Utica is a town and municipality in the Cundinamarca Department

Cundinamarca Department

- Origin of the name :The name of Cundinamarca comes from Kundur marqa, an indigenous expression, probably derived from Quechua. Meaning "Condor's Nest", it was used in pre-Columbian times by the natives of the Magdalena Valley to refer to the nearby highlands....

, Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 located some 127 kilometers from Bogotá

Bogotá

Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...

. The village lies at an altitude of 506 meters above sea level and has an average daily temperature of 26 °C.

Utica grew from a small fishing community, with the Rio Negro and the Quebradanegra

Quebradanegra

Quebradanegra is a municipality and town of Colombia in the department of Cundinamarca....

 running through it. The village is prone to flooding, caused by heavy rains further up the Andes

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

 causing the rivers to burst their banks. The most server flood washed away the village bridge and unearthed the corpses from the cemetery.

The village is a vacation spot particularly promoting extreme sports such as rafting

Rafting

Rafting or white water rafting is a challenging recreational outdoor activity using an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other bodies of water. This is usually done on white water or different degrees of rough water, in order to thrill and excite the raft passengers. The development of this...

 and abseiling

Abseiling

Abseiling , rappelling in American English, is the controlled descent down a rock face using a rope; climbers use this technique when a cliff or slope is too steep and/or dangerous to descend without protection.- Slang terms :...

.

The village is said to have been founded by Manuel Murillo Toro

Manuel Murillo Toro

Manuel Murillo Toro was a Colombian politician and statesman, who served as President of the United States of Colombia on two occasions, first from 1864 to 1866, and again between 1872 and 1874.- Biographic data :...

 circa 1802 who stopped whilst travelling, liked the area and built a house. The building remains as the defunct railway station in Curapo