ANDES METROPOLIS

Although nearly on the Equator, the climate of Colombia's fast-growing capital is tempered by high altitude. Bogotá was founded by a conquistador who searched for the legendary El Dorado, a fantasy thought to be either a gilded man or a golden city. The legacy of that name lives on in the Museo del Oro, an important collection of golden artifacts. Bogotá's character is marked by extremes: splendid colonial and modern architecture on the one hand, shanty towns on the other. This capital of great wealth and crushing poverty looks out to a countryside stricken by civil war fueled by drugs and revolutionary politics.