Villa de Leyva and other small towns

May 29 - 31. Friday morning, before going to Villa de Leyva, Juan Pablo took Izzy and I out to a small town where we visited a salt mine. Normally that wouldn´t be to exciting except for the church made of salt in the mine. There were different stations that represented the life and death of Jesus along the way. Later that day, we went to a small mountain town north of Bogotá called Villa de Leyva. It was a nice break from the big city noise of Bogotá. The trip out there consisted of winding through mountain roads and a lot of recalculating from our human GPS system. Needless to say, we arrived in one piece and had dinner before calling it a night after 4 hours of driving. The city was very colonial in appearance and a lot of the buildings maintained much of there old world appeal. Our tour guides told us that a lot of movies filmed there involve settings from the colonial times. In the main plaza, a lot of people, young and old, gather together and just pass the time sipping on beers or sodas and talking. The town definitely had more of the small town feel. We had a few drinks at a local bar, listened to some sad music that was being played, and headed back to the house we were staying in. Later that night, Iz and I encountered a first, a 4 legged spider that was quite scary in appearance. We ate breakfast at a wonderful little place called Tienda de Teresa and filled up on about $3 worth of food. We spent Saturday morning wandering the town, bought a half kilo of blackberries for .50 and tried some other Colombian fruits that I don´t know the name of, and made our way out to some smaller towns in the mountains. The first place we went to was a field with ancient indigenous penis statues. The place provided a wonderful view of the town and the mountains around the town. As we were leaving, a group of what appeared to be Chinese tourists were entering the site and giggling profusely. From the site of the penis statues, we went to an old convent that maintained one of the best looking gardens we´ve seen here. Most of the rooms there were open to the public and tried to help recreate the feel of the convent when it was established 400 years ago. From there, we went to another small town that was full of arts and crafts stores and spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around there looking at little trinkets and souvenirs. We headed back to Villa de Leyva and joined the locals in sipping on a few drinks in the main plaza while watching some old main light fireworks with his cigarette in front of the church having mass. The kids in the square chased the little bits of fireworks that fell to the ground until one time, the last burst of firework didn´t explode until it hit the ground and the kids quit chasing them. On Sunday, we ate breakfast at the same little shop again and chatted with a couple who we had seen there the previous day. We arrived in Bogotá later that afternoon after another long car ride. The great thing about being here with friends is the fact that you can take a car ride and see the countryside instead of just being stuck in the city. Another thing we´ve noticed is a lot of military checkpoints and the military people and citizens give each other a thumbs up, its almost like a new symbol of unity.

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