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Sogamoso is a city in Boyacá, Colombia. The city itself isn’t very impressive, although it’s central to several smaller towns worth visiting.
Introduction to Sogamoso
The name of Sogamoso derives from either Suamox or Sugamuxi. Suamox was the city’s original name in Chibcha, while Sugamuxi (d. 1539) was the last ruler and high priest of the sacred City of the Sun. The city was the location of the Sun Temple, an important place of pilgrimage for the indigenous Muisca people who inhabited the region.
Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada (1509-1579) arrived in Suamox in August 1537. According to historians, two of his soldiers, Miguel Sánchez de Llerena (1518-1601) and Juan Rodríguez Parra, went to loot the Sun Temple in the middle of the night and accidentally set it on fire.
After the fire, Sugamuxi was baptized in the Catholic Church and given the name Alonso. Land was distributed among the indigenous people and Spaniards, and several chapels were built throughout the countryside.The first church was built in 1564, but the modern city of Sogamoso wasn’t laid out until 1777. It was officially founded on September 6, 1810.
Today, the economy in Sogamoso is centered around agriculture, the steel industry, and construction materials. As I mentioned earlier, there’s not much to see in the city.
Getting to Sogamoso
To get to Sogamoso, you can take a bus directly from Bogotá or Tunja. The bus terminal is near the center of town.
Where to Stay in Sogamoso
We used Sogamoso as a base to visit the several small towns nearby. In hindsight, we probably would have enjoyed staying in one of those towns.
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. As 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 entire 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.
Plaza de la Villa
Plaza de la Villa is the main plaza in Sogamoso. It was laid out by the Spaniards as a parade ground and crossroads to control the trade of the indigenous people with neighboring towns. The city’s public market was later installed there until it moved to Plaza 6 de Septiembre in 1942. Today, the plaza is surrounded by mostly modern buildings.
Monument to the Race
In the center of the plaza is the Monument to the Race (Monument a La Raza). It depicts four female figures, each symbolizing the origins of people who settled in Colombia: the Bering Strait, Oceania, the Viking countries, and Spain. They’re bowing down to a sun at the top of an 8-meter-high monolith. The monument was inaugurated on September 4, 1937, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Spaniards to the Sugamuxi Valley.
St. Martin of Tours Cathedral
The St. Martin of Tours Cathedral (Catedral San Martín de Tours) is also on the plaza. It sits exactly on the spot where the first church in Sogamoso was built in 1564. That church was rebuilt in 1836 after it became unstable due to earthquakes. The current church was built between 1917 and 1928 and was elevated to a cathedral on July 16, 1972.
The cathedral was designed in the Republican style and features a statue of St. Martin as well as a bell cast in 1897. The clock in one of the towers was donated by Silvestre Arenas. Inside is a large stained glass window and paintings depicting St. Martin of Tours, the Virgin of Morcá, and the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Mayor’s Palace
The building on the south side of the plaza was built in 1758 by Don Alfonso Romero as the Mayor’s Palace (Palacio del Corregidor). At that time, it held municipal offices, a police station, a prison, and even a bullring. In 1875, the first telegraph office in Sogamoso opened in the building. In 1955, the building was restored and expanded to include a courthouse, a cultural center, a conference room, and an auditorium that’s now a public library. The offices of the mayor moved to Plaza 6 de Septiembre in 1970.
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 (1914-2007). It’s located on the grounds of the sacred City of the Sun and includes a reconstruction of the Sun Temple. Adult admission is COP$15,000 (as of December 2024).
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, you can visit the reconstruction of the Sun Temple. It was built as a place to worship the sun god, Sué, and was the most important religious temple for the Muisca people. The original temple burned down in 1537, in the midst of Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada‘s (1509-1579) quest to find the legendary city of El Dorado.
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 18 meters high. 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 demonstrate how the Muisca people lived, as well as a statue of Sugamuxi (d. 1539), the last iraca (ruler and high priest) of Sogamoso.
