Qualla: La Calera, Cundinamarca

La Calera, Cundinamarca: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jennler1, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name is a Latin root that means to burn, to blaze, to flame. Calera is what you call a kiln where stone is burned into lime. The town called La Calera, eighteen kilometers east of Bogota, is named for what it did to rocks for four centuries. Indigenous Muisca workers brought limestone down from the Teusaca mines to kilns scattered across the Sabana de Bogota. The Spanish came and took over the kilns. Then came cement, cemented onto the town's identity so thoroughly that when the Samper cement company shut down and left in 1998, La Calera did not know what else to do.

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Image: Jennler1 | CC BY-SA 3.0

La Calera, Cundinamarca: Teusaca Before La Calera

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit --F3rn4nd0 17:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC), CC BY 2.5. Before any Spaniard saw this valley, the Muisca people lived here in three communities: Teusaca near the present town, Suaque, and Tunjaque in what is now the Mundo Nuevo area. The Muisca were one of the four great civilizations of pre-Columbian South America, organized in a conf...

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Image: --F3rn4nd0 17:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC) | CC BY 2.5

La Calera, Cundinamarca: The Haciendas of the Clavijos

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HaHa Calabacita, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Clavijo family held La Calera for generations. The story begins with Cristobal Ruiz Clavijo, a conquistador who served under Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, the founder of Bogota. His descendants built and expanded the Hacienda La Calera, whose lime kilns gave the future town its...

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Image: HaHa Calabacita | CC BY-SA 4.0

La Calera, Cundinamarca: Cement That Employed Three Thousand

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Santiago Zuluaga, CC0. La Calera's economy centered on a single company for most of the twentieth century. Samper Cement employed roughly three thousand people directly and indirectly, a massive share of the town's population. The limestone that had been burned into lime for centuries was now fed into ...

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Image: Santiago Zuluaga | CC0

La Calera, Cundinamarca: The Water Towns Above the City

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa), CC BY-SA 2.0. La Calera sits between 2,600 and 3,000 meters above sea level, crossed by the Cruz Verde ridge of the Eastern Andes. The Teusaca River begins in the Laguna del Verjon near Bogota's famous Monserrate hill and flows north through the municipality to meet the Bogota River at Sopo. T...

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Image: Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) | CC BY-SA 2.0

La Calera, Cundinamarca: Weekends from Bogota

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peterfitzgerald, CC BY-SA 3.0. For residents of Bogota, La Calera is the nearest place to escape. The drive takes roughly forty minutes from Chapinero via Avenida Circunvalar and the Los Patios Toll, climbing east over the Eastern Hills through a gap in the ridge. The town itself sits in a valley of clubs, cou...

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Image: Peterfitzgerald | CC BY-SA 3.0

La Calera, Cundinamarca: Who Came From Here

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ridiculopathy, CC0. Israel Corredor, the cyclist who represented Colombia internationally, was born in La Calera. So was Amadeo Rodriguez Vergara, a Conservative general who served as a congressman from Bogota and fought in the 1932-1933 war against Peru over border territories. Rodriguez Vergara be...

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Image: Ridiculopathy | CC0