Chipata

Chipatá lies in the eastern Colombian Andes, on the routes between the Magdalena valley and the Muisca highlands. Indigenous communities inhabited this mountain country before the Spanish expedition of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada arrived in 1537. Its chaplain celebrated a Mass at Chipatá during the ascent from the river valley, an episode remembered in the early history of Spanish conquest. Nearby Vélez became one of the first colonial towns in the region.