The identity of Colombia lies in its villages. While big cities are more western-like with their traffic, commercial centers and facilities, in the countryside everyone has time for a cafecito (small coffee) and not such a small talk. No wonder we always prefer small towns and villages.
Above Bogota there are few unmissable villages, three of which are on absolutely every "must see" list that I saw so far. Obviously that means crowds and higher prices in most cases. But not in Villa de Leyva. Places like that are a reason to travel really. Places that surprise us even though we saw every picture ever taken. First shock- no people, empty square, only a few locals, second- no one wanted to sell us a cow or not even a cigar. 
Third- the hostel we stayed in was really cheap (7 euro per bed) and absolutely stunning- two features that rarely go together. It had a huge outside common area overlooking the whole town with its mountains in the background. And the room itself was vintage in a European meaning of the word (in South America vintage is often synonym of broken, stolen from an old lady with dust untouched for quite some time). It was a pleasure to stay in Villa de Leyva and discover that there is so much more to it than just its main square. Charming broad streets, nice suburbs, mountains and superb ice cream is all we needed:)
After ice cream days we decided to burn some of the calories in San Gil- the capital of extreme sports. We started with our absolute favorite sport- walking in excruciating heat from the bus station to the hostel. JD was so tempted by the prices of extreme sports that he decided to try paragliding above the beautiful Canyon Chicamocha (170 000 pesos for a flight so around 50 euro). He didn't even have time to get scared before the flight because seconds after we arrived to the spot he was already tied to his instructor and the paraglide. The guy tied him faster than I could unpack the camera. True Ninja. San Gil offers not only paragliding but also rafting, caving, bungee jumping and sports that I have never heard about like rappelling which is descending from something (for example a rock) with a rope. We learn everyday while travelling:)
San Gil was actually also very close to another top destination village Barichara, supposedly the most beautiful town in Colombia. Definitely its cuisine has its charm as they eat "fat-ass ants" (hormigas culonas) which are deep fried huge ants. The town itself was also pretty although not as much as Villa de Leyva or any of the towns in the coffee regions. Maybe because it was Tuesday and Tuesday is the new Sunday in the area so most of the things are
closed and villages seem rather dead. From Barichara there is a nice, easy hike Camino Real (Royal Path) full of colorful birds that took us to Guane. It was like a mini Barichara, quite pretty streets with all the shops closed (Tuesday of course!) except for liquor shops (hmmm). After 10 minutes we already saw the whole village and there was nothing more left to do than to sit in the main square and wait for the bus to go back. It actually wasn't as boring as it sounds as there were really many beautiful birds flying around. Obviously too fast and too far for my photographic skills...
So it's hard to say how much of their tradition is still really alive. Along the way we heard about other Kogis communities living higher in the mountains, that are isolated from the foreign money and culture but since we haven't seen them, we can't judge.
The ruins were just breathtaking!! Huge, stone constructions, arising from the jungle. I can imagine it was hidden and forgotten for so many years. And the mystical atmosphere surrounding it. We could hear the birds and the nature was truly singing. We were not alone but the few people that were there got spread through the ruins and disappeared between the terraces. Just us, the ruins, nature and... a few young soldiers with huge guns. Good that it's all safe now because if someone would like to kidnap us (and it happened already in 2003 with a group of tourists and their guide) I don't know if those tiny boys with big guns would know what to do actually.
This was actually our first truly, deeply amazing experience via Airbnb. Martin and Angelica are insanely cool people ! Yep cool because nice is an old lady in a hotel giving you towels and showing you around. And they were cool, sharp sense of humor, genuine interest in people and hypercreativity all that in 2 people. And we genuinely became friends. So no wonder that instead of 3 days we stayed 10 and instead of hiking around we mostly stayed there. It was a destination on it's own for us. One of those places where I get an illusion that I can be an artist too and I started an artistic project. Over there I started doing crochet and it's actually going quite well, so there is hope 🙂
In the meantime we enjoyed the views on the palms and mountains just like the one in Cocora Valley but there were noooooo hikers, absolutely no one. Just this local farmer in his twenties explaining us his vision about the place. So it turned out his family had a beautiful patch of land there that they were planning to convert in the cheesiest touristic place ever. He told us how amazing it's going to be to fish trout from a tiny pond and ride a pony... I could imagine it being fun for a 5 year old but I couldn't understand how could it be nice to actually fish in a tiny pond when you have a river full of trout 5 min away. But Colombian tourism is different I guess.
What they saved on accommodation, they definitely spent on weed. It was omnipresent at every hour. So were the screaming kids. But this I get, I would scream too. Actually mostly I wanted to scream while waiting to pee or to take a shower in the only bathroom available. Too bad hippies didn't want to be united with nature and pee outside... And as usual in places like that there were people playing guitar and singing, unfortunately without a talent...at least we were not alone:) Dominic and Sarah, the couple we met in Filandia, joined us. So we tried to make the best of it and we did some hiking and we rented a boat to go around the lakes. In final end we managed to change our reservation and leave earlier. When we were checking out the guy asked us where we were going. When I told him and he got excited and said it was an amazing hostel. It was indeed. Just that when we were checking out at 6 a.m. the party was still very much on, smell of weed was even more hardcore than in the first place (I thought it was not possible) and the recepcionists had an additional job of making lists who wanted some cocaine... Nice beginning of a New Year...
There were bags with content flying everywhere. Even a special vomit master appeared to take care of the content and make sure new bags were ready so that no other passenger was endangered by the flying liquids. And like that for 4h. All worth it. The island was what I had in mind thinking about paradise. Unbelievable sea, shades of blue, food, architecture and polish vodka on the shelves of the shops (!). Thank god there is even one hostel on the island otherwise we would need to sleep on the beach which could be painful as there are sooooo many crabs walking at night. Actually the island closes their roads twice a year for a crab migration. Basically first they have to close the roads because of black crabs coming from the mountains to lay their eggs and later when the little crabs come out they have to close them again to make sure they can go safely to the mountains.
