Fossil Hunting

Villa de Leyva
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Left Quito a little delayed due to our driver being late, apparently something to do with rain and a transport strike.  Anyway, headed off and drove through the Andes,  much of the scenery was forest and barren mountains, and arrived in Villa de Leyla around 2ish.  Checked into our hotel, located on the Plaza, the largest in Columbia and headed straight out for some lunch, which was delicious and cheap and a walk around the town. The town was small, mostly located around the plaza with a few streets running off and it was narrow.  The street were cobbled, like much of the the old colonial parts of Columbia.  After lunch headed to the internet to find that although there were lots of place, they only had 3-4 terminals in each, and many were taken.  Looked for a free one but the rain had started and the water was running like rivers down the cobbled stone making it difficult to get across and jumping would have been risky.  Headed to one with a coffee shop to wait and had some great coffee - although Columbia is renowned for its coffee it does not make nice coffee at all.  Afterwards headed back to the hotel for some drinks and later went out for a pool competition with Jen, Truman and Ropper.  Sadly Ropper and I lost even though we were originally winning 3-0.  Oh well.

Villa de Leyva
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Following day, headed out to El Fosil, a site that is known for its abundance of fossils and also contains one of only two fully excavated Kronosauras, a large crocodillian with a head larger than a T-Rex.  We then headed to El Infiernito, a old worship site that has lots of stone penis`s and is believed to aid fertility.  After which we suffered a burst tyre.  Afterwards we headed to Cascada de la Periquera (waterfall) in a nearby park, before heading back to the hotel.  This was delayed by the rain that had occured and us getting bogged in the road.  We all had to get our and then after several tries the women reboarded whilst the men gathered stones and sticks and pushed us out.  This delayed us by about one hour, and just 10 minutes later it happened again, but this time we were out within 5 minutes.

The Statues!
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The following day we  left early, well as early as the late driver will have us, and stopped first at a tourist town called Raquira.  This had lots of tourist shops, a large plaza and lots of people in the traditional clothing of the area.  We then had another stop at a catherdal and finally headed on to the Salt Cathederal about 30km outside Bogota.  We then headed back to Bogota, and our hotel where we got stuck in the traffic due to the heavy rains and the traffic jams created by them.  We eventually arrived back at the hotel to find the patio area now a mini lake and our room still cold.  It was a quick turnaround for TGI Friday`s before going back to pack and watch TV.