It gets worse for Liz, she couldn't get much sleep as her bites were driving her mad. In addition she has now picked up bed bug bites from last night. Bless her she is putting on a brave face but we really need to find somewhere that doesn't involve being bitten to death.

The places in Columbia up to now have just been transit places, we have been heading to Villa de Leiva. This is a village that has the rare acolade of being protected by the nation. This should we hope be a nice place to rest after all the travelling.

We past San Gill the place I would have liked to stay last night but never made it due to the landslides. It looked lovely and a good omen for the destination today.

I have finally caught up with the blogs so right now I am being flung around in a mini bus somewhere between Socorro and Barbasa. Being flung around is no exageration we already have had two emergency brakes and tyres are screeching round some of the corners. If you have a close look at the blog picture you will see that the fence posts are distorted due to the speed we are going.

Up to now Columbia is looking promising, the people are happy and friendly and the countryside is very pleasing to the eye. If we can get some accomodation that doesn't eat us and for a price we can afford we will be laughing. The costs are another downside after Venezuela but still very cheap by western standards.

We have just seen our first gringos since Venezuela. Gringos are very much a novelty around here and especially near the border. Most travellers around here either do Venezuela or Columbia not both. The scare stories about the border probally put a lot of people off travelling overland here. But even in touristy areas you see very few fellow travellers. For example the bus stopped at a eatery, I over heared the Columbian lady next to me say to her daughters look Gringos (us) in a similar way that a mother might point out sheep.

After another two emergency brakes we made it alive to the bus terminal where we had to change buses for the 50 minutes drive to the village. Being gringos the locals know where you are heading and being Columbians overly helpful. If you hesitate for one moment to stratch your nose they would come up and direct you in the direction of the bus. We pretty much walked the 40 yards from the bus we spent 7 hours on to the waiting bus that set out straight away for the village. It is so easy getting buses here, you can just turn up at the bus station and be on a bus to where you want to go within minutes.

Before we knew it we were dropped off in the village. Despite it being only a village and having a map it was tricky finding the posada. The streets had names whilst the map just had street numbers. Asking directions would get a patient response and a follow up question that we didn't recognize a word of. As they are so nice you feel that you have to try and work it out but really you just want to get to a room and not use your brain. Columbia is the first place that we would like to be able to comunicate better for social reasons.

The village is fantastic, cobbled streets houses that look Swiss and one of the largest squares in the Americas. Liz caught some western music coming from an intimate looking bar. She beemed, we had found somewhere that we would like to stay - welcome to Columbia.

A well earned lie in tomorrow and some camera action - can't wait.