Calle 10, between City Hall and Carrera 10 may just be La Candelaria's and even Bogotá's most colorful block, with its sidewalk vendors, elegant (if decayed) historic buildings and small shops offering everything from esoterica to clothes to a cheap lunch.

The National Museum, in Bogotá, is holding a colorful exhibition about Colombia's 14 UNESCO World Heritage sites, which include both cultural and natural phenomena. These include very concrete things, such as the Coffee Region and carnaval parades, as well as immaterial phenomena such as music and indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge.

On the 30th anniversary of Gabriel García Marquéz's Nobel Prize for literature, it seems worthwhile to look at a little-know chapter in his life: his time in Bogotá's La Candelaria neighborhood.

During my seven years in Bogotá, one point of reference for me has been the the city's official archive: El Archivo de Bogotá. The word archive conjures up images of grey people shuffling down rows of dusty shelfs weighed down with forgotten documents. And, for all I know, that may be accurate. But I've been interested in the Archive's often insightful exhibitions about odd and interesting bits of Colombian history and culture: writers, photographers and long-play record artists.