Topaga

Topaga sits in a coal district and the seams here produce a hard, dense anthracite that takes a polish, so alongside the mining a craft grew of carving it - figures, nativity sets, ornaments and jewellery cut from coal and worked to a black shine, sold from workshops in the village. The church of San Miguel Arcangel holds a gilded wooden altarpiece and pulpit carved in the seventeenth century, elaborate out of all proportion to a village of this size, and a set of paintings; it is generally reckoned among the more remarkable rural church interiors in Boyaca. The village also has a small bridge and plaza. Mining continues in the surrounding hills and shapes the landscape and the local economy.

What you actually see

• Coal carved into ornaments - polished black, from the local anthracite.
• A gilded seventeenth-century altarpiece - out of scale for the village.
• Workshops selling the carvings - through the village.
• A working mining district - in the surrounding hills.

When to go

Year round. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The church is not always open - access may need arranging. The village is small and services are minimal. Mining shapes the surroundings and not attractively in places. There is no interpretation in English.

Nearby

Mongui is east; Sogamoso is west.