Colombia – Archaeology & Colonial History

A Journey Back in Time

La Candelaria is Bogota’s essence. The most seasoned piece of the city and host to Plaza Bolivar, this regarded barrio is high on any guest’s plan. As you meander the roads of La Candelaria away from the fundamental square, your guide won’t just clarify the historical backdrop of Bogota yet in addition the complexities of current Colombian culture and day-by-day life. There will be the ideal opportunity for a rewarding stop in one of the urban communities’ cafés prior to visiting the Botero Museum; a lasting display of masterpieces by Fernando Botero, Colombia’s most celebrated craftsman, whose larger than average workmanship is immediately conspicuous. The historical center houses work by Botero as well as other world-popular craftsmen like Dali, Monet, and Van Gogh. Nearby you’ll discover Casa de la Moneda, which is home to a gallery that takes you on a visit through the historical backdrop of Bogota zeroing in on the money utilized in Colombia. With your guide close behind, the following stop will be the Gold Museum which is arranged on the upper east corner of the Parque Santander. This is an absolute necessity when in Bogotá, with in excess of 35,000 bits of pre-Colombian gold-work in the assortment. Break for lunch at Son de Los Grillos and afterward, following a short drive or fascinating stroll from the focal point of the old town, show up at the base of the slope that paves the way to the ridge perspective and cloister of Monserrate. The culmination can be reached by either a funicular rail route or streetcar. Here, at the most noteworthy point around there, you have managed the cost of brilliant perspectives on the various areas of Bogota; from La Candelaria and its earthenware tiled rooftops to the skyscraper business area and afterward on across the Sabana (or level fields) off somewhere far off. On Monserrate, another religious community is a journey site for some Colombians who advance past the fourteen Stations of the Cross until arriving at the cloister. You’ll likewise find a couple of craftsman shops en route, with others selling tidbits and rewards. Following a day spent investigating noteworthy Bogota, you will be gotten back to your lodging.

Secret Gems

Earlier today, your excursion will take you to Lake Guatavita which is a roundabout lake in the mountains in what seems, by all accounts, to be a meteor hole. The birthplaces of the cavity are muddled notwithstanding, it is supposedly one of the consecrated pools of the Muisca public, and a custom led there is generally thought to be the reason for the legend of El Dorado. Your guide will develop a lot more legends related to lake Guatavita. Lunch is incorporated and will be taken at a neighborhood eatery. Thereafter, the excursion will proceed to Zipaquirá. Voyaging north of the city, through the field once involved by the local Muisca Indians, Zipaquira is one of the more famous traveler objections in Colombia. Zipaquira is generally well known for its Cathedral cut underground in as yet working salt mines only west of the town. The enlightenment and execution of the work are recognition for present-day methods and long periods of work from the excavators and craftsmen. Around the focal square of the town of Zipaquira, the pioneer structures actually hold their appeal footed by brickwork clearing and neglected by the Cathedral Diocesana de San Antonio. Please note: Due to the special climate designs that create around the lake, antagonistic climate can grow quickly. Visitors ought to plan for a downpour, and there is a restricted safe house is accessible around the lake. And indeed, visitors ought to plan for broad strolling, regularly on harsh, wet, or lopsided ground. Heavy, agreeable footwear is fitting. Complete strolling time can be custom-made nearby, nonetheless, visitors ought to anticipate climbs for at least one hour and 30 minutes, and up to a limit of four hours.

On the up and up

You will be secretly moved between Bogota’s El Dorado International Airport and your lodging by an expert driver and an English-talking guide. The estimated travel time is 45 minutes, however, changes depending on the area of your inn.

Load onto a trip in Bogota with the administration to Neiva. The inexact flight span is one hour and 10 minutes.

You will be secretly moved from your lodging in Neiva to San Agustin by an expert driver and an English-talking guide. En route, stop for lunch at a neighborhood eatery represent considerable authority invalid Colombian cooking. The exchange, with time for lunch represented, will require around six hours.

Monasterio San Agustin plans to give visitors a vital involvement with San Agustin de Huila. Start your day with a new cup of high-quality espresso as you tune in to the quiet stirring of tree leaves. Appreciate the beautiful perspectives on the Andes Mountain from the perception pinnacle of Monasterio San Agustin by day and go for a relaxed walk around the pilgrim town, at that point start your late evening relaxing on the lodging’s gallery, looking as the sun sets behind the mountains. A demeanor of quiet plagues in this notable town, making it the ideal spot to appreciate a casual day of relaxation.

A Walk Through the Past

The enchanting town of San Agustin is regularly considered uniquely to be a doorway to the mind-blowing archeological remaining parts discovered close by, however, this frontier town merits a visit through its own. Today, join your guide on a mobile visit through San Agustin, visiting the humble community’s top destinations and halting for a scrumptious lunch around the finish of your experience. En route, learn of the locale’s wild ongoing history, changing from a district once tormented by guerrilla brutality to a tranquil area. After your visit, you will be gotten back to your lodging.

A Healthy Dose of History

Start your entire day experience with an excursion to the foremost archeological site in the San Agustin locale. Here you’ll find a striking showcase of stone sculptures – more than 300 altogether – of which priceless little is perceived. Supernaturally saved harm through hundreds of years of tumult, the meaning of these carvings – just as who made them – has been lost to history, adding to their puzzling charm. Standing apart among the relics is the Ceremonial Spring of Lavapatas. The biggest landmark in the area comprises a perplexing labyrinth of channels and pools cut into the stone bed of the spring, portraying snakes, reptiles, lizards, iguanas, chameleons, frogs, and turtles, many humanized. Not to be missed during your investigation: the gigantic figure known as Alto Lava Legs and the Forest of Sculptures. Conveying ahead, head to the memorable site known as Hipogeos de Obando. The town of Obando discovered two miles from San Agustín, is host to a worshipped fortune: antiquated underground burial places which, since the disclosure, have been deliberately reestablished and would now be able to be visited. Solid steps control the way, dropping to a mysterious, melancholy inside. In the wake of reemerging from the burial chambers, visit the close by Archeological Museum that is housed in a customary, covered rooftop cottage. The gallery shows an assortment of fair size and little stone sculptures just as a few bits of old earthenware found around there. After a fast stop to the keepsake, shop to get handiworks, desserts, or customary food varieties you’ll get back to your vehicle and carry on to your next site; the Magdalena River Strait. An especially furious and excellent part of the Magdalena River where the stream is constrained through a limited hole, the Strait’s scene is hugely wonderful and found only a couple miles from metropolitan San Agustin. The waters in this piece of the stream are light green in shading and sufficiently clear to see the sandy waterway bed a couple of feet beneath the surface. Investigate the waterway from its banks and take in unbelievable perspectives from the highest point of a slope where you will likewise get the opportunity to visit Sagrado Corazon de Jesus, a huge model addressing the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Following a day of revelation in San Agustin, Obando, and the Magdalena Straight, you will be gotten back to your facilities.

A Change of Scenery

You will be secretly moved from San Agustin to Popayan by an expert driver and an English-talking guide. En route, a break for a delicious lunch at a neighborhood café represents considerable authority in legitimate Colombian cooking. All out movement time, with time for lunch represented, is around six hours.

For most guests to Colombia, Popayan isn’t viewed as a top-of-mind objective, however, this is probably going to change in the coming years. Past its pilgrim history and significant part in the exchange of fortunes taken by the Spaniards from native populaces all through Latin America, Popayan is host to a portion of the nation’s most striking places of worship and basilicas, just as a portion of its best colleges. 17 Colombia presidents have lived in Popayan, and various writers, painters, and arrangers likewise hail from the city. In 1983, a large part of the city was annihilated during an amazing seismic tremor, however, rebuilding projects have seen by far most of the designs got back to their unique brightness. Today, set out to investigate Popayan all alone. In this social and political center, consider visiting Caldas Park – opened in 1537 – the Clock Tower – built utilizing 96,000 blocks at some point close to 1673 – and the Humilladero Bridge – which associates the focal and northern zone of the city. The extension was planned by Italian minister Fray Serafin Barbetti who preserved the remaining parts rest at the close by Archdiocesan Museum of Religious Art. Whatever you decide to do, you’re certain to be charmed by the exceptional air of this noteworthy city.

In transit

You will be secretly moved between Popayan Airport and your facilities by an expert driver and an English-talking guide. The rough travel time is 15 minutes.

Load onto a trip in Popayan with the administration to Santa Marta, interfacing through Bogota. The rough travel term is five hours and 50 minutes.

You will be secretly moved between your facilities and Santa Marta Airport by an expert driver and an English-talking guide.

Sights and Insights

The most established Spanish frontier city in mainland Americas is generally secret in the more extensive world and you will see instances of Spanish pilgrim engineering set in the midst of the occupied and beautiful roads. In the downtown area, there is the straightforward white house of God, the most established church in Colombia, the wide Bolivar Plaza, and the painstakingly reestablished sweethearts square completely rejuvenated by the analysis of your master neighborhood manage. At that point, onboard your engine mentor, you will drive away from the memorable focus of Santa Marta to one of Latin America’s most adored destinations, La Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino. Initially a functioning homestead and set in lovely grounds, this hacienda was inherent the seventeenth century and was the place where Simon Bolivar, the deliverer of Colombia spent his last days and kicked the bucket in 1830. You will visit the house containing a portion of the first furniture including his deathbed just as masterpieces. The huge white marble special raised area based on the grounds in 1930 contains a sculpture of Bolivar that offers a stunt of the eye! The grounds are additionally possessed by various iguanas and furthermore Colombia’s consistently present and differed bird-life. Making a beeline for the downtown area will have encountered a sample of this captivating city, its way of life, and spot on the planet.

Santa Clause Marta is a curious coastline town with an assortment of exercises to browse. Invest energy at relaxation strolling the quiet seashores of the Sierra Nevada, swimming and swimming in the warm Caribbean ocean, or adventure out on a road trip to Tayrona National Park – the decision is yours! For a more easygoing encounter, walk around town, halting at an enchanting bistro for a reviving refreshment, or a delectable Colombian passage.

Simply a Walk in the Park

You will be gotten up lodging in Santa Marta by private vehicle to start your visit to Tayrona National Park. Santa Clause Marta is world-well-known for the magnificence of its geology, for the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the most elevated beachfront mountain range on the planet which scopes down to the ocean where you will discover the Tayrona National Park. From the passageway of the public park, you will begin your stroll along normal pathways through the semi-tropical wilderness vegetation towards the seashores with your nearby guide featuring the data on the vegetation, creatures, and environment. Strolling alongside one of the marvelous seashores you may potentially have the chance to take a dip contingent upon the state of the oceans. Lunch is remembered for your visit. Toward the finish of the visit, you will be moved back to your lodging.

Get a Lay of the Land

You will be secretly moved from Santa Marta to Cartagena by an expert driver and an English-talking guide. En route, separate the five-hour move with a visit to Barranquilla. A clamoring city that is host to the biggest Carnival festivity outside of Rio, the city is likewise referred to among gastro-aficionados as the best position for credible Colombian Caribbean and combination cooking. Appreciate a short city visit combined with a tasty lunch prior to getting back to the street and conveying forward to your lodging in Cartagena.

Investigate with an Expert

You will be met by your guide and strolled to your vehicle to begin your visit through the chief sights around Cartagena. Your visit will take you through the old town under the Puerta Del Reloj (Clock tower entrance), an image of Cartagena, into the Plaza de Los Coches. Your guide will disclose the fantasies and legends, chronicles, and accounts of Cartagena from old occasions straight up to the present. From the Plaza San Pedro Claver with its staggering Church, on through to the Plaza Bolivar; with its obscure territories, where a new Lemon juice can be delighted in while watching the world pass by. The following site will be the Inquisition Palace. The Inquisition royal residence includes a pompous passage worked in the Baroque style, long wooden galleries covered with pink bougainvillea, and a resplendent cast-iron fence. The stone passage offers a route to a lavish yard loaded up with palm trees, nitty-gritty tile work, and dazzling yellow mortar dividers. On the subsequent floor, the Historical Museum of Cartagena gives a pruned history of the most recent five centuries of life in Cartagena de Indias remembering data for the first native occupants of the area, the pilgrim time frame, and the city’s noteworthy part in the battle for freedom. After your strolling visit in the Historic Walled City, you will embark to the Castillo San Felipe. This fortress is the biggest Spanish stronghold in the Americas and rules the old town. Subsequent to visiting through this stronghold you will be gotten back to your inn.

Adventure into the Outdoors

This visit consolidates the experience of a nearby fishing local area and investigating the Mangroves by kayak. The fishing town of La Boquilla is found 30 minutes east of Cartagena in a space of mangrove swamps. A considerable lot of the townspeople are of African plunge and on appearance, there will be a presentation of dance and a reward of new green coconut milk will be served. The Cueva Del Manglar is the Spanish name given to this secured environment which is rich in birdlife and with regards to Colombia’s standing of being perhaps the most biodiverse nations on the earth you may well see Kingfisher, White Heron, and Pelicans. The visit through the mangroves is taken by Canoe rowed by neighborhood angler, an ideal method to explore the shallow waters through the ”burrows” normally made by the Mangrove trees. Just as birdlife there is an abundance of greenery to find in this rich biological system as you float through the Mangroves.

Sweet-smelling eateries, popular bars, welcoming shop inns, and all around kept up frontier structures characterize the downtown area of Cartagena – otherwise called the Walled City, or Ciudad Amurallada. Best experienced at recreation, walk-around roads speckled with bright homes, passing by clearing courts, transcending houses of worship, and the extremely old divider that has ensured the city since the last part of the 1700s on this free day in Cartagena. Consider halting for lunch at the acclaimed Restaurante Donjuan Cartagena found in the core of the city. An outing to the Caribe Museum is an unquestionable requirement for gems fans. What’s more, for those looking to just unwind in the solace of the reviving Caribbean breeze, miles of rough shores are yours to investigate simply ventures past the city dividers.

Bon Voyage

You will be secretly moved between your lodging and Cartagena Airport by an expert driver and an English-talking guide. Estimated travel time differs depending on the area of your lodging, regularly averaging 30 minutes.