s Patron Saint
Festivities
These festivities commemorate the patron
saint of the town, the Virgin of Santa Barbara.
They are held every year between December 4
and 8 and host musicians from the region and
coleadores from both Colombia and Venezuela.
They also include parades, exhibitions on local
culture, dances and contrapunteo gatherings,
as well as religious activities. The Festival
Araucano de la Frontera and the International
Joropo and Contrapunteo Tournament are also
part of these celebrations.

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

Cuadrillas de San Martín

Created by Father Gabino de Balboa around an equestrian tournament to commemorate
roads traveled. From a cultural per- the town’s patron saint, San Martin de Tours, these celebrations have been held since
spective, these spaces are of utmost 1735. Four groups of horsemen represent the struggles between Indians, blacks, Moors,
importance, as they allow Llaneros and Spaniards and symbolize, for the Lllanero, the centaur of the savannahs that tames
to draw from their own culture, its natural environment. There are ten equestrian games in which each of the cuadrillas
290-291

strengthening ties with the territory participate to demonstrate their talent as riders. These games were included in the
and with the region’s past. National Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011.
 Tourist region Urban
The Colombian culture
Amazon and Orinoco

The plains in the city

Known as the gateway to the plains and bordered
by the Guatiquía River, Villavicencio is the largest
city in the region and the capital of Meta. It is a
meeting place and a starting point. It is home to
indigenous and Creole traditions, open to new
rhythms and alternative urban expressions.

Villavicencio has streets that are an essential

Villavicencio is a meeting point, a city
that connects roads and flights to
travel to various parts of the Amazon
and Orinoco. For the Llanero, it is a city
of opportunities, a place in which to
find work, to buy remittances, farming
materials, clothes for the family and,
of course, all the elements needed to
make up the Llanero’s entire outfit. It
is also the city to which many of the
best peasant and indigenous students
from towns, villages, and reservations
travel to finish high school or study a
technical or professional career. It was
formerly a meeting point for trade
between Chibcha and Guayupes indig-
enous peoples. In the mid-nineteenth
century, when it was founded, it was
an obligatory stop for travelers coming
from the plains of Araucua or Meta on
part of the urban memory of the llanos. One of
these is Las Palmaditas, a shopping street with
fabric, clothing, and shoe stores, characterized
by the fact that the locals hire salespeople
who clap their hands to attract the attention
of potential customers. Meanwhile, the street
known as the saddlers’ street, one of the first
in the city, with its characteristic smell of
rawhide, retains the ancestral knowledge of
the artisans who set up their businesses over
half a century ago to provide the Llanero with
everything he need to tend to his cows.
 Several of the monuments in Villavicencio tell the
history of the city. These include, Los Fundadores,
built in 1989 in honor of those who founded the city,
and one dedicated to Llanero folklore, built in 1997
as a tribute to the regional music; the monument
to the axe, which vindicates the role of the colonist;
and the Cristo Rey on Cerro Redentor (a monument
that was declared cultural heritage of the city in
2000 and, besides being an important pilgrimage
sit and offering a panoramic view of the city, was
built as a symbol of peace between 1949 and 1954,
following the assassination of Jorge Eliecer Gaitán).

in Yopal and Arauca, where young

people have rethought the confluence

COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION

their way to Bogotá, and an evange-
lizing center where the Dominicans
settled in 1860.
Today, the city is full of stores sell-
ing “llanero” hats; saddleries that
resist the onslaught of modernity; food
stands with local and indigenous cui-
sine; stores selling musical instruments
such as harps, cuatros, maracas, ban-
dolas, and bandolins, and workshops
where these instruments are made
In the last two decades, Villavicencio
has been a fertile place for musical
fusions. There is a llanero rap move-
ment —with bands like Kafka and La
C8—; groups that mix joropo with
ranchera, ballad, and bossa nova
music; there is the group Cimarrón,
which combines Llanero rhythms with
jazz; harpists like Edmar Castaneda,
who draw on the languages of jazz and
improvisation; and other instrumental-
ists (pianists, drummers, guitarists)
who combine the Llanero format with
between tradition and modernity,
giving rise to groups such as Chimó
Psicodélico, one of the most represen-
tative of these new currents).
In recent years, Villavicencio has
become a place where the nightlife
offers visitors a wide range of musical
possibilities: bars with live music —ranch-
era, joropo, rap, reguetón, and guaracha,
among other rhythms— and dance halls
where the traditions of the plains meet
those from inland Colombia.
Villavicencio also hosts festivals and
agricultural fairs that focus on tradi-
tional music, joropo, and urban expres-
292-293

by luthiers from different part of the rock and other rhythms (this cultural sions including graffiti, tattoos, circus,
Llanero savannahs. phenomenon is also taking place skateboarding, and video art.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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THE COLOMBIAN PACIFIC
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THE EASTERN COLOMBIAN ANDES
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COCREATION, CONNECTION, CONSERVATION
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Recommended reading
• Museo del Oro y UCL Institute of Archaeology.
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com.co/noticias/de-pura-cepa-otilias-virge-
nes-de-raquira/.
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THE COLOMBIAN MASSIF
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 The material published here, and also published on the www.colombia.travel.co website, including but not limited to
illustrations, articles, photographs and the general information contained in this Illustrated Handbook for Culture Tourism
Guides in Colombia, is protected by the intellectual property laws of the Republic of Colombia. The declarations and/or
opinions expressed here and the additional materials included in this handbook are the author’s personal opinions and do
not reflect the views of the National Government, ProColombia or the other entities that participated in this project. None
of these will assume liability for any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential, punitive, special, derived and/or other
types of damages that may result from the views expressed here.
COCREATION
CONNECTION
CONSERVATION
An Illustrated Handbook
for Cultural Tourism Guides
in Colombia

ProColombia has doubled its efforts to promote our country as a reliable, sustainable, and
high-quality destination for international tourists. One of the most outstanding attributes
that are key to this achievement is Colombia’s magnificent cultural wealth.

We have nine tangible heritage of humanity sites and nine intangible cultural heritage assets,
three creative cities of music, and three creative cities of gastronomy. To add to this, two more
of our cities, Ibagué and Pasto, recently joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. And we
currently have 19 designations of origin for our food and handicraft products.

All these characteristics invite us to publicize Colombia’s cultural diversity; to promote respect
for culture and the development of sustainable tourism around it; and to provide tools for
tour guides and new actors in the value chain of this tourism sector. Welcome to COcreation,
COnnection, COnservation.