A wild goose chase

 

Church and another beautiful colonial building in Zipaquirá

Wednesday morning: For the first time during this trip there is a lively exchange of rooster crowing: we have arrived at the smallest town yet, much praised for its quaint colonial beauty, sought out by people from Bogotá as a weekend getaway. We really liked Zipaquirá, which was nearly bare of tourists, as far as we could tell, and thus just an ordinary town with all the hustle and bustle, the tiny shops, local restaurants and bakeries, that belong to any town in central and south America we have visited. There are few shops selling trinkets, expensive restaurants geared to the tastes of foreigners, and the exchange of a friendly 'buenos días' in passing is not unusual. It suited us well, but we also want to see more of the country, go on hikes, enjoy the landscape, so Villa de Leya, much praised by several people we met, was a logical choice.

We left Zipaquirá with one of the frequent small busses running to the small town of Briceňo, situated on the bigger road that runs from Bogotá to Tunja and beyond, crossed the highway where, conveniently, a bus was waiting already and arrived in the city of Tunja about two hours later. Again it took no time at all to get on a bus to our final destination for the day.

The landscape had changed slowly from the lush pastures with cow herds to ever drier conditions, and now the hills looked even more arid, cactus and agave the prominent vegetation. The road, very curvy and at times steep, provided a great view of the deep valley below. Finally, after a long descent, we arrived at the small bus terminal of Villa de Leya. Johann had downloaded the instructions how to get to the 'boutique hotel' from booking.com, and to be sure we also looked at google maps: it seemed straightforward and not far from the main plaza. We weren't worried at all about the walk with our backpacks, didn't even give it a thought.

We found the plaza right away, but then our instructions didn't lead us anywhere. Where the hotel was supposed to be none was to be found. We asked a guy at a nearby bar, who punched in the address and sent us four blocks up from the plaza – nothing. By now we were ready for a break and decided to stop at a restaurant for a beer and wifi: maybe we'd be able to figure out our mistake and get the right directions. Fortified and armed with new suggestions we were again on our way, but try as we might, the hotel remained elusive. More inquiries just netted us shrugs, even when people looked at our instructions from booking.com and the address: nobody seemed to know the name, and as for the address, opinions varied where it might be found. Did it even exist?

An old man standing at a corner saw our indecision and waved us closer, looked at the address and decided that it should be 'siete quadras' (seven blocks) in that direction, but before we could even start an older woman with a kerchief, a lot of missing teeth and carrying two black plastic bags took over. 'No, no', she told the old man, this was totally wrong. 'Vamos', she waved to us: she would take us where we needed to go. This turned out to be another wild goose chase, however; her enthusiasm didn't change the fact that we were still lost. She finally stopped at a hotel a few blocks from the plaza and asked a clerk to look up the address on the internet. The clerk then seemed to know exactly where it was and explained it to the old woman, who marched off at a fast clip, two tired, backpack-carrying tourists in tow. It took another ten or fifteen minutes, but finally we saw the house depicted in booking.com's photo, the sign indeed announcing 'Villa San Miguel” - thank goodness! We had pretty much given up already to ever find it. We thanked the old woman and sent her off with a tip and lugged our packs up the stairs to our room, clean and welcoming. Finally! We had looked forward to a shower, but here the next surprise awaited us: the water was cold! This is not unusual in the tropical areas of Colombia, but here, in the highlands, hotels and hostels always have warm water. What a disappointment. Johann, who was the guinea pig for the shower (apart from the water temperature there can be several other surprises, like non-functioning electric shower heads, for instance), suffered through the cold shower, but I decided to wait until I had found out if this was not a mistake. This turned out to be the case: warm water would be available again at seven in the morning, I was told. What a relief! I could wait until then. We were able to get something to eat, at least, and had no trouble sleeping after that exhausting day.

Today, we'll see if we can wipe out the first less favourable impressions and enjoy the much-cited

beauty of Villa de Leyva. I'm sure we will have no trouble to do so. 

The big Tuesday market at Zipaquirá