Sogamoso, the before and the now.

Sogamoso, the before and the now.

Firstly, I want to make it clear that I´m not going to talk about the city where I was born; I´m going to talk about the city where I grew up, because it was there where I spent most of my life; I was born in Bogotá 21 years ago, but I lived in Sogamoso since I was 1 year old until I was 17 years old; and my mom is still there, therefore I still go there often; so it is really the city that I know the best.
Sogamoso is a city located in the department of Boyacá, in the eastern part of the Valley of the Sun. It has a population of about 150.000 inhabitants and it is the second most populated city in Boyacá. Sogamoso is the provincial capital of Sugamuxi. Since the mid-twentieth century; it has been known as the City of the Sun and Steel, referring to the principal god of the Muiscas and the steel industry that develops around it. In economic terms; it is highlighted as a major industrial centre of Colombia and home to several national and international companies engaged in diverse sectors like steel and cement.
Two decades ago Sogamoso was a small city in all aspects of the word; there were no shopping centres; it was not too urbanized; its trade was beginning to emerge and it seemed more like a town than a city. I remember, when I was a girl, there were a lot of empty fields; now you can see a lot of buildings everywhere: apartment buildings, office buildings, commercial buildings; all the space that in other times was green grass for cows, is now urbanized. Today you can see a lot of shops of every kind, clothes shops, shoes shops, electro-domestics shops and toys stores. And also the large turnover of Sogamoso has enabled the establishment of large stores and warehouses such as Carrefour, Éxito, Surtimax, Olímpica, Pasadena and Almacén Tía, among others. And despite the global economic crisis, Sogamoso is making great strides in infrastructure development, as reflected in the construction of several shopping centres to serve the significant increase in population of the province. At the moment there are three major shopping malls in project and construction: IWOKA, SUAMOX, and MEDITROPOLIS 2, in response to the growing demand not only of the city but of the adjacent municipalities.
Due to increasing economic relations of the city, Sogamoso, along with the country's capital, Bogota, and the rest of the region, the government has launched a mega-project road dual carriageway (highway) Briceño-Tunja-Sogamoso. In reciprocal fashion, this contributes to greater economic development of Sogamoso.
The level of education is higher now than before; schools are better, new development programs for education and training of children and young people are being implemented; progress is something you can see everywhere. However, although Sogamoso now has four universities: Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia (U.P.T.C.), Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia (U.N.A.D.), Corporación Universitaria Remington y Politécnico Grancolombiano, and has increased the number of undergraduate and graduate courses, the level is insufficient to provide specialized education to the large number of students who completed their secondary education in the previous decade.
In the cultural aspect, we can also see how the city has changed, the current mayor of the city has made placed huge emphasis on this aspect during his governance; he has implemented new programs that include cultural artistic and theatrical performances, dance, music, ecological walks, guided visits to the archaeological park and museum SUAMOX where a reconstruction of the former Temple of the Sun is erected.
Sogamoso now has a large number of sporting and recreational venues such as: the football stadium, the indoor coliseum, the recreational parks in the north and south with skating rink, sports fields, green areas, parks for children, THE RAMADA recreational centre (of Comfaboy) that has a heated pool, two saunas, microfútbol field, volleyball court, tennis court, basketball court, extreme skating rink, tejo indoor court, game room, barbecue area, restaurant, cafeteria and an auditorium for academic events, social and business offerings. And many other projects are under construction including a complex with a swimming pool and wet areas in the down town.
Sogamoso has a lot of festivals and activities throughout the year; music, exhibitions, theater, horseback riding, crafts, and we cannot forget all the villages that surround Sogamoso such as: Nobsa, Puntalarga, Duitama, Paipa, Tunja, Mongui, Mongua, Tibasosa, Iza, Firavitoba, Gameza, Tota, Aquitania, Topaga, Corrales, Busbanza, Floresta, Santa Rosa de Viterbo, Cuitiva, Pesca, Paz del Rio and Belencito, among others, with their respective festivals and activities, and their contribution to the culture, trade, and industry of Sogamoso.
In recent years, Sogamoso began a phase of very important industrial and economic development and, becoming, the Valley of Sogamoso, in a very attractive area for private investment. The city has had a rapid development in terms of urban construction; the city now has a more developed infrastructure, even a little more than Tunja, the capital of the department.