BACK INTO THE COLOMBIAN ANDES

WEATHER: Hot in the morning 27C and cooler in the afternoon

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: A short day in the truck – 9.5 hours

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Just tired

WORD OF THE DAY:  The Andes are beautiful

DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 298km

Sleep can be over-rated.  The hostel had an amazing Wi-Fi connection, so I decided to upload the 2 blogs that I had written that day.  After checking Facebook and replying to Zeme’s message it was just after 2am.  Sleep is over-rated.  My alarm went off at 6.15am, so I could try and beat the shower queue using the communal showers at the hostel and I missed the first shower by only 5 minutes.  So 15 minutes later a bathroom came available and I had another cold shower.  Most of the hotter places we have been to have only one tap in the shower so you just know that there is now hot water, some of the higher altitude places have 2 taps, so you get excited that you may just have hot water, but the hot water tap doesn’t always work.  This was the case here in Bucaramanga.  Once you’re in though, it is quite refreshing to have a cold shower to start your day.

Poor Mark gets hammered everyday on how long the drives will be.  Some days he has been spot on, but the last couple of truck days he’s been a little off.  Not really his fault when weather, traffic and roadwork’s slow us down.  The same question was asked to day and 5 hours was the reply.  If you ask Gray, he doesn’t count the hour we stop as part of the truck day’s timing, or when we are stuck in traffic and not moving for 2 hours, he doesn’t count that, but I do as we are still ‘in’ the truck right?

So welcome back to the Andes.  They truly are a spectacular mountain range that is for sure and just after 9.30am we started our climb into them proper.  The views we had as we wound our way up the mountain range was stunning to say the least and we could see a cable car that started from one side of the mountain range into the valley and came up the other side of the range.  It would have been amazing to go on the cable car for a ride that is for sure.  We stopped at a small shop at 1660m that also had a view point, but the clouds had decided to roil in at that time and we really couldn’t get any photos, but it was also a munchies stop and I got 2 small sausages, a small potato and a areapa that was filled with cheese and it was so good but I decided to share some of it with one of the dogs that had a lot of ribs showing I just couldn’t resist.  The condition of the dogs varies from town to town, but on a whole they all seem to at least be well fed, which is nice as New Heather and I love meeting new four legged friends at the toilet and lunch stops.  They generally always get some form of scrapes from lunch as well, so nothing goes to waste. 

There’s something special driving through clouds.  When you fly you just expect to see and fly through clouds, but to be that high up that we are driving through clouds is pretty special.  Not sure if Gray would agree as he can’t see a thing some of it was that thick.  The temperature had also dropped from 41C yesterday to a cooler 23C today.  It surreal that after only driving 200km that the weather can change that much, but we are in the Andes after all.  Lunch was spent at 1610m with the usual fare of fresh bread rolls, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, onion, ham, salami and the last few lunches we have had tinned tuna.  I love tuna, mix that with onion and some cheese and that is one tasty sandwich.  Even after 5 months of ham, onion, cheese and tomato sandwiches, if we have tuna and fresh bread I can happily say I am still enjoying lunches, even after 146 days.  

The afternoon’s drive was spent trying to think of a new blog name for my move to Ethiopia.  I have decided to start a new blog for when I move in September.  It won’t get started till I get back to Australia, where I will start documenting the process of getting things ready for my move, but I think there will be many funny stories, interesting facts, cultural gaffs, language barriers and with a whole new country, people and job skills to learn I think it would make for some interesting reading.

So I need to think of a new blog name for my new beginning.  I have spent some time looking at an online thesaurus and below are some of the options that I have come up with.  If anyone wants to input some ideas or vote on one of the ones below, any feedback would be welcomed and appreciated.  It is a tough decision to get the right blog name, it’s like naming a child, once you have it, and you just can’t change it.  It needs to be easy to tell people and catchy at the same time.

The top 6 are the front runners for me but let me know what you think.

Confessions of an Ethiopians Girlfriend
Expat in Ethiopia
My Ethiopian Way of Life
Bernie’s Ethiopian Odyssey
Bernie Reveals Ethiopia
Confessions from Ethiopia.....

Bernie’s Exploration of Ethiopia

My Ethiopian Trails and Tribulations

Bernie’s Ethiopian Exposure

Bernie’s Ethiopian Encounters

My Ethiopian Beginnings

Revealing Bernie’s Ethiopia

So if you have any feedback it is most welcome.  I am so excited for the next chapter of my life and I need a blog name that matches the next phase of my awesome life.    

We arrived into Villa El Leyva at 4.30pm. 8 hours after our departure this morning.  We get a lot of looks driving through all the cities and small towns and Villa El Leyva was no different.  People literally stop what they are doing to see us drive past them.  It feels like the circus has arrived into town with all the attention we get when we arrive.  I guess we do look a little out of the ordinary and to see that many ‘gringo’s’ at once must be a sight to behold.  Villa El Leyva is a small Colombian town and Rosita was far too big to drive us to our hotel for the night, so we had to walk the 6 blocks through the small laned streets to get there.  Lucky Sharon and I were smart and we packed our day bag for the whole 3 days/2 nights-not just last night, so we didn’t have to take our big bags, we could leave them on the truck and just carried our day bags.  Geez we are smart!

Villa de Leyva is a colonial town and municipality, in the Boyacá department of Colombia.  The town has a population of about 9,600 people. Villa de Leyva is considered one of the finest colonial villages of Colombia, and was declared a National Monument on December 17, 1954 to preserve its architecture. It is located in a high altitude valley at 2,144 m altitude where fossils from the Mesozoic and the Cretaceous periods are abound.

It was founded on June 12, 1572 by Hernán Suarez de Villalobos and named after the first president of the New Kingdom of Granada, Andrés Díaz Venero de Leyva.  Among the main areas of interests are the Plaza Mayor (Main Square) where besides the Church, many restaurants and stores selling some handcrafted art pieces. Most of the streets around the downtown are made of stones, similar to colonial times.   

The hotel was a cute place that looked like a hacienda straight out of Spain.  It had little courtyards inside and rooms that opened onto wooden benches and wall painted with outdoor scenes.  As there were an odd number of gals, Mark shuffles us around so that we all get a single room at some stage.  Tonight was my night for the single room, but I figured that I will be having 2 weeks of my own company starting next week, so I happily gave my single room to New Heather, who was happy to have some ‘Heather’ time for the night. 

So after we had dropped our bags and given 30 minutes to freshen up (internet for the connected people) we took a walk around the town, which took all of 15 minutes!  It is not a very big town that is for sure.  One of Villa de Leyva's main attractions is the town's variety of gastronomical pleasures. Restaurants serving all kinds of international dishes, including typical Italian, French and Spanish foods, can be found all over the town.  So after checking out some of the cute little shops selling local handicrafts, shoes and a lot of jewelry we checked out some of the restaurants and decided to eat on the massive and beautiful main square, the Plaza Mayor.  By this time the sun had set and all the lights of the square came on and the church at the top of the square looked amazing with its bell tower lights on.  The food was delicious and we also had a great table of 6 for dinner.  It’s sometimes nice to have a smaller group than trying to accommodate all 24 of us, with meals taking too long and getting seated next to someone you may just have nothing in common with!  So a big thanks to Alison, Steph, New Heather, Shaz and Marina for a lovely dinner and lovely company.  It makes me feel a little bad when I write a blog entry like a I did a few days ago about not meeting people I won’t see again, these gals are pretty cool and I will just put that entry down to having a bad day, but it is still time for me to move on from this continent.  That is something that hasn’t changed.  But as I would say, I have ‘toughened up Princess’ and I am now back on track to enjoy my last 11 days, come what may.

So it is a frosty goodnight from Villa El Leyva.  The rooms have no heating but there are plenty of warm blankets on the bed and it is nice to be able to snuggle up and get some relief from the heat that we have had pretty much since Manaus nearly 5 weeks ago.  It would be nice to have Zeme to huggle up to, but with him in my thoughts tonight as I went to sleep, I know that time will come and I just need to keep that in mind.