Back To The Villa

Monday was transfer day for the crew of GANNET2 and that means we left our apartment at nine in the morning and landed in our campground at four in the afternoon.

The plan was to take a slow drive from our apartment near Sogamoso back to Villa de Leyva where we spent a week before Easter. This would have been the straight route:

Naturally Layne the navigator had more elaborate plans than a straight drive! 

I was glad to be going for a drive and for a change of scene but this apartment we rented for ten days was a life saver for the national holiday that is Easter week. 

We did trips as you have seen but this was a great place to come back to not least because it was so quiet. We heard fireworks one night but otherwise it was a valley of occasional farm dog barks and profound darkness. It was perfect. 

We had the use of a jacuzzi to soak in at night and the heat in the bedroom kept our space comfortable. Layne enjoyed having a kitchen and Rusty liked sleeping on our bed during the day by himself when he wanted to be alone.

Or sleeping on our other extra sheet we used to protect the couch. 

At 8600 feet we acclimated to the altitude which is helpful even though we have much higher to go as we travel to Ecuador. 

Driving out we had to get through the industrial city of Sogamoso but before we got there we got flagged down by a lady waiting for the bus. It happens a lot in country where vehicles like ours are buses not RVs and this time we have her a ride and it was pretty funny when she realized we were a gringo motorhome. She had never traveled with a fridge microwave or bed before and kept busy taking photos of this weird bus. 

After we dropped her off we made tracks for one town we had wanted to see but hadn’t got to on Holy Week.

A “knob” in British-English is an idiot of a sort, so in visiting the town of Nobsa one has to keep one’s puerile sense of humor under control. One doesn’t want to piss off one’s wife. 

We parked on the street before we got to the main square and took a stroll. It looks like I was sitting on the bumper of the car behind but there was actually lots of room just for worry warts out there. The camera tends to compress angles sometimes. 

Nobsa has a pretty park at its heart and we enjoyed wandering the stores and the garden in their midst. 

Rainy search is late and the soil is dry and rock hard. 

Municipal clean up crew:

As Rusty demonstrates there was a fair bit of heat in direct sunlight. 

We stopped for coffee called “tinto”…

…and potato balls filled with a hard boiled egg! $1:50 each and we were stuffed and ready for the road. Mexican food is more varied and sauced and spiced but Colombian food has a weird novelty value. 

Rusty was welcome of course. 

Walking back to GANNET2 we got caught up on some shopping. They have short wool ponchos called “ruana” in Colombia and Layne has I think, been busy envying me my Mexican serape from Oaxaca. 

We got her some wool gloves and a ruana and a colorful floornat for the van. Then the family wanted to exchange Facebook and WhatsApp addresses with Layne and then the photo and the inevitable van tour. Colombians are so curious and interested they deserve more visitors from afar.  

Rusty was ready to hang out. 

But we had to get to Villa de Leyva and our former campground. Reluctantly he followed us ignoring the sacked out locals. 

We ambled on, stopped to buy fruit and an ice cream made of blueberry and soursop and so goes retirement… 

…on the road in Colombia. Other truck and car drivers pulled alongside and smiled. They don’t see US plated cars on the road here and one gets the feeling they might like to see more as they chatted with us about our travels alongside us at red lights. 

You will see lots of cows and sheep grazing placidly on the public grasses on the side of the road. Mercifully they aren’t loose but their presence gives you pause. 

The day’s travel was a mixture of very easy four lane highway…

…and streets so steep in these hill towns we wondered if we could crawl to the top. It was a bit like San Francisco on an acid trip with rough potholes pavement and impossible hill climbs in our 9400 pound van. 

One street appeared to end in an unlikely alley and as we wondered why Google maps took us here the blue line veered to the right leading us up another bumpy back street in an impoverished neighborhood. 

After Sogamoso we climbed up to 10,000 feet and wandered among eucalyptus like trees and assorted pines through the mountains…

And of course we stopped at the top at the Texaco gas station where we stopped a week ago on our way to Pesca.  Gasoline is twice the price of diesel and works out to around $3:50 a gallon. But here we get free coffee. Yay! 

And fortified with sweet hot tinto we drove down the other side of the mountain! 

No police checks, no bandits but there was a toll booth charging $2:65 to pass. 

And there was the inevitable slow truck holding up traffic. No big deal for us retirees and slowly slowly the cars ahead of us in line passed one by one until it was our turn behind the crawling 18 wheeler and we got to speed up a bit after we took our turn and got ahead of him. We don’t drive much over 40 mph on these winding randomly potholes roads but 12 mph is a bit slow even for us. 

Random potholes: 

Before we reached our destination we stopped to check out some dinosaur remains. However thunder was rumbling and rain was threatening and Rusty, even though he is allowed in, was not getting out of GANNET2 to face the distant thunder. 

We’ll come back with better weather later this week. 

Local dogs don’t scare him anymore. 

For the next few days we’ll be in Villa de Leyva for our second visit  before we drive to Bogotá the capital this weekend. Rest and recreation and van living once again after all that apartment life. This retirement is exhausting, I tell you. 

Back in Villa de Leyva. 

No farm dogs to bother him here.