We´ve now been away from home for nearly 8 months. In that time I estimate that I have lost over 75% of my worldly belongings (the recent dearth of photographs of me is due to the fact that I am reluctant to be seen in a sack cloth), packed my bag over 700 times, taken over 412 international flights, and consumed more omelettes than Robinson Crusoe on Chicken Island (the little known sequel). In all that time, the most impressive monster that I´ve seen has to be the colossal cronosaurus - this is an aquatic beast so large it dwarfs even [View Full Entry]

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This was originally going to be a blog about Bogota, the Colombian capital; however I only slept there for two nights and I spent no time there during the day. My time was spent in Villa de Leyva instead; and hence it is the subject of this blog. The reason for my change of destination was that some of the people I met in Salento were heading to Villa de Leyva and so I thought I would do the same. Villa de Leyva is in the Colombian Highlands and it is about four hours north by bus from Bogota. It is [View Full Entry]

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We initially had some excitement planned for our next day in Colombia; visiting a bulletproof vest factory, and testing one out. Yes, that´s right, the brave amongst us could try on a vest and be shot at. Unfortunately they were going to charge too much for the "ruined vests", so we didn´t do it in the end. So, we drove four hours north of Bogota to the beautiful village of Villa De Leyva. Founded in 1533, it remains untouched by modern architecture, retaining all the original buildings. If it wasn´t for the occasional car lurching along it´s cobbled streets, you´d think [View Full Entry]

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We took a minibus from Bogota. He was an hour late then drove like a mad bugger north to Villa de Leyva. It took a while to get out of town. All the streets have been numbered. Carreras (avenues) and Calles (streets). We were staying around Calle 13. We saw signs for Calle 100 and more before we started to hit countryside. It was very pretty with lots of farmland - cows and crops. We stopped at the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá. There was an old one that had to be closed because the water was making it unstable. The new [View Full Entry]

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After a extremly long sleep in and late breakfast Sonia, me, Jamie, Andrea, Andrea´s boyfriend and a carload of others set off for Villa de Leyva for the weekend. Sonia´s family set off earlier and we would meet them there later in the afternoon. We arrived a tad late but stopped by a local hippodrome and besides my persistant requests to sonia asking if i could put some money on the races she told me that they don´t have gambling here and don´t be stupid....of course my horse won! but it was quite good to watch the horses seemed a bit [View Full Entry]

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