Curious places in Colombia
4 articles, each fact-checked and tied to a spot you can stand on.
Dozens of small, golden figurines from a pre-Columbian culture look uncannily like modern aircraft, sparking a debate between archaeologists and ancient astronaut theorists.
Ancient lava flows that erupted at over 1,600°C. Temperatures impossible in today's cooler mantle. These komatiites formed when Earth's interior was hundreds of degrees hotter. Geological time capsules from a younger, more violent planet.
A village in Colombia founded by escaped slaves in the early 1600s that became the first legally free Black town in the Americas. Its isolation preserved Palenquero, a creole language mixing Spanish and Bantu that is still spoken today by about 3,000 people.
Volcanic mudflows called lahars that travel 100+ kilometers at highway speeds. More deadly than lava itself. In 1985, a small eruption melted 10% of the ice cap, sending lahars that buried Armero and killed 23,000 people in their sleep.
Prefer coordinates over lists? Every place here is a pin on the map.
Explore on the map