Villa de Leiva

I have always heard lovely things about Villa de Leiva from my Aunty Jan and Uncle Nick who lived in Bogota in the 90s and came here a lot. We thought of them when we went past the luxury hotel that they had recommended to us en route back from the walk above. It was slightly beyond our budget but we imagined they must have had a lovely time in the outdoor jacuzzis. Granny and Grandad also came here with them so we enjoyed picturing them all here.  

Villa de Leiva is a beautiful, colonial town in the mountains and a weekend retreat for many Bogotanos. There are lots of great walks around the area which we really enjoyed and appreciated after gazing longingly many times at hills and not getting out in them in our time around Bogota. 

In Colombia, the countryside is spectacular - mountains and rolling green hills which look perfect for walking in. Unfortunately, much of it is private land or as we discovered one day when we returned from an after lunch stroll from a roadside restaurant a few hours from Bogota to a pale and anxious Del Valle family, it may be inhabited by kidnapping guerillas. It made us realise how much we take public footpaths (and lack of armed guerillas) in the UK for granted.

We did one walk which was hard work - we arrived too late so had to march to reach a 'lagoon' (see below, not quite the bathing spot we envisaged but lovely all the same), ascending over 1000 metres constantly for several hours from a starting point of 2800m. Altitude makes such a difference. 

Spot Wally amongst the Andean flowers 
We're not sure what this is but a nice photo

It's probably worth a mention after our epic food entry that our last meal in Villa de Leiva was to be our downfall. After so much delicious food throughout our time in Colombia, we drank a couple of dodgy jugos (fresh juices, probably with dirty water) with our usual meal deals and it was game over on the food front for us until a few days into Peru.