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The town is pretty small, with coble stone roads, white washed walls and beautiful mountains in the background.
Villa de Leyva, Colombia
By Ontheweb: Daniel Fahrun Tuesday, May 6, 2008
So, the holidays from work came early with a national holiday last starting last Thursday. Due to the long history of Catholism in Colombia there is a pretty rediculous amount of holidays.
I guess the best way to explain it, is that where snow days in Owen Sound accounted for usually 15 days off of school a year, you can count on national holidays.
So, with the holiday celebrating the accension of Christ the Bye family invited me to travel to Villa de Leyva a small colonial town three hours north of Bogota. It was a nice chance to see what historic Colombia would have looked like. The town is pretty small, with coble stone roads, white washed walls and beautiful mountains in the background.
While there we stayed at a small Retreat centre built by a missions organization. It was a cool little camp with a beautiful court yard and a touch of Colombian adventure in that you have to check your shoes and the shower curtain in the morning for scorpions.
I have the feeling that rock climbing here would be pretty scary as you would probably worry just as much about creepy things on the rock as the fall behind you. While in town we had lots of opportunities to explore the many shops and great food.
The second day of our visit we took a misguided attempt at climbing the local mountain, though after missing the trail and bush wacking through head high ferns, trees and cactus we decided to head back down.
Turned out we had made it about half way up, with the trail 200 metres to our left the whole time. This was a good chance to get to know some of the other teachers from the El Camino Academy, where I´m working, as 6 teachers were with us from there. The mis-adventure of the mountain was a great chance to get to know them and it will be great going back to work with more friends at the school.
On the trip back there was another great element of Colombian adventure, the driving. There really are no driving laws here, and the police are more likely to pull you over for a head or tail light being out than for speed or recklesness. As this is the case, highways are crazy with everyone weeving everywhere and lots of good little scares.
The usually intense driving was made even more scary on the way to and from Villa de Leyva because at certain points the roads start to switchback through the mountains with a little guard rail between you and the 1000ft drop beside you.
Anyways, tomorrow I´ll be moving into a new house with a completely spanish speaking family. I´m excited for the opportunity and will be praying for good challenges and learning opportunities with the move. Well, it´s hasta luego for me, hope you´re all doing well.
