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Edgar Parra is a fan of magic. He loves simple tricks: pulling an endless scarf from his sleeve, turning sticks into flowers, sowing a seed and watching a plant sprout. “Nature creates the greatest magic,” he says from the orchid courtyard at the Royal Botanic Garden of Colombia, a self-managing community project he founded and runs. “One day I go to rest and the next day I find flowers,” he says, smiling, wearing a T-shirt printed with butterflies. Located in the Lucero Medio neighborhood of Ciudad Bolivar, on the southern tip of Bogotá, the park’s presence is almost magical.
“We never imagined a place like this, in the middle of the neighborhood, among the cement,” says José Andres Seles, a visitor from a nearby town. “It is something strange, very beautiful.” Entry is moving from cement, cars and cables hanging in the street to bumping into a network of plants, leaves and fruits. Orange flowers hanging from The poet’s eye (Thunbergia alata), as well as purple and red bougainvillea (Bougainvillea glabra). the Old man’s beard (Tillandsia uses neoids(It spreads along with the cherubim on its vine)Passiflora triploidum). On the ground, species of deep green ferns and thorny bromeliads.
All this in a town that is home to 8.5% of the nearly eight million people living in Bogotá, and where 98% of its population lives in a quarter of the urban area, according to data from the mayor’s office. The town has only 3.2 square meters of parks and green spaces per resident, far less than the 15 required by law and the area average, 4.6 square metres. Darwin Sopilano, who accompanies Celis on his visit, adds: “Amidst all that, we found this place that preserves nature.” “This is impressive.”
restore normal
Four years ago, Parra, an architect, opened the botanical garden that housed the Gimnasio Real de Colombia school, which he also ran. “We always tried to make it have a lot of green: we put nuance into any little corner,” he recalls. When the school closed, the space itself showed them the way: “We had a huge green patch in the middle of the neighborhood. It was clear that we had to create a park.”
He never wanted “a polished and tidy space, like an English garden.” He preferred to imitate the mountain: “ordinary, surprising environments that no one combs.” He says that in this way they become “prettier” and more “lively.” As he wanders a vine in search of caterpillars, Parra asserts that he is a “defender of the ordinary.” He likes the basic, the humble, the “pure.” And his garden is like this. Some visitors ask him to collect fallen leaves and cut litter and weeds, “but I want that to stay.”
Today, the Royal Botanical Garden of Colombia houses 600 species, most of them native, distributed in six spaces: the Insect Museum, the Orchid Patio, the Bromeliad Garden, the Butterfly Maze, the Succulent Terrace, and the Aquarium Tunnel. It also contains a natural pond fed by a spring from the Tonguelo River Basin, a tributary of the Bogotá River, whose origin is the Páramo de Somapaz. The largest in the world.
On the beach, three children eat cookies and sunbathe after swimming. “We come almost every Sunday,” says 11-year-old Dylan Castiblanco. “We like it a lot because there’s a lot of nature,” he adds, without finishing chewing. “I like cold water,” chimes in 13-year-old Santiago Duarte, with water dripping from his forehead. “And nature, because it gives life to things.” They live a few blocks away and come with family and friends and sometimes alone. “Or on birthdays,” Castiblanco adds. “It’s cool and quiet,” says 15-year-old Edison Gamboa, playing in the water. “It’s better here than other places in the neighborhood.”
He resigned from the province
Parra, who was born and raised in Ciudad Bolivar, knows that the city has a huge stigma of violence and poverty. “I love my city, but there are things that perpetuate violence,” he says. Nearly half of the population lives in vulnerable conditions, a third of whom live in moderate poverty and one in ten in extreme poverty, according to the city mayor’s office. In 2024, 236 murders, 4,796 robberies, 917 sexual crimes and 129 extortion cases were committed. He insists that it is a region that faces multiple challenges and complexities that create an environment of vulnerability for its residents, “but it is not just that.” “The garden is the proof.”
A few minutes ago, Sarah Alfonso, one of the guides, finished a tour with the visitors. As he walked, he confirmed that the survey “is betting a lot on the region’s resignation.” It is a community, vital, and familial commitment that generates a sense of belonging and pride among neighbors. “People’s faces change after the tour,” he says with a smile. The biology student asserts that “talking about the region, the history of this place, how it was created, and the relationship that each person has with it” is more important than providing artistic explanations about the plants.
Parra adds that just by explaining the origin of the cenote’s waters, visitors “learn more about their land and discover that Ciudad Bolivar also has wealth.” Remember that the Paramo del Somapaz, south of Bogotá, is an essential ecosystem for the entire world. He asserts, “This changes the idea that wealth exists only in the north (where the richest neighborhoods in the city are located). In the south, we also have our own wealth.”
An educational gem
All this, says Alfonso, allows “the awakening of sensibilities of love for nature and life”, something that teachers who visit the park with their students benefit from.
Alex Vargas, a financial education teacher at Montreal City School next door to the park, takes her students frequently. There he teaches with Barra about resource saving and care. “We talked about how succulents save water in times of drought, but we also talked about the importance of non-monetary resources, like water and sunlight,” he says. In this way, it cultivates regional roots and passion for nature, awakening an urgent desire for its conservation that is not limited to the classroom. “They take everything home,” Vargas says. They reuse water, collect rain, and recycle plastic.
Although he was never Vargas’s student, Santiago Parra, Edgar’s nephew who works as a guide at the park, also learned to love the plants there. They had sparked little interest before, and now he talked to them every time he watered them. She wears her hat backwards and laughs when she admits it, but admits: “I tell them they have to look good for visitors, so people will see them and be surprised.” Far from being a monologue, Santiago ensures that they understand and respond to him. “I water them and take care of them, and they always return me with fruit or a good smell.”
For Edgar and his entire team, the park is full of magic. More than just an illusion, he says, they see it and the place as “an example of how to pull great solutions out of a hat.” “We hope to continue creating a lot of magic in the park,” he concludes.
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