Bogotá hosts the Iberoamerican Theater Festival, biggest in the world, every two years.
In 2007, Bogotá will be the Book Capital of the World.
The Gold Museum has the biggest gold handicraft collection in the world.
Colombian writer
Gabriel García Márquez won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his legendary One Hundred Years of Solitude, which
has sold over 10 million copies.
Colombia has 20% of the world’s butterflies and birds; it is second in amphibians, and third in reptiles. It has 3500 varieties of orchids.
Colombians invented the pacemaker and contact lenses for babies.
NASA’s neuroscience director, Fernando Botero, is Colombian.
Well over 6000 kilometers long, the Amazon River rivals only the Nile in length but far exceeds it in volume, with a discharge four to five times that of the Congo and ten times the Mississippi. It
covers approximately 2.3 million square miles, dispensing some 40,ooo gallons of water into the Atlantic every second.
The pirarucú,
biggest fresh water fish in the world, is found in the Amazon; it can weigh 550 pounds and measure up to eight feet in length.
The Amazon’s largest animal is the manatee, which can weigh half a ton and come in at ten feet in length.
Anacondas can reach thirty-three feet in length and are known to consume everything
from rodents to cattle to humans.
The pink river dolphin, found only in the Amazon and the Orient, is considered to be the most intelligent of the five known fresh-water species, with a brain capacity 40% larger than that of humans.
There were an estimated ten million Indians living in the Amazonian rainforest five centuries ago. Today there are less than 200,000.
At least 80% of the developed world's diet originated in the tropical rainforest. Currently, over 120 prescription drugs come from Amazonian plant sources. The U.S. National Cancer Institute has
identified 3ooo Amazonian plants that are active against cancer cells.
For more beautiful images of Colombia, visit the sites of contributing photographers
Charlie Strader,
Roger Harris,
and
Jim Thompson.
See selected works from two extraordinary photo-journalists,
Eros Hoagland
and
Garry Leech.
elds where reflective greenhouses begin to proliferate—one of the world’s larger flower exporters,
Colombia provides the U.S. with four-fifths of its carnations and a third of its roses—and then suddenly the Eastern Cordillera
of the Andes looms on the approach. Over the mountain rim urban macadam explodes like the detritus of a meteor, modern architecture wedged in with a hodgepodge of dilapidated shacks. Despite the scourge of crime and poverty, the city is rich with culture and
history. From the colonial bario of La Candelaria to the prestigious Museo del Oro with over 30,000 pieces of gold to the panoramic Cerro de Monserrate commanding the east from more than 3000 meters, Bogotá is endowed with many treasures...which, sadly, will go
undiscovered by most out of the necessary concern for personal safety. And possibly the greatest asset of all, is the Colombian hospitality toward its visitors.
orful structures sprouting ferns and bougainvillea, ancient church spires square off with fortress pillars dating back to the 16th century Historically, the city was attacked by pirates, dominated by
Frenchmen, surrounded by the English, and finally conquered by conquistadors, the combined influences of which flavor the art, architecture, and culture of today. The walled "Old Town" faces the sea to the west and is almost entirely separated by water,
divided into El Centro and 
very human
and humble face on the real star of our story. And to go from the crisp mountain climate of Bogotá to the sweltering river humidity and density of Amazon jungle is...well, staggering. No matter how authentic we endeavored to make the story, it simply does
not get more real than this.
