Journey to Cartagena
Our first destination from Bogota was a small town called Villa De Leyva, it can be quiet busy as it is a big weekend destination for the people of Bogota. We were lucky as it was quiet while we were there so we could wander the cobbled streets only bumping into locals. Its a preserved colonial town so the houses all have balconies and indoors theres a courtyard (usually without any sort of ceiling) with all the rooms of the house surrounding it. We went for a bike trip around the surrounding area visiting a local archaeological site (which the guide book compared to stonehenge - yea right) which was a little disappointing but the scenery was fantastic green hills with white houses every now and then with their brown/orange roof tiles.
After a very stressful bike trip (hit a few hills on the return
journey) we decided to go for an ice-cream. Of course we picked the worst possible time -siesta so everyone was asleep!! We found a really nice home that had been renovated - complete with a grassy courtyard and was now been used as a restaurant. As we were drinking our juices (no ice-cream!!) in the open area what buzzed by but a humming bird (really wanted to see one of these so was delighted when we found one without even looking) they´re unbelievably fast birds they never stop zooming from one place to the other a greeny blue colour. This of course made my day and i was happy enough to move on to our next destination the following day.
Another bus trip later we arrived in San Gil again very popular tourist spot lots of adventure sports etc. We arrived on the friday leading up to local elections and as its not advised to travel during that period we decided to stay put in San Gil. There were only a few of us there but that in itself was nice as we had the hammocks all to ourselves and as there were no bars open (they ban alcohol over the voting weekend) we played boardgames most nights (drinking game jenga is really good fun!!!). San Gil itself is a lovely little place with a shady plaza (well you need shade here as its warm - yes were back in the sun). I really enjoyed the fact we found the local markets were you could get fresh fruit juices in the morning.
In San Gil itself theres a lovely botanic gardens definately worth a trip. Theres a pool which is fed by the local river and there are lots of walkways and benches to sit and read a book at - i especially liked the trees which looked like they were from a fantasy novel like never ending story or Harry Potter. We went to go paragliding on the sunday
- voting day but the weather wasn´t the best so it was canceled. On Monday (which was another bank holiday they love their hols here) we went to a small town we´d been told was really nice, called Barrichara, (of course everything was shut as it was a bank holiday) it was a lovely little place sent with forest encircling it. All the buildings were colonial style there were at least three churches. From here we headed on a tourist walk we´d been told about to the next little town, Guane. It took us three hours but the scenery was lovely and we were walking around 3o´clock so the weather wasn´t as hot and there was a nice breeze.
When we arrived at Guane an even smaller little town - people were just hanging out in the square catching up on the local gossip which was really cool to see. Just a sleeply little village that was mainly supported by farming you just knew everyone knew everyone. The kids were running around the square safe and sound we had a paper airplane throwing contest with one little guy before Garrett got dragged away to play football. I think the only thing with a motorised engine we saw while there was our bus - which arrived 2hours late which in turn meant we missed our connecting bus from Barrichara to San Gil.
Again our spanish was excellent as we tried to organise a taxi (no other buses that day) back to San Gil (would´ve stayed in the town except we hadn´t checked out of the hostel in San Gil. We were directed to a call centre at the top of the town and i have to say what happened next is one of the reasons i really like Colombia. The guy in the call centre contacted the local taxi service for us when we explained what we were looking for unfortunately the guy was sick which meant we had to get a taxi from San Gil to come out and get us.
Again the owner of the call centre rang for us with a massive discussion taking place while he was on the phone with the two other people in the shop a really friendly woman and an old man. We were later to discover that the taxi tried to charge extra for the trip when he found out we were foreigners so the kind people of Barrichara canceled the taxi and then rang up again pretending the woman needed the taxi herself - let me tell the taxi man was not happy when he arrived and we hopped into the car.
After a pretty relaxed trip in San Gil we decided to head on to Cartagena for holloween so it was back on another bus (again 20hrs). I will recommend the hostel we stayed in Maconda which was run by an aussie called Sean who was really helpful.
S&G