La Macarena
Bohemian hillside neighborhood named for bullfighting's patron saint, ringing a historic Moorish-brick bullring.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to La Macarena in Bogotá opens in a church in Seville, with a carved Virgin whose silver teardrops made her the patron of bullfighters crossing themselves before facing the ring. It follows how that devotion crossed the ocean and shaped this Bogotá hillside once the neighborhood's own bullring went up in 1931, and tells of one devotee whose lavish tribute to her preceded his own death in the ring. You'll hear how the streets around the ring took her name in the years that followed. Walk the steep, art-lined streets past the cafes where painters once gathered.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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