From Bogotá to Muzo, heading for the Boyacá region, famous for its emeralds

Leaving the city before daybreak

We leave at night, from central Bogotá, a few streets from the dealers' quarter where emeralds are traded. The choice of hour is not romantic: you have to swallow the altiplano early in order to tackle the mountain track in full daylight and reach Muzo before nightfall. At 2,640 meters, the city is cold, the streets still empty, and the road runs due north.

Two to three hours of asphalt

The first part is the easiest going. You leave Bogotá to the north and cross the savannah of the cundiboyacense altiplano, dual carriageways, pasture, eucalyptus and lagoons. This is where the 60 % of paved road is concentrated. The road climbs and drops between villages, skirts the great lakes of the high plain, then reaches Chiquinquirá.

Chiquinquirá is the real entry point to the emerald zone: it is the last town of any size before the mines, the last place to fill up, withdraw cash and stock up properly. Past that point, everything becomes more rudimentary.

The lagoons of the high plain, on the approach to Chiquinquirá.

Where the asphalt stops

After Chiquinquirá, you leave the main axis and the road changes in nature. The asphalt gives way to track, gravel, corrugations, potholes and narrow passages. These are the 40 % that are unpaved, and they begin here. In the dry season, it goes fine. In periods of heavy rain, typically April-May and October-November, the track becomes muddy and slippery, and the 4x4 is no longer a comfort but a necessity. Without one, you simply do not get through.

The drop into the green

This is the slowest and the most spectacular part. In a few dozen kilometers, you plunge from the cold altiplano (2,500 m) toward the hot climate of western Boyacá (around 800 m). The dry páramo becomes humid tropical forest. The road narrows to a ribbon cut into the cliff face, in hairpins, with sheer drops on one side and rock wall on the other. Then the vegetation closes in, the air thickens, and the valley opens onto a green that is dense and mineral at once.

The first valleys of the occidente de Boyacá, emerald country.

Muzo: and two hours more

Muzo appears at the bottom of the valley, a small mining town at around 800 meters, where the emerald is everywhere, from the conversations to the pavements and on to the entire economy of the village. But reaching Muzo is not reaching the mine. To get to the nearest working faces, you have to allow nearly two hours more of mountain track, often by motorbike when the 4x4 no longer gets through, on stretches where only a two-wheeler clears the last steep pitches.

And the big professional mines cannot be visited freely, access is negotiated, arranged and escorted. You do not turn up at a working face without having been invited.

A safe road, but not a naive one

The Muzo region has a violent history, widely documented: the "emerald wars" and the figure of Victor Carranza marked the end of the 20^th century. That period is over today and the area has settled down; the journey is made without trouble by day. But one fact remains: this route is known to be used by emerald buyers and dealers, and as such it attracts its share of covetous attention. Cases of theft and assault have occurred there.

The rule we apply is simple. Drive by day, stay discreet, keep stones and money out of sight, and be accompanied by local security as soon as you are carrying anything of value. This is the normal way the trade works on this ground.