That One Time We Didn’t Go to Guatavita

Colombia has a ton of pueblos and a lot of them have funny names, at least they sound funny to me: Buccaramanga (i.e. Scaramanga from James Bond), Buga (i.e. Ooga Booga), Facatativa, Barichara, Zipaquirá, Guatavita. They are all beautiful and unique in their own way and you can usually count on a well-kept city square (la plaza central) with an ornate church (la iglesia) and nice surrounding shops (tiendas). For example, in the department of Boyacá, there are over 100 cities / pueblos and you could probably visit 10 in a single day as they are not that far apart.

The other day, we went to visit a pueblo called Guatavita, which supposedly has something to do with the legend of El Dorado. To get there, we passed through a few towns / pueblos — Sogamoso, Iza, Sesquile — and made it there in a couple hours from Duitama. The scenery and green along the drive was so beautiful, it makes me not want to leave.

Anyways, we get to Lake Guatavita and try to find the entrance. We follow the “road” as far as we can, but eventually realize we probably were going the wrong way thanks to a few warning signs — 1) terrain that looked like it hadn’t been traversed in weeks, 2) we didn’t see anyone or any other cars along that path, and 3) there was a single cow just meandering along the road. On our way back, we asked the cow for directions and he gave us a strange look, like “crazy people, what are you doing here?”

We doubled back and made it to what looked to be a park entrance. It turns out you can only take a two-hour guided tour of the lake. Even this place was commercialized! Boo. We had somewhat of a schedule to keep, so we decided not to do the tour, although it would be nice to do a proper visit another time. We noodled around for a few minutes and then headed back down to the actual town of Guatavita to look around and get some lunch.

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The city square of this town felt very different from the other ones I’d seen in Colombia. And the church was very distinct, it looked like it was all made of wood — very beautiful. It was one of those days where you don’t really have a hard plan so you pick a place to visit and see what you can find. It was kind of like one of my exploratory runs. It was nice.

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  Source

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  Interior of church

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After lunch, we headed back and stopped at a few viewpoint areas. I’d taken this road so many times before — it’s the main road from Bogotá to Duitama — so it was nice this time to actually stop and look around, which you can’t do when you’re on a bus.

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  Represa del Sisga (kind of like Lake Hodges)

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  Aquitania (a different pueblo)

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I have another week or so in Duitama before I head back to the U.S. I’m not sure how I feel, but there is that usual sense of uncertainty since I don’t have a concrete plan for what’s next (i.e. a job, city, apartment). But I feel more normal and at peace than my previous returns — I feel more settled. I wonder how my transition back to a “normal” life will be. I kind of miss having a normal routine. I have some doubts, but we’ll see how it goes.