The Forbidden Hills

The Ecological Police

One must join a hiking group or go with a guide plus a large number of people in order to avoid becoming one of the victims mugged in those hills. There is a part of the National Police Dept. dedicated to making walking in some of Colombia’s hills safer. They’re called the Policia Ecológica.

What about them hills?

What had I been missing? A spontaneous Monday holiday walk through a neighborhood I had never been to before, high in the hills, brought us to the brink of the forest, so, we just kept going up. A leisure-time walk among the greens, browns and yellows, inching at a snail’s pace away from the sights, sounds and smells of the city. In these dry days, the sun is hotter and the air thicker.

The foreign invasion

We were surrounded by eucalyptus. There’s pretty much nothing but eucalyptus in the first part of the cerros. When the colonizers realized, back in their days, that they were not doing such a good thing by chopping down all those trees they decided to start a reforestation project. However, to the native plants’ and trees’ demise, the Europeans got nostalgic and chose to plant something from back home, their dear eucalyptus and pine trees. These species eventually choked out the native species and are what dominate the front rows of Bogotá’s eastern hills. Their thin, moon-shaped leaves cover the rudimentary trails making for some slippery stepping, unless you remember to clear the leaves away.

Perspective

One of my favorite things is seeing the shade of a cloud for what it is: the shadow of a cloud. From those crispy hills, under the sharp azure you can see the puffy black forms float and slide over the urban savannah. It’s a wonderful change of perspective. If you like to walk in the woods, and you’re in Bogotá and you prefer to not run the risk by jetting up into the cerros orientales on your own, definitely give it a whirl with one of the many outing groups: “Caminantes y Harmonía”, “Sal si puedes”, etc.