THE GARDEN

La Quinta was one of the favorite places of refuge and reflection of the Liberator because it reunited the simplicity to which he tended and the comfort that he had known from childhood.

The writer José Caicedo Rojas, who served as the amanuensis of the Liberator during his permanence in the Villa, remembered it in a story written in 1877, tittled “Memories of an old Colombian”:

Its contours were carpeted of green turf by where it descended the brook called El Boquerón, between colorful hills and slopes, solitaires and virgins. The house was surrounded by beautiful gardens and of strong trees (of which there are some today, such as a big walnut and leafy caper trees, cranberries, cherry trees, pines, all, without doubt, from Bolívar age) and in its shade there were, skillfully arranged, galleries covered with bindweeds, arbors and capricious ways; bathed, by anywhere, by abundant and pure waters, in marble fountains and jets. In the inner patio, a torrent lead by an atenor of six inches of caliber, fell, resoundingly, in a stone receiver, from a height of five feet, spreading in the whole house and gardens a calm and delicious rumor [...] In front of the entrance door was a huge circular pool where pretty aquatic birds swam happily around a beautiful white marble fountain.