To travel through the Amazon region is interesting because it is the greater ecological reserve in the world. It is located between three countries: Colombia, Brazil and Peru. This Region is the biggest of Colombia because it covers the 35% of country. The great majority of territory the Amazon region is water. The weather is rainy jungle. It has many vegetables and animals species. In the Amazon region, there are many tribes which live in harmony with de nature. Besides this, there are unimaginable places with the more exotic landscapes that you have never seen. It must also be said that the Amazon region has the more strange dishes with infinite tastes and smells. For those reasons, the Amazon region has been considered the lung of the world.
In the Amazon region, there are around 60.000 species of trees which can measure until 100 meters of height. The most exotic plant of the Region is the Victoria Regia lotus. It is the biggest lotus of the world. Their petals can bear the weight of a baby. The most important river in this Region is the Amazonas. It feeds the principals ravines and rivers of the Amazon region. Regarding to the Region’s fauna, there are many kinds of
animals, such as: mammals, birds, insects, fishes, and stuff like that. Nevertheless, the most lovely animal is the pink dolphin. This color is amazing and it is one of the few intelligent animals in the world. These are some of the principal reasons why the Amazon region is a paradise.
The indigenous populations and the foods are two very important characteristics in the Amazon region. In the first place, there are indigenous populations such as: Nukaks, Huitotos, Yaguas, Tucanos, Ticutas, and Camsás. They have achieved to keep their customs and traditions due to the jungle. Regarding to the food, the indigenous populations base it on several kinds of fish, which are cooked in different ways such as: fried, stew, in soap, or others ways. Also, they eat flour of yucca because it is essential in their diet as well as the aguadepanela and the chicha of plantain. One of the traditional meals is the big arepa made with flour of yucca and the wheat bread. As well, they eat exotic fruits. One of the especial dishes is the stew of turtle with potatoes, yucca, tomatoes, and onions. Other dishes are the bolitas of piracurú; it is a kind of fish. In my view, these foods and dishes sound nice but I will only try some of them.
In the Amazon region there are a lot of tourist places. These are the most representative:
The Leticia capital
In that place, it is possible to take river tours to see piranhas and alligators. For this activity, it is necessary to use the guide service. The guides catch the alligators to entertain the tourists.
The Tarapoto lake
In the Tarapoto lake you can see the Vitoria Regia lotus and the pink dolphins. It is an amazing place.
The Amacayacú national park
It is a natural reserve with a lot of fauna and flora. It is made of different kinds of trees. In this park the Ticunas indigenous populations live.
The Cahuinari park:
In this place, you can see different rivers, ravines, trees, animals, plants, and flowers. For all activities, it is necessary to use de guide service.
By Deisy Bueno
Maybe, these stories really happened or can happen, but nobody seems to have directly witnessed the event. The urban myth is true in a parallel dimension, an identical plan to ours but in this plan, the improbable become probable. Sometimes, the urban myths are collective desires, a hope, a fear; sometimes a premonition. Other times, a makeshift explanation or a moral lesson to be read between the lines.
It is very difficult, most of the time, to trace the origins of these stories circulating with status of legends. These appear and are repeated not only in oral tradition, but also in the media. It is likely that some of these stories are made intentionally with a particular goal such as discrediting someone or getting commercial benefits. Other times, they are arise from a story that is deformed from the original one or they are simply a deliberate fiction to be transmitted and takes the value of a story “real”.
Now, the question in why are they called urban legends, wich contain patently irrational elements, become a credible narrations. Indeed though
not overly fantastic, many of these stories are at least striking one to their improbability. It seems after like after a saturation effect of information through traditional sources, they open and informal spaces where the story of an anonymous witness, with whom we would not have another link different from anonymity, is accepted through the benefit of doubt. “the strange thing is not necessarily impossible or improbable, and thus it defines the gateway through which the contemporary mythological story enters.
Thus, an urban legend performs the function of giving the subject the possibility to express a personal opinion, perhaps a fear suspicion. You may find a shortcut for an explanation that is too complex, too sophisticate. The myth is an expression as old as the culture and our minds, our fears and desires tolerate its structure. With new formats, adapted to the time and it remains expression itself we life. Around the world there are a lot of urban myths some of them are: •
Walt Disney died in 1966 to be due to cancer and he was freezed to bring him back to life when the science get the cure.
•
Paul McCartney the Beatles bassist died in a car accident in 1966 and he was replaced by a double.
•
people have found human pieces, like fingers, nail fingers and stuff like that inside Coca-Cola's cans
Also in Colombia there are a lot of urban legends some of them are:
•
Death in the microwave:
A girl who was medicine student one
day went to a party with her university friends. This girl drank a lot that day and finally she went to sleep together with a friend that she liked. Next day the girl wake up and even with the hangover, she remembered that her mother was coming back from work at 6AM. If she isn't at home before her mother arrives, she will have a big trouble. The girl got up and went as soon as it was possible to her house. She arrived to her home and cleaned the house quickly. After that she took a shower but also she washed her hair and it would be too suspicious to her mother. Then the girl looked for a hair dryer but she didn’t find it. So desperate because her mother will arrive in a few minutes, the girl had an idea; it was try to dry her hair with the microwave. The girl puts her hair inside the microwave and turn on it in the maximum level. After a few minutes her hair was dry. Then her mother arrived and she didn’t notice anything strange. The girl went to the university and when she was climbing the stairs she felt too dizzy, even for the hangover cause the alcohol she drank last night. Suddenly the girl collapsed on the floor, she was died.
The doctors make autopsy and they couldn’t find any reason to the sudden death. But the girl’s younger sister told his mother that the girl used the microwave to dry her hair. Then the doctors made autopsy to the girl's brain and they found that her brain was cooked!.
•
Net of Tunnels under Bogota: There are a net of tunnels under Bogota. According with the tradition, the tunnels join the Catedral with San Francisco Church. The congress with Narino Palace and this with the battalion of Martires square. Of course, nobody has checked this legend.
•
Losing a Kidney: This is a typical urban legend in all Colombia, it says that a guy was in party and there he met a very good looking girl. When the guy was so drunk, the girl proposed him to go to other place to continue the party. Next day the guy appear inside a bathtub filled with ice and in the mirror was written “call to emergencies, you just have a couple of hours to live” then the guy calls to emergencies and the person who answer ask him that look his back in the mirror. The guy looks and sees a scar on this lower back. After that, the person in the phone asks the guy to go inside the tube again until an ambulance picks him up because he lost a kidney. This is an urban myth very heard and known in big cities like Bogota, Cali and Medellin. Is this urban myth true? It’s hard to tell because nobody has been witness; just people know this story happened to friend of a friend. This urban myth tries to teach us that you shouldn’t meet with strange people when you go out to a party or night clubs.
•
Subliminal messages: Singers like Juanes and shakira are accused of included in their songs subliminal messages. For example, in the Shakira ´s song “Inevitable” listen absolutely clear full sentences of blasphemies against God and the angels, as well as messages of demon worship. to listen the messages is essential to reverse the tape; compact discs (CDs) are recorded on tape and then invest. The phrases like "hurt me ... I will be Blood... I thank Asmodeus” are in this song.
Asmodeus is a demon of the biblical book of Tobias who killed the 7 first husband of Sarah, daughter of Raquel.
Her fame and fortune are product of this type of message, the legend says. A few people believe that affirmations but you can prove and take a position about it.
•
Cannibal Restaurant in La Calera:
The rumor, back in the 80s,
about the existence of an establishment in which, behind closed doors the secret recipe never disclosed with satisfied customers, delicious dishes were prepared by the chef whit human bodies.
It is assumed that the truth came out when one of the customers
found in their plate a fragment of a finger. It is a very improbable myth because exist a law and the health monitoring organizations must to visit the establishment to given them a license.
•
Tattoos of cream Helado was contained addictive dose of cocaine: Another myth of 80th. It said at parents of young children that tattoos stickers as promotional contented in the packages of cream Helado, had been poisoned by toxic and addictive substances that were inoculated by the dermatology pathway.
Probably the competition companies created this horrible story and wanted to tarnish the image of the company but fortunately did not happen and it is now a more solid national firms in Colombia. The Colombian people are very special and anything can happen, some stories looking as fiction but really occurred and some times the imagination appear and building amazing myths. You need to be prepared to heard both and care yourself in any situation.
By Liliana. Jessica. Fredy Sosa
In Colombia there are a huge number of touristic places to know, but if we want to live a really unforgettable experience we should visit the most historic and exotic sites of this beautiful land. If you want to visit historic places, we could head to Cartagena and there you can go sightseeing the San Felipe’s Castle, Rosario’s Islands, the City Walls, the Old City, etc. For example, the San Felipe Castle was built in 1536, called originally San Lazaro Castle, it was rebuilt in 1657 and named San Felipe. It was built in order to watch for any attempt of invasion to the city, and by this way be able to response quickly to any attack. An interesting data: the San Felipe Castle is said to be one of biggest buildings built in the American Continent, and nowadays, it is considered Historical Heritage, as well as the City Walls, and they’re the oldest structure in our country. Another historic place you can visit is La Candelaria in Bogota D.C. This is the historical and cultural core in the capital city, and it is one of the most preserved across Latin America. It has attracted many artists, foreigners, writers and intellectuals, whose have filled the sector with theaters, universities, besides you can find antiques houses of gridded windows, carved gates and stone roads, a very beautiful and colorful place where you can appreciate the old Bogota and how this massive metropolis was in its very beginning.
You could go to San Agustin’s archaeological park, which has been declared Historical Heritage. In this you can see a lot of unbelievable stone figures and amazing stone tombs made by the natives of the San Agustin’s culture. The park is located near San Agustin town, and it extends to San Jose de Isnos, Saladoblanco and Pitalito, and the archeological remaining includes huge stone statues and stone reliefs, funeral mounds, groundings, roads and embankments. These monumental sites and the diversity and richness of its representations talk to us about rituals, procreation, transformations, animal cults and the strength of dead after life. Or you also can go to Santa Marta’s Sierra Nevada. This one is a complex of snowy mountains and the Tairona Park within it. The Tairona Park is a really nice place to visit, the beaches are beautiful, the landscape is stunning and you can visit the remaining descendants of the Tairona, a Pre-Columbian tribe that habited centuries ago. Within the park we can find reconstructed ruins of the prehistoric settlement, which are a sample of the sophisticated stone architecture and engineering, which includes terraces, contention walls, roads, bridges, stairs and canals. In the settlement of the Tairona Park, long before a number of Indians habited the coast and the snow Mountains, but after a century of resistance, the Indians were defeated in the XVII century by the Spanish, whose fire their villages, agricultural areas and their leaders were executed, and finally the jungle covers all vestiges of the old settlements.
By Andres and Edilson.
Few places have a lot of symbolic value in this country, like the Walls of Cartagena, The Bridge of Boyacá and the Central Cemetery Bogota. Usually, It´s considered a space for religious practices. It is also a center of mythical creation, resulting in an imaginary own social sectors who visit it and appropriate it to their rituals and celebrations.
Most people think that the cemetery is the place where the souls live, and it concentrating power and mysteries. The idea in these places is the use of this power and people want to benefit of anyway. This is the foundation that encourages magical thinking and produces some rituals like carry flowers to the tombs. Communication with the spirits is shaped by rituals, but there are some rooms where people believe their own celebrations and encourage others to imitate them. Usually, women are who foster devotion to certain tombs and they tell how to enforce the rules of the ritual. In
this context of religious and folk saints, rituals magic arise like Leo Kopp, and Julio Garavito. Below there is a little description about these myths.
Leo Kopp Leo Kopp was born on August 14th in 1858 in Germany. He immigrated to Colombia during the Second World War. When he arrives to Colombia, he creates the Bavaria Company in the neighborhood San Diego in Bogota in front of the National Museum. He was famous because he was very generous, and he always gave a job to. people that needed it. Even currently he is named "The Saint of work". He died in 1927, and over his tomb there is a sculpture in honor to him. It´s in position like waiting for something.
The story tells that one day Mrs. Maria, from the perseverance neighborhood of Bogotá, was very desperate for their economic situation. She went to Central cemetery to visit her husband´s grave, but when she was there, she saw the tomb of Mr. Kopp, and she felt attracted to the sculpture over the tomb of Mr. Kopp and she got close
to clean the
figure´s ear and she whispered your problems, to looking for help. Since that day, this story became very common between all people many people go
to the tomb of Mr. Kopp and they whisper to the ear to ask for favors or help related to their economic situation or to ask for a job that is the main reason. According to a lot of people Mr. Kopp is very miraculous.
Julio Garavito The tradition began about ten years ago, when a woman named Salome died. She was a Lady of the neighborhood Santa Fe that helped
a
lot
of
prostitutes
and
the
neighborhood transvestites. Her body was buried next to Julio Garavito´s tomb, then his tomb became request Center. Years later, the body was exhumed and consequently believers moved their petitions to tomb of Garavito, who was famous and his photo came out in the bills of twenty thousand pesos.
Some prostitutes arrived at about three in the afternoon, with blue flowers. When they arrived, they located around the tomb and each began to whisper lord´s prayer and avemarías intermingled with some written phrases. Then, they took their bills of twenty thousand pesos and they rubbed it over the tomb, as if the energy of the body of Garavito got into the notes to multiply the money in the week. This story is very common between people that work in the Santa Fe neighborhood and according to them, always they have great profits during week.
In conclusion, new cults appear with the passage of time. Other persons saints of
are named
miraculous, and devotees improvise
new rituals and offerings.
The reason is that
very important people of our country are buried here
like the General Francisco the Paula Santander, Rafael Pombo, Luis
Carlos Galan, and the General Rojas Pinilla between others.
By Luisa Pedraza and David Parra
Nowadays globalization has allowed us to know easier and faster different kind of music produced around the world, even in the most distant places. Accordingly, young people in our country, who want to explore different tendencies to tropical music, have been heavily influenced by Anglo Music. This influence can be next to you. It is common to find young people, even in your family, who want to express themselves in a foreign language.
The influence described above has created a new musical trend. A good example of this is the existence of bands like “The Hall Effect”, “The Mills”, and “V for Volume”. They are very popular among young people, and their success is unbelievable. Other groups have decided to venture into the music market with a repertoire that combines English and Spanish songs. In any case, this is also an expression of this new trend. English has become a kind of universal language, especially for kids. In this article, we are going to introduce a brief biography of the most important bands of the new wave and some of their music.
THE HALL EFFECT
BIOGRAPHY The Hall Effect exploded onto the Colombian rock scene in 2006. A four piece indie band, their compelling fusion of rocking riffs and sonic inventiveness, soon gained a fervent following amongst fans and key media.
The band, who sing in English, released their debut album, ‘Aim at Me’, in 2007, on their own independent label. The singles, ‘Become’, ‘Aim At Me’, ‘Unpure’ and ‘Trip Dog’ were heavily rotated at radio. MTV was an early supporter of The Hall Effect with the result that the video for ‘Aim At Me’ reached the number 1 spot in Latin America. Because of that although they sing in english, MTV nominated them in 2007 as BEST INDEPENDENT ARTIST.
The Hall Effect are widely hailed as one of the best live rock acts on the continent, and it was no great surprise that they were asked to support international superstars Muse and Gwen Stefani. The band have won numerous awards, "best rock band", "best album", "best video", among many
others...The Hall Effect have international ambitions which has brought them to London. INFLUENCE - Muse - Maroon 5 - Audioslave - Blur - Incubus - Jet - The White Stripes THE BAND IN MEDIA The Hall Effect: A British band that seems to Bogota With English lyrics and a genre of rock "soft", The Hall Effect in Radioactive not only sounded but also had public acceptance. .. Their music is something known as "New Brit Rock", which is some mixture of rock, alternative and pop, according to themselves. It has musical quality, a good singer (as genus) that sings in English and their sound is very typical in the Colombian context. Perhaps because the band that is easily confused with any English speakers, but is from Colombia.
El Tiempo.com / Blogs / Rocker Park January 12, 2007
Widely hailed as one of the best live acts on the continent and having won numerous awards and accolades, The Hall Effect will high the name of rock that occurs in Colombia. Under the guidance of renowned producer Phil Manzanera, the foursome is preparing to showcase the best of his repertoire in the best clubs in London and Paris
September 29, 2009 THE MILLS
BIOGRAPHY The band was formed in 2007, achieving positive recognition by critics. Manager and executive producer: Roberto Andrade Dirak RECORDINGS 2008 The group released the singles "Before I Go to Sleep" and "Let It Go", while the event were chosen to Colombia Fest, where they shared stage with REM and The Mars Volta
2009 Presented Babel, their first album. Mixed and mastered in the U.S. by Boris Milan and Mike Couzzi. This production has spread the song "Open fire" INFLUENCE - U2 - The Killers - Coldplay - Radiohead - Stereophonics - The verve - Snow Patrol - Incubus THE BAND IN MEDIA "A leaden quintet that its style is so intact British influences of U2, Radiohead, Keane, Coldplay and Snow Patrol among others. This band has found the grace to combine the tinkling of guitars, guitars accompanying denser, a rhythmic support lilting melodies and harmonious vocals that lead to sticky and effective "- Daniel Homes - Colombia Rock al Parque Director The Mills and its new theme: Let It Go
This song is available for listening on their myspace. With The Mills also had a chance to remember the sounds they pleased the nineties, recalling stories of the passage of Caifanes and other bands for our country
http://radionica.gov.co V FOR VOLUME
BIOGRAPH V for Volume doesn’t believe in religions, but it does believe in accidents. It lived a borrowed life. It got the winner ticket to the lottery of hell, but rejected it. It never asked for perfection. It understood that loosing was elevation, though nobody likes to loose. It lost all control. It was born like many others with a life plan, but it got lost. Once there were 4 guys and a girl hanging out in the same places, playing music in the same joints, meeting and dating the same people, though they came upon each other, it took a decade to put all the pieces together and team up for excellence. Out of this casualty they came up with 20 songs in a year-period, but only 10 of them made it. Due to this very same accident, they came across a producer who took them to a new level, they quit their jobs, and they
found all the values of a dysfunctional family: Rock, a little of great mafia movies, Bruce Lee, Clint Eastwood, Chuck Norris, Jack Daniel’s, metal, a some fight club, the urge of hurting and then licking the wounds from authors like Ballard or Nick Cave, and a lot of attitude on stage. V for Volume is formed in Bogota, Colombia in 2008 when 4 friends decide to get together and play the music they love. A lot of new sounds inspire them; rock, indie, pop, you name it. After attending a show where they saw Maria Jose as the lead singer of a metal act, they decide that she would be the perfect frontwoman for the band and V for Volume gets born. The live show is full of power inspired by the hardcore/metal background of everyone in the band without compromising the pop ethics and aesthetics and after writing 10 songs they ended up working with Mateo Camargo (from the USA band Madina lake). Young reader: We invite you to listen music of these bands. This is a good way to practice you English and support national talent.
By Johnny and Oscar