Tunja, Villa de Leyva and the road back to Bogota

Spent a couple of days in the surrounds of Tunja, the place where my mum is from and where I have many childhood memories. When we used to come here as children my parents would try to immerse us in the local culture as possible, which meant going to school with Colombian kids for several weeks or having typing lessons at the house of an old family acquaintance. Not sure how many of you spent your summer holidays being the new kid in a foreign classroom (being asked how do you say pencil, pencil case, rubber etc in English over and over and over) or trekking across town with a typewriter on your back (yes the glory days before the proliferation of computers and Mavis Beacon and yes Catherine I do remember very well).

So plenty to revisit here. Loved going to visit my cousin Maria Alexandra, the old house of my uncle who's family has now relocated to Bogota, it's now a children's nursery which I found quite sad, walking around the streets and shops and taking in the colonial past of the Plaza Bolivar. Despite everyone being OBSESSED with the 'cold' it was positively sunny and, dare I say it- warm.

Villa de Leyva is famous as a perfectly preserved colonial town and a must see for anyone in the area. We spent an afternoon there taking in the history and the culture of the present, a music festival in the main square made for the perfect balance between the old and the new.

Time to trek back to Bogota now and spend some time chilling before traveling to the coast. Lovely Esperanza (mum's cousin and an absolute saint who's driven us round all this time) took us to lunch in her exclusive country club and then left mum and Elvita there keeping an eye on Leo while we took a trip to a place called Zipaquira, famous for it's bizarre Cathedral cut deep within a salt mine. Not sure who dreamed this one up but the end result does make for quite a spectacular viewing, though not for the claustrophobic.