Guasca is a Colombian town and municipality in the

Guavio Province The Guavio Province ( es, Provincia del Guavio) is one of the 15 provinces in the Cundinamarca department, Colombia. Guavio borders the Capital District of Bogotá and the Central Savanna Province to the west, to the north the Almeidas Province, ...

, part of the Cundinamarca Department located approximately 55 km from

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the largest ...

passing through the town of La Calera, Cundinamarca or 65 km passing through

Sopó Sopó is a municipality and town of Colombia in the department of Cundinamarca. The town is located 39 km north of the Colombian capital Bogotá. History The area of Sopó was inhabited first by indigenous groups during the Herrera Perio ...

. Guasca borders the municipalities

Tocancipá Tocancipá () is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Central Savanna Province, part of the department of Cundinamarca. Tocancipá is situated in the northern part of the Bogotá savanna, part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the Easte ...

and

Guatavita Guatavita is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Guavio Province of the department of Cundinamarca. Guatavita is located 75 km northeast of the capital Bogotá. It borders Sesquilé and Machetá in the north, Gachetá and Juní ...

in the north, Junín in the east, in the south La Calera and in the west

.Official website Guasca
- accessed 05-05-2016

History

Before the

Spanish conquest of the Muisca The Spanish conquest of the Muisca took place from 1537 to 1540. The Muisca were the inhabitants of the central Andean highlands of Colombia before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. They were organised in a loose confederation of diff ...

of the central highlands of the Colombian

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

, the

Altiplano Cundiboyacense The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. The altiplano corresponds to the ancient territory of the Muisca. The Alt ...

, the area was inhabited by the

Muisca The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan l ...

who spoke

Chibcha The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan lang ...

. Guasca was ruled by a ''

cacique A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a ...

'' who was loyal to the ''cacique'' of

. In the

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural ...

of the Muisca, the Siecha Lakes were considered sacred.

Etymology

According to

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the o ...

and Muisca scholar Bernardo de Lugo the name Guasca is derived from ''guâ'', "mountain range" and ''shucâ''; "skirt". The name thus means "skirt of the mountain range", indicating the position of the village with respect to the

Eastern Ranges The Eastern Ranges is an Australian rules football team in the NAB League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. The club is a founding member of the competition (1992) and has produced several players for the Australian Football Le ...

of the Colombian Andes.

Economy

Main economical activities of Guasca are

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peop ...

;

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Un ...

es, carrots, flowers and

strawberries The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown Hybrid (biology), hybrid species of the genus ''Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The f ...

and

dairy A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or processing (or both) of animal milk – mostly from cows or buffaloes, but also from goats, sheep, horses, or camels – for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on ...

farming.

Tourism

Guasca is known for

ecotourism Ecotourism is a form of tourism involving responsible travel (using sustainable transport) to natural areas, conserving the environment, and improving the well-being of the local people. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide fund ...

and has access to Chingaza Natural National Park. Other natural areas are

Los Encenillos LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to: Science and technology * Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation * Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers * Level of significance, a measure of statistical significan ...

and the Siecha Lakes. One of the oldest hotels and restaurants in the area is ''Café la Huerta''.

Born in Guasca

* Mariano Ospina Rodríguez - president of the Granadine Confederation

Trivia

* The plant ''

Galinsoga parviflora ''Galinsoga parviflora'' is a herbaceous plant in the Asteraceae (daisy) family. It has several common names including guasca (Colombia), pacpa yuyo, paco yuyo and waskha (Peru), burrionera (Ecuador), albahaca silvestre and saetilla (Argentina), ...

'' is called "Guasca(s)" in Colombia and an essential ingredient of the soup ajiaco * The spiders ''

Anapis guasca ''Anapis'' is a genus of araneomorph spiders in the family Anapidae, first described by Eugène Simon in 1895. Species it contains twenty-nine species: *'' Anapis amazonas'' Platnick & Shadab, 1978 – Colombia *'' Anapis anabelleae'' Dupérr ...

'', ''

Deinopis guasca ''Deinopis'', also known as net-casting spiders, gladiator spiders and ogre-faced spiders, is a genus of net-casting spiders that was first described by W. S. MacLeay in 1839. Its distribution is widely tropical and subtropical. They catch thei ...

'', and moth '' Dognina guasca'' are found in and named after Guasca

Gallery

References

External links

Café la Huerta
{{Municipalities cundinamarca department Municipalities of Cundinamarca Department Populated places established in 1600 1600 establishments in the Spanish Empire Muisca Confederation Muysccubun