I sit on a tiny ledge some 350 feet above abandoned railroad tracks running along a rock wall and try to reassure myself that I am not afraid of heights. After hiking up a wooded hillside and climbing the first two pitches, I can now see the green pastures and rolling hills that surround Suesca, a rural Colombian town about 50 miles northeast of Bogot谩.

Greenhouses below the climbing wall.

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Off to my left stretch long rows of white greenhouses, where flowers are grown and exported to the U.S. Before me, the tree-lined Bogot谩 River snakes through the landscape. Off to my right, between the swaying eucalyptus trees, their leaves rustling in the late afternoon breeze, distant cliff faces turn orange as the sun sets.

Our Colombian guide, a Muisca Indian we call Carlitos, ties the anchor for the third pitch above me. He knows more than 300 routes like the back of his hand, and he鈥檚 selected one to match my skill level. I鈥檝e climbed with Carlitos each of the dozen or so times I鈥檝e come to Suesca. Each time, it鈥檚 like visiting with an old friend. Each time, too, we come across people he knows pretty much every 50 feet, which is convenient for sharing a top rope and for getting in a few extra climbs.

I scale the last 60 feet or so, past bromeliads blooming in the craggy rocks, and past hanging screens of Spanish moss, then make my way down to our camp in a cow pasture, trekking past mountain bikers and children flying kites.

Suesca is Colombia鈥檚 best hope for shedding its 1980s-era reputation as a hotbed of cocaine production and instead becoming an adventure sports destination. Some of Colombia鈥檚 national parks are in far-flung regions where guerrilla holdouts still roam and have been known to kidnap foreigners. The state of Cundinamarca, however, where Suesca sits in Colombia鈥檚 central Andes range, has been one of the country鈥檚 most secure regions for more than a decade. Here, Colombia鈥檚 premier rock-climbing site offers classic and sport routes that span beginner to 5.13c, not to mention mountain biking, kayaking, and spelunking. Any number of local outfitters can set you up the day you arrive with a quasi-English-speaking guide and gear鈥攁ll for about 25 bucks for about four hours.

Suesca has the occasional problem of robbery in isolated areas on the weekends. For that reason, outfitter Andres Zamudio recommends always using a guide who knows their way around Suesca鈥檚 network of gravel roads and hilly pastures, some which are out of range of both cell towers and the town鈥檚 dozen police officers.

Despite the occasional crime, around 5,000 people (mostly Colombians) visit Suesca each month. They enjoy walking, picnicking, and horseback riding, and you can be sure the lower-level climbing routes will be crowded on weekends鈥攁ll the more reason to hire a guide who knows the more secluded routes.

In 2013, about a dozen Suesca guides were certified by the Fernando Gonzalez Rubio Foundation, a nonprofit, which tested their knowledge of ropes, anchors, and climbing techniques. Graduates received climbing-guide ID cards.听

Nelson Mestizo, Suesca鈥檚 mayor, has worked closely with FGR to ensure safety in the area and to promote Suesca as a tourist destination. Mestizo hopes to one day make the area a national park鈥攚hich would be OK with Zamudio, who鈥檚 been climbing there for more than 20 years. 鈥淵ou can stay for two weeks climbing and mountain biking,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd you鈥檒l never get bored.鈥�

If You Go

Read:
鈥攁 tourism page set up by some locals with fierce hometown pride鈥攊s a good place to start if you鈥檙e limited to English-only sites. Visit the city鈥檚 for restaurant, hostel, and outfitter information in Spanish.

How to time it:
Because Suesca, like much of Colombia, is just a few degrees north of the equator, temperatures are pretty steady year-round. The area sits at 8,500-feet and is breezy and sunny most of the year, with two rainy seasons. The drier months generally run from December to February, and from June to August. During the rainy seasons, you鈥檙e probably going to get good weather in the mornings and sudden showers in the afternoons, so climb early.

Bring:
A jacket, a rain poncho, bug spray, suntan lotion, and snacks. Vendors set up along the railroad tracks selling chips, soft drinks, and empanadas (fried cornmeal stuffed with ground beef or chicken and spices). If you鈥檙e lucky, an empanada lady might be trekking right by your climb site when you happen to be hungry.

Getting there:
Suesca is 40 miles northeast of Bogot谩 and four miles off Autopista Norte, a major highway. Suesca is also accessible from Bogot谩鈥檚 TransMilenio northern terminal (catch an Alianza or Ayacucho bus).

Stay:
Pitch your tent next to some young Colombians for a lively local experience (cheap beer is available, which is useful for making friends). If you鈥檇 rather sleep on a mattress, there are several low-cost hotels and hostels within a ten-minute walk of the climbing wall.

Eat:
Suesca boasts plenty of small Colombian caf茅s that serve pizza and typical Colombian dishes for a few bucks. If you want a serious meal next to a warm fire, try , a stone鈥檚 throw from the wall. This restaurant-cum-hostel-cum outfitter, inspired by Indian, Nepalese, Chinese, and Thai cultures alike, was established by Luis Felipe Ossa, who in 2007 became the first Colombian to climb Everest without a supplemental oxygen tank.

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Below a blue sky on a warm February afternoon, Santiago G贸mez became the 168^th matador in Colombian history. The 25-year-old from Colombia鈥檚 coffee country had trained for eight years before donning the 鈥渟uit of lights,鈥� a hand embroidered costume of pink and gold snug against his thin frame. An ornamental bolero covered his back, while a thin black tie matched a wavy tussle of hair that hung over his forehead. He wore black slippers, and tall pink socks hugged his calves.

On his debut as a matador, Santiago Gomez calls for his bull to fall after he has plunged a sword in its back. Members of his cuadrilla seduce the bull in its final moments.

Frenchman Sebastian Castella waves to aficionados while riding triumphantly on the shoulders of a fellow bullfighter on the final day of Medellin’s 2014 bullfighting season.

The young man grew up across the street from the Plaza de Toros in Manizales, and had gone to the corridas with his father as a boy. He had long envisioned wearing this suit on the day of his alternativa, when a bullfighter becomes a matador.

Bullfighting is Colombia鈥檚 connection to its Spanish colonial past and its rural roots. 鈥淎 festival without bulls is not a festival,鈥� a Colombian saying goes. Small towns traditionally celebrate their anniversaries by setting up makeshift bull rings. The Colombian bullfighting season takes place each December through February, when the weather is warm and sunny and the cities of Manizales, Cali, and Medell铆n open the doors to their ornate palaces, hosting international bullfighters, local bands, and fervent aficionados from around the world.

But although cities such as Manizales can pack the house, nationally the industry cannot support itself. In Medell铆n, to the chagrin of aficionados, a retractable roof was added to the Plaza in 2003 to turn it into a concert venue. For the eighth and final bullfight of the season this year, prices were upwards of $80 and half the seats were empty. Although the number of fights per year has remained constant, Benjamin De Los Rios, plaza director for the past 23 years, said the 12,000-seat arena has averaged between 5,500 to 6,000 attendees per fight since the retirement of legendary fighter C茅sar Rinc贸n in 2008.

Once shown on national television, Colombia鈥檚 great matadors were a source of national pride as they competed at home and abroad. But today, animal-rights activists protest bullfighting fervently, sometimes violently, and politicians campaign to end the tradition in their cities. A 2004 Colombian law protects bullfighting as an 鈥渁rtistic expression,鈥� but mayors from large cities to small towns have found loopholes to effectively halt the spectacle. In Bogot谩, for example, in 2012 the city鈥檚 embattled leftist mayor did not renew rights to use the ornate and celebrated Plaza de Toros de Santamar铆a, built in 1931.

For G贸mez鈥檚 fight in Medell铆n on February 15, 110 police officers, including 36 riot police stood guard. Luckily, on this occasion, only about 30 college-aged students chanted from across the street, a line of policeman on horseback keeping a vigilant eye nearby. To G贸mez, and many bullfighting aficionados, false rumors and accusations of torturing the animals before they enter the ring are the most unsettling. G贸mez recently brought friends to watch him practice at the arena; he gave them a tour of the stalls, showed them the condition of the animals, and they left less doubtful than they’d arrived.

Unlike soccer matches, which are known for drunken brawls, bullfighting aficionados consider themselves a more sophisticated class. In the first class bullfighting rings, mostly well-heeled Colombians and foreigners from as far as Spain and France are in attendance; high prices prevent middle-class Colombians from attending.

In Medell铆n, Colombia鈥檚 fashion capital, men wear collared shirts, jeans, and boots to bullfights, often with the traditional Colombian sombrero vueltiao, a striped hat made of woven grass leaves died in black mud and sun-dried. The world-famous paisa women can be seen wearing rhinestone studded jeans and silk scarves. Many men and women carry a bota, a leather pouch filled with wine and slung over the shoulder.

At 4:19 p.m. at the Plaza de la Macarena in Medell铆n, G贸mez huddled near the edge of the arena with two great bullfighting legends. Standing akimbo in a light violet and gold suit was Frenchman Sebastian Castella, who lives in Cartagena with his Colombian wife and children. The Spaniard Morante de la Puebla, a stout bullfighter with a ponytail, wearing a suit of black and gold, embraced the young man and said to him: 鈥淚f you respect the bull, it will respect you.鈥� G贸mez later said he was filled with emotion.

Then, a large red door swung inward and his first bull, a 1,022-pound black mammoth called Pipero, came tearing through the gate. In the middle of the silent ring, the animal kicked up sand, swung his tail, and fixed his gaze on the magenta and yellow capes flashed by other bullfighters from behind wooden barriers. Pipero charged toward one of them, slamming his horns into the barrier as the cape disappeared. The thud echoed in the arena.

G贸mez stepped toward the center to give the bull its first pass. 鈥淰eronica! Otra Veronica!鈥� a radio announcer called, describing the two-handed passes that G贸mez gave whereby his feet and legs remained still while he slowly swung the cape away from the charging bull.

After the second of three acts, the young matador switched to the red muleta and walked across the length of the sand. He removed his montera, the round Spanish hunter鈥檚 hat, and tossed it to his mother in the stands, dedicating the bull to his parents who had suffered and celebrated with him on his quest.

G贸mez can pinpoint the moment he decided to be a bullfighter. He was about six years old and his father took him to the Plaza. He witnessed the aggressiveness of the bulls, the pageantry of the costumes, and music and the glory of the triumphant bullfighter in a city that G贸mez said 鈥渓ives for the celebration with great passion and joy.鈥� Like other bullfighters, he repeats a common refrain: 鈥淭he bullfighter is not made, he is born.鈥�

As G贸mez drew the bull near, the animal showed that it was not 鈥渘oble.鈥� It did not follow the muleta closely. Instead, its glare would turn between G贸mez and the muleta, its passes shorter and shorter and its turns closer to the fighter. With each pass, the crowd shouted 鈥淥le!鈥� but G贸mez backpedaled to keep his distance from the bull as it approached. At one moment, an announcer gasped as the bull nearly brushed against the young man. After one sequence, with the bull facing the crowd, G贸mez breathed deeply and shrugged his shoulders with exhaustion.

Colombian bullfighting reached its pinnacle in 1991 when el maestro C茅sar Rinc贸n鈥檚 spectacular performances led to four triumphs over his fellow bullfighters听in a single season at bullfighting鈥檚 most hallowed ground, the San Isidro Festival in Madrid. On those afternoons, Rinc贸n awed the crowd with gracefully executed passes that included summoning the bull at a full gallop from across the arena and passing it behind his back. He exited through the great door of the ring lofted on the shoulders of the costaleros, Plaza workers who in Spain would traditionally visit the bullfighter at his hotel after the match seeking a tip for the deed. No bullfighter in the world had before exited through the great door in Madrid four times in a single season.

Rinc贸n commentated for G贸mez鈥檚 debut fight on RCN Radio. Before the toreros entered the ring, the maestro lamented the closing of some dozen Colombian bull ranches in recent years. Family-owned properties where bulls are bred for bullfighting could not sustain continued losses in a declining market.

Aspiring Colombian bullfighters have very little opportunity to train in Colombia today, with fewer bull ranches inviting them to practice and less bullfights. Often, they must train in Spain or Mexico. G贸mez鈥檚 parents supported him at a bullfighting school in Cali, Colombia for five years. He then spent two years in Guadalajara, Mexico working at a restaurant as he trained.

Bullfighting critic Ivan Parra estimates that a torero hitting all the large and small plazas in the country would be lucky to make $50,000 per year. That doesn鈥檛 count the costs of a suit, cape and muleta鈥攚hich could reach $8,000鈥攁nd practice bulls. He estimates 85 percent of Colombian bullfighters have other sources of income.

Colombian matador Santiago Naranjo has a retail store at a shopping mall in Bogot谩 and studies business administration. Another bullfighter, Manuel Libardo, was taken in by a family in Spain and supported by donations from Bogot谩 aficionados until he could draw income. This year he was named best Colombian matador by a group of three influential bullfighting writers, including Parra, and he says he can support himself via this profession. Few Colombian bullfighters can say the same.

The second round of bulls was highlighted by the Frenchman Castella, who delighted spectators by first summoning the bull from his knees. The 1,164-pound bull passed him three times in this position to the joyous shouts of the crowd. In the first act, the aggressive bull even knocked over a听bullfighter on horseback by slamming its enormous girth into the horse鈥檚 220-pound quilted canvas protective coat. Castella proceeded to completely dominate the bull, gracefully passing it in front of his body ever so close that on some left side passes, he reached his right arm around the bull. After the fight, Castella was awarded two ears, for a total of three on the day, his 鈥減assport to exit through the great door鈥� explains Parra. At the end of the afternoon, Castella would be lofted on the shoulders of the costaleros for the crowd to toss flowers and their hats to him below.

When G贸mez returned to the sand for his second bull, the 1,020-pound Cafetero galloped into the ring. The radio announcers called him the best bull of the afternoon for his fierceness and the way he aggressively stampeded toward the magenta capes. In the second act, a banderillero, a bullfighter who places two spiked sticks in the bull鈥檚 shoulders, was knocked to the ground by the charging Cafetero, who tore an 8-inch gash in the man’s calf.

G贸mez kept a frigid mind and changed his cape for the red muleta before walking to the center of the ring for the third and final act. There, he knelt on his knees and held out the maleta with his sword, calling for the bull to charge him. The audience shouted in defiance of the young man鈥檚 risk. On the day of his alternativa, G贸mez had hoped his performance would urge the Plaza president to award him at least two or three of the defeated bulls麓 ears for his valor and grace. On the radio, Rinc贸n noted that G贸mez had scarcely tested the bull with his magenta came in the first act. The bull ignored G贸mez, and to the relief of many onlookers, the young bullfighter changed strategy and stood up.

He lept in the air and called for the bull repeatedly before carefully executing a series of passes that pleased the crowd. Spectators began to shout 鈥淥le!鈥� again and again until the president of the plaza motioned to the band. Trumpets flared to life with the Spanish paso doble written in honor of the Festival of Manizales.

As he was conducting the faena, the beautiful sequence of the bull passing the muleta, G贸mez heard the music and filled with joy. He had reached the grand stage of bullfighting, the only Colombian matador to graduate this year听via a consensus of bullfighters, ranchers, aficionados, and businessmen.

The next morning, however, Gomez was filled with sadness. The young man who had been dressed in a suit of lights wore jeans and a faded blue polo shirt as he reflected on his future over a cup of tinto, black Colombian coffee.

鈥淣ow, I am a matador of bulls, and I am left thinking: 鈥榃hat am I going to do? Where am I going to go?鈥欌�� G贸mez says. On the future of bullfighting, he couldn鈥檛 say whether it would exist in Colombia 10 to 15 years from now, but he said he was optimistic. 鈥淚鈥檓 of the thinking that when bad things happen, as in the past, people need to unite and find a solution.鈥�

Then, he described a small bullfighting plaza in his home state of Caldas, in the foothills of Colombia鈥檚 eastern mountain range, which has been dormant for a decade. The white stucco building with red pillars sits alone in a grassy pasture with a mountainous backdrop. It is like many small plazas and grand arenas across the country where local mayors have conceded defeat to the anti-bullfighting movement, or have simply stopped buying bulls to lower the cost of yearly festivities.

鈥淚 think that if there is a plaza, you have to take advantage of it,” Gomez says. “How are we going to do that? We鈥檒l do it ourselves. I get together with another torero and we bullfight. We buy the bulls, and if there鈥檚 money to be made, fine. If not, fine. We have to think of how to make it happen ourselves. Say, 鈥楥ome, we鈥檙e going to have a bullfight.鈥欌��

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