Bucaramanga: the city of parks in the Colombian mountains

Known as the 'city of parks' for its numerous urban green spaces, Bucaramanga remains the starting point for the Chicamocha Canyon, one of the world's largest.

The center, celebrated for its numerous parks among the Colombian mountains, can be comfortably visited by taxi or local bus.

The García Rovira Park, the city's main historic plaza, is surrounded by colonial buildings and the metropolitan cathedral.

A short walk away, the El Prado neighborhood, with its early twentieth-century Republican villas, remains one of the city's best-preserved historic residential areas.

Heading inland, you reach the Chicamocha Canyon, the world's second-largest canyon after the Grand Canyon, traversable by scenic cable car.

As evening arrives, the Cabecera neighborhood animates with restaurants and cafés in the city's more modern area.

The Chicamocha Canyon, extending over two hundred twenty-seven square kilometers, is often described as the world's second largest canyon, crossed by one of South America's longest cable cars.

Bucaramanga is called the 'city of parks' for its unusual abundance of tree-filled plazas in the historic center, an urban planning legacy dating to Spanish colonial city planning.