When you only speak a little of the language and are travelling in a foreign place you have to put a large amount of trust in the people around you. Thankfully this has not failed us yet (due to the amazingly helpful people of Colombia and Central America) although this time our journey from San Gil to Villa de Leyva did not quite pan out as planned. When we arrived at the San Gil bus station two bus company reps started fighting over us each saying that their bus would take us to Tunja (where you change for Villa de Leyva). We chose one of them and 3 hours later realised that we were not going to Tunja! Although it turned out the bus rep hadn't completely led us astray as from our new location we could still get a bus to Villa de Leyva and we actually arrived earlier than we had hoped. So maybe she was trying to help by putting us on a quicker route or maybe she just wanted the business without completely leading us astray - who knows.

Villa de Leyva is a beautiful colonial town with a huge town square. Although it is small and even sleepy it also manages to be cosmopolitan with a large cafe bar scene and international restaurants - it can do this as it is a popular place for wealthy locals to visit at the weekend and own second homes here. At an altitude of over 2,000m we started wearing our jumpers out for the first time on a regular basis since Guatemala. The locals wear woollen ponchos and some shops here even sold designer ponchos. We spent our first afternoon exploring the town's centre and the old mansion houses which are used to house shops, cafés, restaurants and bars around their courtyards. That evening we enjoyed a meal of German sausage while watching Colombia play Brazil (at football on the TV) although Colombia lost 1-0.

The next day (and last in Villa de Leyva) we visited the Saturday market and walked along the road into the country to visit a terracotta house and a ginormous fossil of a Kronosaurio dinosaur. We were surprised just how kind everyone was to us; from the man who owned the cafe we ate breakfast at who spoke to us for at least half an hour; to the policeman who wanted to talk to us about Ireland; to the man who gave us a lift to the fossil in his car (we were told that people would offer us lifts and that this was safe). Of course Katy bonded with the hostel's massively overweight black lab called Pepe - I feel like our photo album is becoming a bit animal centric.

Simon