Descending

As a country near the equator, weather varies not by season but by altitude. Our first week found us going from fall or spring (Bogota, 8000’) to early summer or late fall (Villa de Leyva, 6000’) to mid-summer - hot, very hot, and dry (Barichara, 4000’).  We’re now at 2000’, in the town of Minca in the foothills above the Caribbean coast, definitely summer on the muggy side.

But I’ve gotten ahead of the trip…

Our drive out of Bogota passed by numerous suburbs - as the city continues to expand - and then endless huge greenhouse complexes.  What did they contain, we asked?  Flowers, fresh flowers, gazillions of them.  Our guide told us that flowers were cut, brought to the airport for night flights, and ended up in American cities the next morning.  Fresh-cut flowers, voila!

The main stop on the half day drive to Villa de Leyva was the Salt Cathedral.  Turns out this mountainous areas was under seas for millions of years and, as the seas receded and evaporated, thick layers of salt were deposited.  Once discovered, salt became a main industry and currency, far more valuable than gold. In one of the largest salt mines, still operating, the upper level was carved into an elaborate series of vaulted caverns, including a main cathedral, various smaller chapels, and the stations of the cross.  Of course, as happens with human religions, the complex includes a raft of shops selling religious curios and local crafts.  Pretty cool, nonetheless!

Monument to the miners at the entrance to the Salt Cathedral

One of the stations of the cross

Curios shops

The elaborate ceiling design is natural and preserved to symbolize the river Jordan

Villa de Leyva is an old Spanish village 3 hours north of Bogota in the middle of a wine and olive region.  Yes, you read that right.  The Spanish colonizers found this area so familiar in landscape, soil, and climate, they planted olives and grapes and founded this pueblo in the early 1500s.

We arrived there on New Years Eve day and found out the national broadcast of the night’s festivities would be from the town’s plaza mayor.  Cool!  We settled in to our lovely Airbnb just outside of town, run by Orlando and Cecilia.  Orlando is a character - though once a commercial pilot and then a professor of management, he was quite the intellectual. We talked about such esoteria as how the rate of human evolution seems to be accelerating and the book “Kabbalah for Dummies.”

ZThough we knew we wouldn’t make it to midnight, we ventured into town to dine and then check out the celebrations.  Wow!  On the cobble-stoned main square, one of the largest in South America, they had erected a huge stage, and hours before midnight, people/families were streaming in from all over the valley to claim their spots, coming with chairs, coolers, and kids in hand.  For you Seattleites, reminded us of SeaFair when we lived near Lake Washington.  The music was compelling, and people danced and sang along.  The fireworks afterward went on until the early hours.

As close as we got to midnight!

Rockin’ til midnight!

What the main square looked like the next morning.

The next day we had a lovely walking tour of some of the older sections of town with a local guide, Carmen and got to see some of the older and more tranquil sections of town.  As a bonus, we rented bikes with her and rode to the nearby “Casa Terra Cotta,” purported to be the largest ceramic structure in the world. The house, the creation of architect Octavio Mendoza Morales, reminded us a lot of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia and Parque Guell in Barcelona, part ingenious design, part fairy tale.