Villa de Leyva

Tuesday Oct 22

Well guess we have to pack up and leave this beautiful finca. Time to go see other sights. Hernando sent us off with hugs and best wishes for a great trip.

We get back on the highway and start heading to Villa de Leyva which is only an hour away. As we travel thru the little towns everyone is busy having breakfast of arepas con queso and chorizo sausages. So many vendors along the highway that we HAD to stop and have one. Bought each of us an arepas and a sausage. Both were great! The chorizo is much smoother than what we buy in Honduras. Nice little treat to tide us over until lunch :)

As we are driving to Villa de Leyva the landscape changes a bit. No longer are the mountains covered with trees, this is more a dry area. Lots of greenhouses growing tomatoes. We drive into the village and park so we can walk around since the streets are very narrow.

Villa de Leyva was founded in 1572 and has changed very little since then. Oder buildings are whitewashed and the streets have LARGE cobblestones - really hard to walk on with flip-flops!! The main central plaza is the biggest in the Americas (not sure what that really means) but it's just a huge square with cobblestones and a small water fountain in the centre. No benches to sit on or gardens. Pretty blank!

This village has really become a tourist destination as we can tell by all the tourist shops and vendors wanting to take you on different tours of the area. We end up going into one of the small grocery stores to stock up. After we've put away the groceries we keep walking. I like all the little wooden balconies on the buildings. All kept very neat. It's hard walking around and trying to look at the buildings without spraining an ankle!  There are a few streets that have sidewalks made from concrete to make it a little easier walking. We buy an ice cream along the way and also find the Clàro store so I can buy more phone data. Yeah! Connected back to the world!!  Also found some Coca leaf tea in one of the tourist shops - yup made from the leaves of the same plant used to make cocaine! But you don't get high from this tea 😉 We walk around a little more and soon we are back at the van.

Love the balconies on the buildings 

Think I should have bought one of those ponchos, they may be cheaper here then in
Peru! 

Love this orange vine on the fence

The orange color is so vivid!  Wonder what it's called?

Had to do a pano of the Central Plaza because it was to big for one picture. If you click on it you'll see there is nothing there except a small water fountain in the centre

Main church in the Plaza

The huge cobblestones in central Plaza 

Dwayne noticed that there were even fossils in the rock walls of buildings!

This was a really large one in another wall - and think it's real??

Lady of Carmen church in the back. Built in 1850

Dwayne in the old wooden doorway of the church

Haven't seen a Michelin Tire man on a truck since Thailand where the buses always had
them on the front 

Guess we also have to watch for dinosaurs on the road!! Actually just a sign for the dinosaur themed kids park up ahead 

We then drive over to the Casa Terracotta. I real cool place built and designed by architect/ceramicist Octovia Mendoza Morales. He started it in 1999 and finished in 2016.  Not sure where he lives now that the house is open to the public everyday, because he doesn't live in the house. The work is beautiful inside and out! And it's all built as pottery no steel used at all. It's known as the largest piece of pottery in the world. It's very unique like the Shell house on Isla Mujeres, Mexico.

Pretty cool looking but some say it looks like a Flintstone house, and when you think of all the fossils and dinosaur theme park it makes sense LOL!!

The inside is very cool! This is the kitchen area

Stairs going up to 2nd floor

Windows in livingroom ceiling

Weird!

Looking down into livingroom/kitchen area

Master bedroom with 2 doors out to balcony

Shower

Dwayne on upper deck

Outside the kitchen with outdoor cook area

Looking down from upper deck 

We head out to go to the next city Tunja. But as we get closer it starts to rain. We drive to a large mall to finish our grocery shopping since the small store didn't have everything we needed. But it did have popcorn! LOL!! So now when watching TV Dwayne can make some popcorn 😉 We find free wifi so I finish my blog I started Monday but couldn't add pictures due to the thunderstorm knocking out the power.

Once back in the van it's raining hard so decide to head north to a propane plant to get the van tank refilled. I read its easy to get filled there and not very far from Tunja. It turned out to be great refill stop - went really fast with NO problems😁  Afterwards we drive to a big gas station for the night where parking is allowed. They even have showers and free wifi. Parking is free, showers cost 2,000 ($1)

This is one of the local buses and we get waved down quite often - mostly by older people who think we are the bus!! LOL!!

Another relaxing evening watching TV :) 

Today's altitude, going to be drinking that tea!!

When we woke up we had a great sleep - pretty quite even with trucks driving through. Today we have changed our plans and going to head south to Zipaquira to see the the Underground Salt Cathedral!