HOTEL PORTÓN DE OCETÁ

Our hotel is in Monguí (population 5,000), a charming colonial town famous for its beautiful colonial architecture, its arts and crafts, and its numerous soccer ball factories.

 

Just outside town is a spectacular zone known as a páramo (an alpine tundra ecosystem found only in a few countries of South and Central America). This is a great place for mountain hiking and is full of stunning rock formations, pristine waterfalls and ponds, and above all forests of exotic plants known as frailejones as you can see in the photgraph at the top of this page (taken on a dayhike around the hotel). These flowering shrubs can flourish for up to 400 years at an altitude of 4,000 meters (13,120 feet) and give the landscape an otherworldly atomosphere.

 

As a guest at our hotel, you will be have easy access to the páramo at our doorstep by following the signs on a well-marked trail, but we highly recommend hiring a local guide.

 

We offer guide services to explore the Ocetá páramo for a flat rate of only 50,000 COP (19 EUR or $24 USD) for 1 to 15 people. We also offer guides of the town to get to know all of the points of touristic interest such as the churches, the colonial plaza, and the Franciscan monastery dating from the 16th century. On the main square there is a magnificient church (the Basílica Menor) in which one can see an extensive collection of colonial paintings of the renowned santafereño artist Vásques de Arce y Ceballos.

 

Since the year 1930, Monguí has been a center for the production of balls (particularly soccer balls), both hand-sewn balls and ones with vulcanized rubber. The production is carried out by dozens of small family businesses which in total produce around 300,000 balls per year. The monguiseños are very proud of their work and enjoy showing off these factories to interested tourists.

 

Monguí is also conveniently near Lake Tota (with its white sandy beach), the well-preserved colonial town of Aquitania with its beautiful church, and the larger city of Sogamoso.