El Tunal Metropolitan Park is in the Tunjuelito locality, in the southeast of Bogotá, very close to the Transmilenio transport public system's Tunal Portal. It’s located on Calle 48 South and Boyacá Avenue, between Mariscal Sucre Avenue and Villavicencio Avenue. Its opening hours are from 5:30 am to 6:00 pm.
The park’s history dates back to the early 70s when it was an old farm with 180 bushels delimited by the San Carlos canal; that space had several soccer fields and an attraction module. The soccer stadium was built in the early 80s, and in 1986, it became famous when Pope John Paul II visited Colombia and made his preaching there.
Then, in 1997, six modern tennis courts were opened, but two years later, the park was closed for remodeling. Finally, in October 2001, El Tunal park was once again handed over to the public by the IDRD (Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deporte) after an investment of 12 billion pesos.
Undoubtedly, it is the most important park in the city’s south every weekend. It is visited by more than 50,000 people from the neighboring areas of Ciudad Bolívar, Bosa, Rafael Uribe Uribe, San Cristóbal and Tunjuelito.
It has a 55-hectare area with multiple courts for basketball, six-a-side football, and volleyball, as well as a tennis stadium and court, soccer stadium and field, indoor sports coliseum, bicycle cross track, field hockey rink, figure skating rink, athletic track, skate park, artificial lakes, bicycle lanes, pedestrian paths, parking lot and the integrated service of the El Tunal Library.
Besides, there are 400 trees, including species such as walnut, beech, caper, myrtle, yellow and pink trumpetush, guayacán of Manizales and jasmine from China.
