Anita Arnon

You know, they were scarcely clothed.

They were flogging themselves just to get their circulation running.

Yeah, you sort of beat yourself to get the blood moving.

So, you know, men on horseback are hardly better off than those on the ground because you've got hooves either sinking into the bog or they're freezing.

It is awful.

Horses falling into deep water never to rise again.

They lost a third of their men to frost and starvation.

Most of their weapons had rusted in the rain.

Every single horse pretty much had died of hypothermia.

And when

And they made it, finally.

The Spanish forces at Boyaca, they see these wild-eyed, barefoot revolutionaries swarming down the Andes.

And they panic.

They panic.

So this battle of Boyaca...

fought on August the 7th, 1819, was a decisive victory.

You've got the Spanish viceroy fleeing Bogota, dressed as an Indian in a poncho, in a dirty hat.

The date is still a momentous day in the South American calendar, August the 7th.

It is a national holiday in Colombia itself.

I mean, basically they've done this much.