Florencia

Florencia was founded in 1902 by a Capuchin priest, in an area populated by rubber plantation workers located on the banks of La Perdiz Creek, and other settlers who arrived in the mid-nineteenth century attracted by the bonanza of quinine. However, this territory was ancestrally populated by the Amazonian indigenous people.

Later in the 1960s, the Colombian government encouraged the migration of new settlers to this region and the area became enriched with a variety of cultural influences, among which the Huilense culture stands out.

Nowadays, Florencia —the capital of the department of Caquetá— is one of the most important cities in the south-east of Colombia and the Colombian Amazon region, due to its number of inhabitants and its institutional infrastructure. It is known as the golden gate of the Colombian Amazon and is located in the piedmont (the foothills) between the Cordillera Central (Eastern Mountain Range) and the Amazon, along the Hacha River –formerly used to transport the quinine and the rubber to the Caquetá River. This is an environmentally privileged area due to the great biodiversity that the mountain range ecosystem still harbors; it’s part of the Amazon Forest Reserve and therefore protected. However, it has also been transformed by activities such as livestock production.

The soundscape of Florencia has characteristics that are unique to this place. The combination of elements that build the soundscapes heard in the Curiplaya, on the banks of La Perdiz River, are an example of a characteristic sound scene in the capital of the department of Caquetá.