Emeralds are also a girl's best friend. (Comstock Complete)

10 Spicy Reasons to Visit South America

BOGOTA, Colombia -- This city has so many good museums -- from the Archaeological Museum to the renowned Gold Museum -- it would take at least a week to see them all. Yet for a country that is synonymous with emeralds, it's surprising there is no museum devoted to the green gemstone.

Consider: Colombia supplies about 50% of the world's emeralds. The finest emeralds in the world come from the country's Muzo and Chivor mines and it was in Colombia that the largest gem quality emerald was found in 1961 weighing 7025 carats (about 1.4 kg).

Add to that, the fact one of its citizens has what may be the world's best collection of rare emeralds. Fortunately, Vilmar Novoa Bohorquez sometimes puts his precious collection on display. One temporary exhibit staged at the Regional Costume Museum in Bogota just ended. And now another even bigger show is set to open this month in Cartagena for a year-long run.

In his Bogota office, Bohorquez shows me some of his prize possessions.

Using needle-nosed tweezers, he picks up two oval-shaped emeralds and holds them up to the light revealing a palm-tree-like design inside each one. This is followed by a cat's eye emerald and another he calls "the hug" -- an emerald wrapped around a quartz crystal.

And there are several examples of trapiche -- emeralds, which exhibit a six-pointed star or radial pattern that are found only in Colombia.

Trapiche, which takes its name from a type of local grinding wheel, makes up only .3% of all emeralds.

Bohorquez isn't just a collector. He's a former miner, like his father. He began his first job in an emerald mine at the age of 10. It was "difficult work," he said, but he stayed with it for 11 years.

By the time he was 15 he developed an interest in rare emeralds. He found some on his own, while other pieces were turned over by other miners.

"Before, when they found rare emeralds, they didn't keep them because they weren't considered good enough to be fashioned into something of value," Bohorquez exlained through a translator. "So it was easy to acquire rare ones."

Bohorquez has been collecting for 30 years and has amassed more than 400 one-of-a-kind emeralds from several different Colombian mines. He keeps some in the country and stores others (for safety reasons) in vaults in Europe and the U.S. He has accepted invitations to show his emeralds in Japan and Switzerland and usually puts between 30 and 100 on display.

The Cartagena exhibit will feature 170 of the rare gems in specially built light boxes that he created.

Though he has been featured in the media abroad, at home in Colombia he prefers to keep a low profile (to avoid being a target of kidnappers who prey on wealthy business people).

How much is the collection worth? "It's not for sale," he reminds me. "It's the only collection of its kind, it's priceless."

---

EMERALDS IN BRIEF

Emerald is a green variety of beryl, which forms deep in the Earth's crust and is most commonly found in granite and pegmatite (rocks with large crystals). Their value lies in their even distribution of colour. Although the finest examples of this precious stone come from Colombia, other sources include Pakistan, Australia, Russia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Mining emeralds is nothing new. The Chibcha Indians of Colombia mined the gemstone more than 800 years ago. When the Conquistadors arrived in the late 13th century, they found the indigenous people using emeralds for religious offerings, personal adornment and trade. Emeralds reached the Incas of Peru, the Aztecs of Mexico, and was eventually introduced into Europe through the Spanish.

CARTAGENA

If you can only visit one city in Colombia make it Cartagena de Indias. It has it all -- history and a great location on the Caribbean coast. Founded in 1533, Cartagena is the country's most beautiful colonial city. The old town, with narrow, winding streets and leafy plazas is crammed with 16th and 17th century Spanish architecture including monasteries, churches, and mansions with overhanging balconies. For more, check travelingcolombia.com.