San Juan de Rioseco is a municipality and town of

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

in the

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

of Cundinamarca with a population of about 10,000 people. It lies in mountainous terrain in the coffee land at an altitude of about 4,000 feet, high above the Magdalena River, on the western slope of Colombia's eastern cordillera about 60 miles from

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

by car. On a clear day the snow-capped peaks of four

volcanos A volcano is a rupture in the Crust (geology), crust of a Planet#Planetary-mass objects, planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Ear ...

in the central cordillera (

Nevado del Tolima The Nevado del Tolima is a Late Pleistocene to recently active andesitic stratovolcano located in the Tolima department, Colombia. The volcano lies south of Nevado del Ruiz volcano and is situated within the Los Nevados National Natural Park. ...

Nevado del Quindío The Nevado del Quindío is an inactive volcano located in the Central Cordillera of the Andes in central Colombia. The summit marks the tripoint of the departments of Risaralda, Quindío and Tolima, and is also the highest point of the depart ...

Nevado de Santa Isabel Santa Isabel ( es, Nevado de Santa Isabel) is a shield volcano located in Tolima, Colombia, southwest of Nevado del Ruiz volcano. The volcano is located over the Palestina Fault, that crosscuts the underlying El Bosque Batholith of Eocene age, ...

, and Nevado del Ruiz) can be seen in the distance to the west. The main industry of the region is agriculture, principally coffee grown in small farms on steep slopes in the shade provided by banana trees, guava trees, cacao trees, papaya trees, and other tropical trees, the fruit from which provides an additional income crop for farmers
Higuerilla
the seeds of which yield a fine oil, is another cash crop. Coffee in the San Juan area is still grown and processed in traditional ways, and at some times of the year, coffee i

on sunny days in a small plaza located northeast of the central plaza. Daytime temperatures, year-round, commonly range in the 70s and 80s (degrees Fahrenheit), dropping into the 60s at night. A lovely, light fog often drifts through the air in early morning. Heavy rainstorms are common, but usually of short duration. The town is busy by day, and the central plaza, dominated by a twin-towered Catholic church on the west side, provides a gathering place for the local population in the evenings, when street-vendors sell delicious

arepas ''Arepa'' () is a type of food made of ground maize dough stuffed with a filling, eaten in the northern region of South America since pre-Columbian times, and notable primarily in the cuisine of Colombia and Venezuela, but also present in the cui ...

and chorizos, and cafés with outdoor seating serve soft drinks and beer. The Rapicono (nearby but off plaza) is a popular spot for an ice cream desert or a traditional, Colombian fruit cocktail called

salpicón Salpicon (or salpicón, meaning "hodgepodge" or "medley" in Spanish) is a dish of one or more ingredients diced or minced and bound with a sauce or liquid. There are different versions found in Spanish and the broader Latin American cuisine. A sal ...

. San Juan and the surrounding area have an amazing variety of beautiful birds of all colors: blues, reds, yellows, greens, browns, and blacks. Many friendly dogs socialize throughout the town during the day and return home to their human families in the early evening. Local roosters coax their hens to their roosts at 6:00 pm every day and wake the town in the early morning with their quiquiriquís to start another day in the coffee land. The families of some prominent politicians and farmers of Colombia have come from San Juan de Ricoseco. One of them is the maternal family of former President Julio César Turbay Ayala. Another is the family of Lucila López Poveda de García, the first woman elected to th
Asamblea
of the Department of Tolima, and her uncle Roberto Poveda Ramírez, a coffee farmer legendary in the region who had a large plantation at La Muchagua, about four miles by car west of San Juan. Also from San Juan were the family of Doctor Eduardo Millan Millan (Magistrado de l
Corte Suprema de Justicia
the Supreme Court of Colombia), Ingenier
Alfonso Santos Montero
(Senador de la República and

Rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

of both Universidad de Cundinamarca and

Universidad Libre Free University of Colombia ( es, Universidad Libre), also called Unilibre, is a nonsectarian, coeducational, private and nonprofit university based in Bogota, Colombia, with six satellite campuses located in Cali, Barranquilla, Pereira, ...

), and Álvaro Cruz Vargas (twice governor of Cundinamarca, stripped of his office for embezzlement).

References

Municipalities of Cundinamarca Department {{Cundinamarca-geo-stub