Literary Route: Bogotá closer to the sky of Macondo

❖ The route begins in front of  Casa de la Moneda (Mint Museum),  on Calle 11, where you can hear how ‘Gabo’ arrived in the city. "I could't write in the cold," you hear in an audio recording as the tram begins its route. It turns at the Luis Ángel Arango, library, goes down Carrera 5ª, and continues along Calle 12, behind the Palace of Justice, a few steps from Bolívar Square, where institutional heart of the country beats today. According to records from the Digital Library of Bogotá (Biblioteca Digital de Bogotá), this was the location of the Bogotá Tram's main station at the time. There, between stories of the tram and poetry recitals, visitors begin to feel the pulse of a city that inspired much of the writer's work.

Let's remember that García Márquez came to live in Bogotá to study law at the National University at the age of 19, he turned 20 in our city, but from Zipaquirá he graduated from high school at the age of 19.

When you reach San Miguel del Príncipe Street, the route turns onto Carrera 2a: a street lined with some of Bogotá's oldest houses. This street leads directly to Chorro de Quevedo,  where it is said that the city was born, and where we go down Calle 11 and then turn onto Carrera 3a. The route takes us along the Environmental Axis to Journalists' Park,  a meeting place for Bogotá's intellectuals, which was named after him in 2014. There is also talk about the importance of Café El Molino, an iconic place where writers, artists, and thinkers used to meet and, as he so aptly mentioned, the perfect place to listen to the evening gathering with the great master León de Greiff and the most famous writers of the time, an experience he recounts in his book Living to Tell the Tale.

❖ Passing by Avenida Jiménez #4-49, the former headquarters of El Espectador newspaper, we are reminded of ‘Gabo’s’ return to Bogotá in 1954, when he was hired by this newspaper with which he was always linked. During this time, he became the country’s first film critic. It was also here that he published, in chapters, The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, the report that earned him national recognition. 

The route continues to Universidad de los Andes and then to Quinta de Bolívar, located at Calle 21 #4A-30. Here, we pause for a moment and hear that much of the Nobel Prize winner’s inspiration to write The General in His Labyrinth was born here. This book recounts the final years and events of Simón Bolívar’s life in Bogotá. The streets we walk today were once traversed by the old streetcars in 1947—the same ones García Márquez would ride on Sundays, reading poetry and dreaming of the stories he would one day write..

After visiting the Quinta de Bolívar, the tram gets back on its way to Monserrate,  where the guide brings to life the impact of the Bogotazo—the social uprising that happened on April 9, 1948, in Bogotá, following the assassination of political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. The event triggered a wave of violence and marked a turning point in both Colombia’s political history and the young writer’s life. It marked him forever, and he returned to the Caribbean. “That day I realized that the country had split in two,” he later wrote in Living to Tell the Tale.

Then we passed by the Church of Our Lady of Egypt and walked along Calle 9 and Carrera 2. Along the way, we kept listening to stories and anecdotes about Gabo in the big capital: his experiences, how he found love, and his family. Even though he sometimes had to leave for work or other reasons, he always returned to the cold Bogotá of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s — the city that welcomed him when he was just 16, saw him grow up, and which he loved deeply.

The story keeps you engaged until you reach the next stop: the Enchiladas restaurant. From its terrace, with a cup of coffee and an empanada bogotana—the Nobel Prize winner’s favorite snack—you can take in the city while reflecting on Gabo’s work and legacy. There, you can talk about astronomy and literature, look up at the sky as he once did, and realize, once and for all, that Macondo isn’t as far away as we might think: it’s also in Bogotá, in its streets, in its memory, and in this tour that invites you to walk the city through the eyes of a young man who, without knowing it, was preparing to change world literature.

At this point in the route, the guides explain how a star and an exoplanet were named Macondo and Melquíades in 2019, as a tribute to the writer and his literary universe.

Exploring Bogotá through this route is not just about following in the footsteps of a young Gabo: it’s about sensing that the city itself was also a muse and a protagonist. Stories aren’t born out of thin air; they come from the streets, the corners, the cafés, and the memories.
 

Other places visited or evoked:
❖ Former headquarters of HJCK Radio Station
📍 Address: Calle 17 #4-43
🔹 Description: HJCK, known as “El Mundo en Bogotá” (The World in Bogotá), was founded in 1950 and became a cultural landmark in Colombia. It initially broadcast on 1160 AM, later moving to 89.9 FM. In 2005, it became an internet-only radio station. 

❖ Alternativa Magazine and QAP News
🔹 Description: On February 18, Alternativa was launched in Colombia, a biweekly left-wing magazine that, over six years, marked an era in the country’s journalism. It was founded by Gabriel García Márquez, Bernardo García, Enrique Santos Calderón, Antonio Caballero Holguín, and Orlando Fals Borda. 

In its first edition, he published Chile, el golpe y los gringos (Chile, the coup, and the gringos), his first major journalistic article in 13 years—a militant journalism chronicle—an edition with 40,000 copies.

It is released of the first authorized edition of Ojos de perro azul (Eyes of a Blue Dog), an incomplete collection of his early short stories written between 1947 and 1954..

In 1991, QAP News went on the air, where ‘Gabo’ joined the project intending to be an independent media in a country where the press is traditionalist, conservative, and very close to the government.

In 1998, he acquired Cambio Magazine, another independent publication. Alongside other partners, he pursued his dream of producing high-quality investigative journalism with his vision of “doing the best journalism in the world.”