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Other entries in Villa de Leiva

Stopped by the police and falling off the bike!

On Friday it was raining very hard. It's the end of the rainy season, but it's lasting a bit longer than I had hoped for! We fixed the top box lock on Alistair's box and wandered in town. In the evening we met with Rocio, a friend of a friend back in London. We had exchanged few emails and decided to meet in the new part of town.

A young dark haired, blue eyed woman with a huge smile joined us at our table. It was Rocio. Almost immediately she invited us to spend the long weekend (Monday is bank holiday here) with her and her friends at Villa de Leiva. They had rented a house in this ancient colonial little town and they had spare room for us. We decided to join them on Sunday as we had some things to sort out on Saturday on the bikes and electronics.

Sunday morning we left the hotel very early and soon after turning into a major road we got stopped by the police! We had taken the bus lane by mistake, and as we realised our mistake and went on the right lane, one cop radioed his colleagues ahead! A few cops, fully armed with guns and machines guns made us the universal sign to stop. With such convincing arguments on their hands we pulled on the side of the road! Alistair, ahead of me, made his best impression of dummy tourist "no parlo espagnol". After few minutes of radio conversation they made us sign to go! Result! When we told this to Rocio, later on, she was gutted as she was fined around 100 pounds for a similar offence.

Now few words about riding in Colombia. Lorries and buses are king, then cars, motorcycles and cycles. Pedestrians take their lives in their hands when walking on the road, and sometimes the pavement! Some people also steal the manholes from the road, for scrap. That's what I call a BIG pothole! Overtaking is de rigueur. Colombians will not tolerate having anyone in front of them and will overtake anytime anywhere. I am very glad I did the IAM advanced riding training! It's proving essential here to get a chance to survive!

On the way to Villa de Leiva we stopped at Zipaquira. Rocio recommended to visit the salt Cathedral, built in a salt mine, underground, and obviously in salt! The cathedral is massive and incredibly impressive! I couldn't help thinking that anywhere else in the world the place would be mobbed with germans and italians, but as it was, we were the only foreigners!

Mid afternoon we arrived at Villa de Leiva. After a quick phone call to Rocio she joined us in the Plaza Mayor to show us the way to the house. The town is now protected and cannot be modernised. Most of it is paved in huge irregular stones. Not particularly nice to ride with a fully loaded bike on heavy traffic, but it is not here that I fell off my bike. No! That happened getting into the house drive. It was a very tight turn, on a very steep hill and involved dogs running around like mads! I can reassure dogs lovers that the dogs were fine, the only injury was my pride!

The following day Rocio and her friends were going back to Bogota so we sorted our accomodation. We got lucky again, finding a very friendly place, 1km out of town in big beautiful grounds.

As I laze in my hamac, drinking a cold beer, I put a special message for my friend Malena! I have already forgotten all about work!!!!

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