"Oro (gold)" a Bogotá Travel Page by ARoman

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How can a flashy business trip, arriving at 4 am with a long flight from Baires and Santiago del Chile and leaving same day in the evening to Europe, remain so special in my memories? Reading Vela Candela pages remind me that: it was the opportunity to visit one of most special museum I have ever seen, el Museo del Oro in Bogota' and only thanks to my energetic colleague Nico, that I still thank for that.

After noting all those old MP style guards on any walkway bridge on the highway from the airport, after a meeting in a building as guarded as a fort, after a long taxi ride through the empty city hills and talking our funny Spanish language with a happy (for that?) taxi driver, and after walking around with our bags looking for any bank that would change us few dollars for an admission ticket (still laughing at the fourth one, I guess, thinking of the long queue we did for 'Only these?' dollars), among a somehow concerning crowd still so colourful and nice in my memories, then we made it through the door of the museum.

We discovered that actually some pre-Columbian villages on the mountains of Colombia were not found and/or completely destroyed by the Spanish and their tools and lifestyle reconstruction testified us of a very complex and evolved culture. Together with many noisy and funny Colombian students, we discovered of unknown peoples and persons raising, living, fighting and dying, their tools, houses, lives, temples, tombs, believes. It was all very fascinating, even if we started to wonder why they called it the museum of gold, since no gold was shown. Then we went upstairs.

Only few people were admitted at a time through a huge door of a strong room (that was about 40 cm/16 inches thick!) and in a nice dark atmosphere we discovered... the gold! Tens then hundreds of tools, jewellery, ritual knives (as the one in the little reproduction I bought and I am showing you) and the descriptions of their origin and use. And it seemed that it would never end, in a long walk through corridors and showrooms, up to the last incredible golden artefact reproducing the king's boat used in one of the most important of their ceremonies (I would say was the king funeral if I was not afraid to confuse it with the Egyptians).

Finally, when everything seemed over, and we were already missing it and thanking any God that the Spanish did not find all those pieces of art to melt them, we found ourselves in the centre of a dark circular room with no further exits. Then slowly we started to hear sounds from the jungle, first far away then closer while the lights started to increase. They were localised on few spots of the wall, which were actually exposing more golden tools on what seemed the reproduction of hills and mountains. The more spots were lightened, the more sounds were coming, the more tools were shown... more and more... and it became overwhelming: among loud birds sounds they were thousands everywhere, they were shining, they were testifying of their owners' dignity and life, as if they were still alive and claiming our apologies and respect.