Experience the best of Bucaramanga

Bucaramanga sits on a plateau at about 960 metres in the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes, in north-eastern Colombia, and the climate is warm without being sticky. It is called the City of Parks, and shady plazas such as García Rovira, beside the cathedral, fill with people in the evening. Neighbourhoods like Cabecera hold the cafés, restaurants and shopping.

Chicamocha National Park, an hour's drive to the south, sits on the rim of the Chicamocha Canyon, a deep gorge crossed by a long cable car. Girón, a white-walled colonial town with cobbled streets, is a short ride away. Barichara, a preserved colonial town of stone lanes, lies further south, and San Gil is a hub for rafting and paragliding.

Santander's cooking is robust: roast goat, mute, a hearty soup of corn and meats, arepas, and hormigas culonas, the large roasted ants that are a regional snack. Temperatures vary little through the year, and the rain comes in two main spells, one in the first half of the year and one towards its end.