Barichara is the kind of town that makes people use superlatives, and for once they are mostly justified. Founded in the early eighteenth century on a ledge above the Suárez river canyon in Santander, it has kept its colonial streets almost intact: whitewashed houses with red-tile roofs, wooden doors and balconies, and pavements of pale stone that glow in the evening light. The name is thought to mean a place of rest in the language of the old Guane people, and the town lives up to it. With about four thousand people, it is small enough to cross on foot in a few minutes.
The sandstone is the signature. The cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, a big, pale church built of local stone, stands on the main square, with its twin towers and a pair of dark old trees in front. The streets slope to the edges of the town, where the view opens across the canyon to the mountains, and artisans work in stone, leather and paper in small workshops. A walk along the old Camino Real to the village of Guane, an hour or two on cobbles through dry country, is the best way to feel the history.
The ride that brings you here crosses the Chicamocha Canyon, one of the deepest in the Americas, where the road clings to a wall of dry, eroded rock above a brown river. The bends are tight, the surface is mixed, and the trucks are slow, so patience is needed. The national park above the canyon has a cable car across the void. Down at river level the heat can be fierce, while up at Barichara the air is mild, so dress in layers.
San Gil, thirteen kilometres away, is the nearest large town and has fuel, supermarkets and repair shops, and is also Colombia's centre for rafting and paragliding. Barichara has small restaurants selling local food, including goat, and hormigas culonas, large fried ants that are a regional snack, which you may or may not try. The cobbles are steep and slippery, so walk the bike carefully if you must move it, and leave it parked. Evening is the best time, when the stone turns gold and the sound of church bells carries.