Colombia - San Gil

We're in San Gil now, and really like it here.  San Gil is a small town, there's not much to it really but have a nice hostel and it's fairly relaxed around here.  The weather has been good too.

Some photos around the town...

Found a great Fruiteria: basically a fruit shop but they also sell juices and make up amazing fruit salads with grated coconut and condensed milk on top, we were also offered cheese which is popular on fruit salads in Colombia but we declined.

 Empanada con pollo - empanada with chicken...

Colombia - Paragliding & Tobacco Farms - San Gil

Had a brilliant day yesterday. Splashed out and paid 20 Euro for an hour long bus journey up the mountains to see some tobacco farms and go paragliding! The paragliding was great, we both loved it, thought it would be scary, but it wasn't at all, really smooth movement and amazing the amount of control the drivers had just by pulling strings on the parachutes.  Loved seeing the tobacco farms too.

Flowering tobacco plants...

Leaves hanging out to dry...

The helmets were really reassuring...

Brian in flight...

What a view.

There are spots for swimming all along the rivers around here, we went to the Pozo Azur for a swim this morning. Loads of butterflies everywhere and little yellow birds that look like canaries.

The trees around here have some kind of lichen growing from them that completely takes over and hangs down...

There were lots of brightly coloured butterflies and ones that changed from blue to green but this is the only one we could catch, it was really big though...

We've been getting the Menu del Dia in a lot of restaurants for lunch which is great. For about 2 or 3 euro you get soup, a drink, a main course and sometimes a little dessert. A typical main course looks like this, some meat and about three kinds of carbohydrates.  They also serve it with a gorgeous salsa, full of spicy peppers and coriander.

Heading up to the Caribbean coast on a 14 hour bus to Santa Marta this evening.  Hoping to settle somewhere along the coast for a while to get Spanish lessons.

Colombia - Villa de Leiva

So on our last night in Bogota we encountered our first minor problem with accommodation; an allergic reaction to the bed covers. So glad we brought sleeping bag liners!

Got a taxi out to Bogota bus station which is miles out of the city, ended up going through loads of warehouses and pot holed dirt roads to get there.  Another interesting zoning combination along the way: about four blocks of opticians and then the same straight after but selling refrigeration units. Handy. Buses are very cheap and comfortable, though the roads up and down and over the Andes can be quite bumpy.

Here are some photos of the scenery on the way from Bogota to Villa de Leiva.

Villa de Leiva is a colonial town which has been preserved, there is no modern architecture in the town at all and its streets are cobbled with huge uneven stones. There is a huge main square that we were staying on.  When we arrived there was a show going on on the steps outside the church with different indigenous groups from around South America singing and dancing in their native costume.  It's a really pleasant town, with a warmer climate than Bogota; more of a weekend getaway for wealthy Bogotanas than a backpacker spot as there are organic food  shops, nice restaurants and craft shops everywhere. Also visited an ancient Muisca site about an hours walk away from the town along a dirt track. 

These things are growing on the electricity wires everywhere...

 Lunch: Ajaco, a local speciality: chicken and corn soup with potatoes, served with avocado and rice.

Bus journey from Villa de Leiva to San Gil...