Colombia Part 2

We spent almost 2 months in Colombia and loved every second of it! The country offers culture, nature, activites and the nicest people.

After El Cocuy National Park we spent a night in Villa de Leyva, a small town outside of Bogata. It is a very popular local Colombian tourist spot. Mainly people from Bogota go there for the weekends. It also has the largest plaza in Colombia.

Next we went to Bogota and spent 2 weeks there. Here is a view of the large sprawling city from the mountains behind it.

Here is where we stayed in La Candelaria (the historic area of Bogota). It was a very beautiful neighborhood with numerous universities and government buildings. Almost every building was covered in grafiti. Majority of it was political. We found out that whenever a major political event takes place the streets get covered in grafiti. They leave it on for a month or so until the crowds calm down and then shortly after everything will be covered again.

There were rallies in the main square at least twice a week. With their crazy political history, the people of Colombia are very active and make their voice heard.

One of our favorite activites was walking up and down this pedestrian streeet. There are vendors everywhere selling anything you could ever imagine, street preformers, protests, amazing people watching and of course guinea pig races.

This shop would put a pair of pants in the street everyday to show they were open. It always cracked us up as this was a busy street and all the cars would just go around them.

One of our favorite treats was bocadilla which is guava paste (in my leftt hand). One day while I was enjoying my snack a bird pooped right on my hand.... and hair and back.  Patrick found it hilarious and made me pose for like 10 pictures beofre I could wash it off.

Our friend Matt from home and Ronaldo came and met up with us for a few days in Bogota. Here they are on top of the mountain behind the city.

A big highlight in Bogota was the beer. There were a few breweries here with good beer. A treat from the watery lagers offered everywhere else.

After Bogota we went to a small agriculture town called Salento. 

Here was our camping spot at the hostel. Our view was amazing !

Salento is a 20 minute Jeep ride to a beautiful National Park where we spent a day hiking.

The jeeps were actually the local transportation to the surrounding towns. So we were crammed in.

It rains a lot in Salento so our hike was quite muddy but it made for some awesome vegetation.

Huge leaves! This is a plant we have in our house. Only our house plant has leaves smaller than my hand.

There were amazing humming birds on our hike! We have never seen such a beautiful tail.

There were palm trees all over the country side before the hike. It made for an interesting mix of trees.

Patrick paying the jeep back in Salento.

We went through a few more towns before we made our way to the Ecuadorian border. We did some more hiking in Buga and some good eating in Popyan. One of the last soups Patrick ate in the border town Ipiales. Yummy chicken feet!