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Sogamoso is a city in Boyacá, Colombia. The city itself isn’t worth seeing, although it is central to several smaller towns worth visiting.
Plaza de la Villa
The main plaza in Sogamoso, Plaza de la Villa, is surrounded by mostly modern buildings. There are a couple of older buildings, such as the Casa de la Cultura.
Monument to the Sun
In the center of the plaza is the Monument to the Sun. It depicts several Muisca people bowing down to worship to the sun.
Saint Martin of Tours Cathedral
The Saint Martin of Tours Cathedral (Catedral San Martín de Tours) is also on the plaza. It sits exactly on the site where the first church in Sogamoso was built in 1564. The current church was built between 1917 and 1928.
Suamox Archaeological Museum
A few minutes drive from Plaza de la Villa is the Suamox Archaeological Museum (Museo Arqueológico Suamox), founded in 1942 by Colombian archaeologist Eliécer Silva Celis. It’s located on the grounds of the sacred City of the Sun and includes a reconstruction of the Sun Temple (see below). Adult admission is COP$10,000 (as of February 2023).
To visit, all guests must first take a guided tour of the museum. There are anthropological and ethnological sections featuring thousands of Muisca and other indigenous artifacts as well as information on several of the indigenous people of Colombia. No photos are allowed inside the building.
On the grounds, there’s a reconstruction of the Sun Temple. It was built by the Muisca as a place to worship their sun god, Sué, and was the most important religious temple for the Muisca people. In his quest to find the legendary city of El Dorado, Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada burned down the temple in 1537.
In 1942, Eliécer Silva Celis unearthed a Muisca cemetery, and soon after found the remains of the Sun Temple. He decided to reconstruct it based on his findings. It stands 18m high and every year on December 22, the sun enters the temple and hits the central pillar.
Also on the grounds are examples of malokas and bohíos, which show how the Muisca people lived, as well as a statue of Sugamuxi (d. 1539), the last iraca (ruler and high priest) of Sogamoso.
Finca San Pedro
We stayed a few nights in Sogamoso at Finca San Pedro. It’s a small family-owned hostel on the outskirts of the city. There are shared and private rooms.
Our private room was in the main house and was actually once the master bedroom. The room is nice and has it’s own sitting area and bathroom, but the bed was extremely uncomfortable.
We weren’t too happy with the system, either. As we were guests in the main house, the first morning we walked directly out of the house through the kitchen to the breakfast area and were scolded for it. We didn’t think it was necessary to walk outside the front door and all the way around the property to go have breakfast. Also, the other guests who were staying in the hostel (some for over a month) made us feel like we were invading their space when we went to the shared kitchen to heat up our dinner. The owner, however, was a very friendly woman who has traveled all over the world and had some wonderful stories to share with us.
As for food, we called and had a pizza delivered to the hostel one night. It wasn’t memorable and they screwed up the order, anyway.
Getting There
To get to Sogamoso, you can take a bus directly from Bogotá or Tunja. The bus terminal is near the center of town.
