The Community

It means: ” well come to this place where it will know the manifestations cultural the Uitoto” ethnic group;: This community, descendant of the natives who suffered the abuses of the rubber bonanza in 1930, is one of the pioneers of the etnoturismo in Colombia. In 2000, the armed conflict forced to that many of them moved from the Amazon and they would be located in Villavicencio. One of them, Santiago Clodualdo Kuetgaje, was used one’s wits in October of 2005 the etnoturstico Center Maguar. Since then 17,758 adults, students of primary, baccalaureate and of universities of the country have visited the etnoturstico center, besides 175 foreigners. Maguar was the millenarian mass media that the Uitotos used to present the new features in their tribe.

” Maguor is a dream that was born in the memory of our ancestors, to assure the conservation the culture, the environment and to guarantee the economy of the families emprendedoras” , Kuetgaje said. Located to 5 kilometers of Villavicencio and 86 of Bogota, in the path the Potaya, this etnoturstico center he allows that their visitors interact with the customs of an ethnic group who has 6,700 native ones distributed in the south of the country. There, the natives narrate their myths, dance, they share his gastronomy and they exhibit the native clothes and tools. At night, after a ritual of spiritual fortification, the tourists can stay themselves in the Maloca, an ancestral communitarian house constructed by the natives with capacity to shelter 50 people. In the case of Maguar, etno and eco-tourism are integrated in an ecological route in which indigenous guides expose some of the knowledge on the nature inherited of their ancestors. But for that they want to know the cosmovisin Uitoto thorough the plan Green Vein, Vein Life, allows them to go into forest inside. From the Spout, Amazon, the tourists travel in boat to the indigenous Community Santa Rosa, interact with the nocturnal fauna, know the indigenous stone roads, rituals and exotic landscapes. According to Santiago Kuetgaje, the etnoturstico Center Maguar, besides to promote self-support for 28 families uitotas, tries ” to rescue, to fortify and to preserve the culture and traditions of the indigenous population like wealth of the cultural patrimony colombiano”. Taken from the Magazine No.