It was  long day to get to Villa de Leyva, to say the least. Our trip began with a bus ride from San Gil to a city named Tunja. The ride only lasted about five hours, yet felt like eight, as we rode through curvy   mountain roads with a bus driver that seemed to accelerate and brake nearly every few seconds. Along with that, the ladies riding in front of us felt it necessary to have their seats reclined as far back as possible during the entire trip, the backs of their heads just inches from our faces. Those few frustrations were matched when the bus driver pulled into the city of Tunja, stopped on the side of a main road in a random place, and literally dropped us off with no explanation of where the bus terminal was to catch our next ride. As we got our bags together and started to put our packs on in pure frustration and a little fright, a taxi pulled up and took us straight to the terminal, where we were able to get on a small colectivo (pretty much a shared taxi van) to take us the rest of the 45 minute ride to Villa de Leyva, which happened to be the last one to catch for the night. As the sun set we curved through the mountain roads while being crammed right in front alongside the driver, which was a small blessing after our ride to Tunja.

As we pulled into the small town of Villa de Leyva and got out at the terminal we realized the town was bustling with people. We had arrived on the Sunday night of their annual Tree Festival. Since we had been unable to book a hostel in advance for our first night there, we wandered through the crowded cobblestone streets to find a hostel or hotel to stay. Since the festival was happening, we found that most hotels were either booked or far out of our price range. After checking with about 5 hotels and 1 hostel we found a small little hotel ran by a sweet little lady which was right around the corner from the main square. After we settled in we set out to find dinner for the night. Since we had such a long day, we treated ourselves to a wonderful Italian dinner of lasagna and a bottle of wine. That dinner brightened our spirits and we began our stay in the lovely and relaxed town of Villa de Leyva.

We woke up and checked out of our hotel room by noon that day and made our way to the hostel, Colombian Highlands. Paul had stayed there during his previous trip to Colombia and remembered it fondly. The hostel is located about a 15-minute walk out of town up a small dirt road. On our walk we had a short but sweet conversation with a boy about the age of 10 who walked alongside us, asking us questions in spanish that we mostly couldn’t understand. After he wished us a good day and disappeared into his house, we passed by a small army camp. As we turned the corner we made our final steps up a hill and into a small paradise. The building was surrounded by trees and a small garden in the center. We had booked a private room with a bathroom, and were expecting to stay in the main building , but our host took us out of the building and we walked a few feet to a private villa which we hadn’t even noticed as we walked up because it was surrounded by trees. Our room not only was very spacious with an attached bathroom, the nicest we had used, but also a small porch with a table and chairs and even a hammock! We felt as though we were kings, and immediately booked the room for a third night.

The next couple days were spent exploring the town and surrounding  areas. We went for a hike out of town to a museum that housed a large dinosaur fossil and many other sea creature fossils. We later found out that at one point the entire desert valley had been completely underwater. As we were quite hungry  once we reached the museum we decided to grab a small lunch. Like many other times along this trip our order somehow got lost in translation. Paul had ordered a couple arepas (flat cornmeal biscuits usually stuffed with meat , cheese or veggies)  but what we got was a small basket, yes basket, filled with small baked potatoes rubbed with salt and cut up chorizo. We were a bit confused but the little snack ended up being very tasty and very filling.

After we got back into town and were heading back up the road to our hostel, we met another traveler named Amanda, from Nova Scotia, Canada. We had a nice conversation with her and since she was traveling the area alone we planned to meet at the main square in the morning to do a couple different hikes the next day.

We had a really great day with our new friend, exploring a beautiful waterfall park, and getting a little lost on some country dirt roads before finding the archaeological site, El Infiernito, described as “the Stonehenge of Colombia”. The site was built as a center for astronomical observation and religious ceremonies. With huge upright-standing stones randomly emerging from the ground and an area with two lines of stones aligned east and west, we noticed that the standing stones appeared to have a phallic look to them. As we tried to translate the explanations of the structures we came to understand that they were in fact meant to look like the male phallus. We learned that not only was the site a place for observation of the sun and religious ceremonies but that it also was used for fertility rituals.
Villa de Leyva was one of our favorite stops along the trip so far. We greatly enjoyed the quaintness of the small town. The cobblestone streets among the white washed buildings with large wooden doors and balconies on nearly every structure looked as though we were in a movie set. We loved our accommodations and the relaxed energy we felt the entire stay, but after a few days, excitedly moved along to our next stop, Salento, in the heart of Colombia’s coffee region.

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