The 'Royal Road' to Guane, a beautiful trek with an insane history

[Judi Lynn]

by Adriaan Alsema July 10, 2019


The road between Barrichara and Guane in the Santander province may be a gorgeous trek, but has a controversial history of imperialism and exploitation.

The Royal Road, or “Camino Real” has nothing to do with royalty; it was constructed almost 50 years after Colombia became a republic by Geo von Lengerke, a controversial German who allegedly fled his home country after killing a man in a duel who ended up creating a neo-feudal system on his estate near Barichara.

Von Lengerke built the road over an ancient path between Barichara and Guane, an ancient settlement of the extinct Guane people that was originally called Moncora.

Little is known about the original inhabitants of the town other than they sustained themselves by trading with the neighboring Muisca people who inhabited the high plains around Bogota.

The Guanes allegedly worshiped the Muisca god Ochica, who they believed to have founded their civilization and taught the locals agriculture and craftsmanship.

Archaeologists later found that the Guanes were surprisingly tall compared to other peoples in the region and deliberately deformed children’s skulls.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/the-royal-road-to-guane-a-beautiful-trek-with-an-insane-history/

[marble falls]

1. A little more about Geo von Lengerke ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_von_Lengerke

Geo von Lengerke (born August 31, 1827 Georg Ernst Heinrich von Lengerke, Dohnsen (Weser) in the then Duchy of Brunswick in northern Germany;[1][2][3] died July 1882 in Zapatoca, Santander, Colombia) was a German engineer, merchant and landowner.
Biography

Possibly running from the law after killing a man in a duel over a woman, Von Lengerke left Germany and went to Colombia in 1852, where he settled down in the then state of Santander. Once settled, he dedicated himself to cultivation of cinchona (quina) and its commercialization as well as road construction and land development. His property spread over 12,000 hectares. His best-known haciendas were "Montebello" and "El Florito", located in what is now the town of Betulia, where he lived in a semi-feudal life of extravagance. The eventual failure of his colonization project, construction of an alternative route to the Magdalena River and the decline of the market for cinchona diminished his fortune and left him in ruin.

His name and figure became legendary in the region, and the 1977 novel by Pedro Gómez Valderrama, "La otra raya del tigre" (The tiger's other stripe) was based upon his life.[4]