Templo de San Agustin

This guide to Templo de San Agustin in Bogotá starts with Chiguachi, the small river the Muisca held sacred long before the Augustinian monks built this church on its bank in the sixteen forties. It follows the river's centuries as an open crossing along what is now Carrera Septima, including a stone bridge from around 1602 and the violent 1814 flood that swept away the nearby Lesmes bridge. You'll hear how city engineers first proposed burying the river in 1886, decades before anything changed. Listen for the sound of traffic overhead as you stand at what was once its bank.