Tequendama Falls


The Tequendama Falls is a high waterfall of the Bogotá River, located southwest of Bogotá in the municipality of Soacha. Established in approximately 10,000 BCE, El Abra and Tequendama were the first permanent settlements in Colombia. One of the country's tourist attractions, the falls are located in a forested area west of Bogotá. The river surges through a rocky gorge that narrows to about at the brink of the high falls. During the month of December the falls become completely dry. The falls, once a common site for suicides, may be reached by road from Bogotá.

Muisca origin

The name Tequendama means in Chibcha: "he who precipitated downward".
According to the Muisca religion, the waterfall was created by the legendary hero Bochica, who used his staff to break the rock and release the water that covered the Bogotá savanna. According to another legend, during the Spanish conquest and evangelization of the Americas, in order to escape the new colonial order indigenous people of the area would jump off the Salto Del Tequendama and become eagles to fly to their freedom.

Recovery of the Falls and its surroundings

The river that feeds the falls is currently considered to be one of the most contaminated in the world.

"The Tequendama Falls has the dubious honour of being the largest wastewater falls in the world. Liquid wastes from the city are flushed untreated into the Bogotá River at the lower edge of the sabana, a few kilometres upstream of the Tequendama Falls. Downstream from Bogotá, the river is filled with sewage."

A historic hotel building, now a museum that overlooks the waterfall is undergoing restoration aided by the French government.