The lagoon where mankind supposedly originated, the ancient Muisca trails and a variety of ecosystems are some of the magical attractions to be discovered at Iguaque Flora and Fauna Sanctuary, a sacred place for the Muisca culture. The information below will be very useful for your visit to Iguaque in the Colombian Andes.
Iguaque Flora and Fauna Sanctuary
This sanctuary is located on the eastern mountain range between the departments of Boyacá and Santander, in the jurisdiction of the municipalities of Sáchica, Chíquiza, Villa de Leyva and Arcabuco, covering an area of 67.5 km².
Community Interaction with Iguaque
The communities on the periphery of the Sanctuary are mostly made up of farming families dedicated to cattle ranching and agriculture.
In other cases, the main socioeconomic activity is tourism, as in the case of Villa de Leyva. Know more about Villa de Leyva in our entries The Paleontologist’s Perfect Fossil Trip in Villa de Leyva, Colombia and Discover the Natural Attractions of Villa de Leyva, Colombia.
In the rural population, especially in Chíquiza, there is a deep rootedness for the Muisca Culture, indigenous people that inhabited the Cundi-boyacense highlands. The same is their rootedness for the natural environment that the Sanctuary offers, and they continue to venerate the Iguaque Lagoon, as a sacred natural element of their Muisca Culture.
Ecosystems You Can Know in Iguaque
The sanctuary has four different ecosystems: Páramo and subpáramo, Paramo wetlands, High Andean forest and Andean forest.
Páramo and subpáramo
The lower limit of the páramo ecosystem is 3200 meters above sea level until it reaches 3800 masl. It is important to note that the structure of the páramo and subpáramo is very similar, mainly composed by grasslands, and the presence of Frailejones (Espeletia sp.).
Paramo wetlands
In the sanctuary you will see the following types of wetlands: lagoons, wet drains, and wet plains. These bodies provide water to the communities near the sanctuary.
High Andean forest
The Sanctuary has an anomaly that means that the differences between paramo and high Andean forest can only be clarified thanks to the plant species of each ecosystem, since there are points in the Sanctuary where they can have the same altitude.
Sara Colmenares holds a Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) in Ecology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a Master’s degree in Botany from the same institution. Her doctoral research focused on palm ecology in the Atlantic Forest, supported by the Rufford Foundation conservation grant.
A published researcher in the Brazilian Journal of Plant Physiology and a member of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), Sara has presented her work at international conferences across Latin America and beyond. She was awarded the COLCIENCIAS “Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda” fellowship, one of Colombia’s most competitive academic distinctions for young researchers.
Sara founded the Sula nature tourism brand in 2018, applying her scientific expertise to develop birding and wildlife experiences across Colombia’s six natural regions. Her fieldwork took her from the cloud forests of the Andes to the Amazon basin, the Pacific coast, and the plains of the Orinoquía. She combined deep ecological knowledge with firsthand experience to create content that is both scientifically accurate and practically useful for nature travelers.
She holds a B.Sc. in Biology from the National University of Colombia, where she also taught plant ecophysiology. She speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and English.