After Mexico, Colombia says goodbye to Garcia Marquez

After a fond farewell in Mexico, it was Colombia's turn today to pay tribute to Nobel-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez with music and his favorite yellow roses.
President Juan Manuel Santos will lead a ceremony at Bogota's Primary Cathedral in honor of "the greatest Colombian of all time."
Mexico honoured its adopted son yesterday at the capital's Fine Arts Palace, with thousands of fans filing past his ashes and speeches from Santos and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Affectionately known as "Gabo," Garcia Marquez died last Thursday in Mexico City, where he lived for decades and wrote his masterpiece "One Hundred Years of Solitude." He was 87.

His wife, Mercedes Barcha, and two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo, will not attend the ceremony in Bogota but two of his sisters may come.
The family has not said where his final resting place will be but Colombia hopes his ashes will be divided between his homeland and Mexico.

"They perfectly know that Colombians want to have his ashes," Santos told CNN en Espanol news channel. "Gabo was more Colombian than many Colombians, but this is something for which we respect the family."
At the cathedral, Colombia's National Symphony Orchestra will perform Mozart's Requiem. A folk band will also play the writer's beloved Colombian vallenato music.

Then on Wednesday, Colombia will mark World Book Day with readings of Garcia Marquez's novel "No One Writes to the Colonel" in more than 1,000 libraries, parks and universities.
Born in Aracataca near the Caribbean coast, Garcia Marquez had a complex relationship with his homeland, marked by accusations that he supported the now defunct M-19 guerrilla movement.
But Santos said Garcia Marquez worked to promote peace in Colombia, a nation that has endured civil strife since the 1960s.
"Those who say Gabo turned his back on Aracataca and Colombia are wrong," Santos said.