COLOMBIA | Monday, 31 December 2012 | Views [369] | View Larger Image
"Only three percent of the park is here in Boyacá: the rest of it is in Arauca and Casanare. So called civilization has not arrived there. It ruins everything". The words of Marco Arturo Valderrama, owner of La Esperanza, the farm where I spent the night after a seventeen hour trip from Bogotá, come back to my mind as I start walking through the Valley of Frailejones, named after the native plant that grows only one centimeter each year. As water drops condense on their leaves that resemble in shape and texture the ears of a hare, I remember history lessons from school and how the troops from our independence campaign, used to the heat of lower altitudes, teared them from the stem to put them inside their clothes.
