Villa de Leyva

Field trip!

It's always good to get out of the city, whatever the city. Since the museums are closed on Mondays, we took that as a sign to visit the altiplano region. There were a couple of towns in particular that he wanted me to see. So an early start because it's a long bus ride.

Well, we forgot the pastries. And I needed a drugstore. Luckily we found both near the bus stop. Although I've never conducted my pharmacy business through a glass window where everyone around can hear what I need. But since it didn't phase my friend, it didn't phase me either.

 The buses just pull up continuously, with someone hanging out the door calling destinations. The large buses are rare; most are vans.

We had to wait a while for our bus; our destination was not as common. But all good, and we ended up in the front seat with the driver, so really got the scenic tour. Plus, he was chatty, so we could ask lots of questions and get to know the area we were traversing. 

This was a nice bridge over a scenic river. It was also some type of checkpoint. 

But then we got there. And a few blocks later we were in the grand plaza. Beautiful!

And the church, of course. Simple, but charming.  

The streets were lovely. White buildings, terra cotta roofs, cobbled streets, .... Loved it! 

And a pretty garden. 

And really nice houses on the edge of town. 

Many trilobite fossils are found in this region. I loved these nautilus shell window guards as a play on them. 

 And a monastery too. It was a lovely day, but hot! I had to turn my scarf into a head bandanna to keep from burning.

Ah, the chiva bus! 

 This is the outside of the church.

A whimsical door knocker.

Originally the plan was to visit another village too, but that required another bus ride and times to return were a bit sketchy; last bus from here back to Bogotá was at 5p. It was almost noon. So we opted just to stay and wander here, and that was the right choice. While I would have loved to see more, it's also nice to see where you are. Villa de Leyva would be a fantastic place to be based for a few days; there's a lot to do here, with shops and tons of restaurants, along with some museums and galleries, and horseback riding and other outings including dinosaur fossils, plus all the nearby towns and villages. Yes, I'd like to go back very much.....

We had a light lunch at a great little regional cuisine restaurant. I was suffering a bit from the heat, so the vegetable soup and warm chicken salad was perfect and immensely rejuvenating. And I finally got to try feijoa fruit, which I really liked. It's also called pineapple guava, although I didn't think it overly sweet. After lunch we had a milkshake with gulupa, another new fruit for me. It is in the passionfruit camp, a bit acidic. Exquisite. That left lulo and curuba on my list.

We wandered for a while, successfully procuring some beautiful pottery and some sweets to take home. Then back for another long bus ride. Once again, we were in the front seat. This can also be terrifying. Things were fine until we hit traffic outside of the city. But an episode of 'Jessica Jones' on the phone saved us. I bought some local chocolates and salts on the way back to the hotel, then prepared for a long final day. Hard to believe it was already almost over. But I also knew how lucky I was to have such an incredible friend.