28th June, Villa de Leyva, Colombia

28th June, Villa de Leyva, Colombia

The town was having a festival this weekend. The cost of all the hostels went up from maybe 30,000 pesos per night to 60/70,000 pesos! But our hostel was a dump! It was under heavy construction and was really noisy all day because of the builders. There was also never any hot water, so I think the owner knew she couldnt charge us what the other hostels charge on a festival weekend, so she charged us 40,000 per night for the weekend.

We visited a cafe for lunch called Teresa's cafe, just off the main plaza. It was a great place, all over the walls were messages from the people who had visited the cafe. But it didnt look tacky, it had a nice feel to it. We ordered some sandwiches, and as usual because of the tiny portions they serve, we ended up with half a toastie each!

That night we went out for the festival celebrations. The main plaza was packed with people and also families, which was nice to see, as in England, you dont get alot of elderly people or small children out at 11pm!
We went to watch a big orchestra type band that was playing in the plaza. They were really good, they had a conductor who wasnt needed at all, as he spent most of the time texting on his phone! A middle aged man who was very drunk was almost grinding on the instruments much to the disgust of the conductor!

We headed over to a 'hippie act' on the other side of the square. We'd seen them when we were at the waterfalls practicing their juggling! They had a huge crowd watching, and they did things like cycling on a unicycle, banged on bowls for music as they didnt have any instruments, and they juggled with fire-sticks! Poor scared members of the public were practically dragged up to stand in the middle while the hippies juggled around them with their firesticks!
The crowd loved it but kept chanting 'Mas Dificil... Mas Dificil..(more difficult)!!

It was a good night, I was thinking it would be great to have a main plaza like this in Manchester, but it would be spoilt by everyone who would get legless and ruin it for the families..
I liked the family centred atmosphere there was in these main plazas throughout South America., I'd miss it when I would have to go home.

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