The nice thing about Bogota is that it's so close to so many other places, that it's very easy to leave. One place that can be reached in under three hours is Villa de Leiva, considered to be one of Colombia's finest colonial villages.
From Bogota you can get on a bus to Tunja anywhere between the main Terminal and the Portal Norte of the Transmilenio. Two hours after leaving the city you will find yourself in the chilly capital of Boyaca.
(If you want to risk having to watch an action movie at full volume, get on one of the green Libertadores buses that run from Sogamoso to Bogota. They are the the smartest buses and, compulsory movie apart, are the most comfortable way to go. If on the other hand you are looking to avoid the movie and listen to nonstop vallenatos, avoid these big green buses.)
Once in Tunja’s station (the most wonderfully dismal station in the world, and I say that with love because I’m fond of Tunja) you climb to a higher parking lot to get a bus to Villa de Leiva. These come in two sizes: small or smaller, and the people are likely to have bundles. The heart of Tunja is some six or seven blocks uphill from the station. Tunja is very high up, and the climb will affect you, but Tunja is worth seeing even if only in passing, and I recommend stopping there for lunch, especially if you’re in a more rough-and-ready mode of travel and are looking to save money. You can get a COP4,000 corrientazo if you wander around the streets near the center. The people of Tunja may appear slow and somewhat furtive, but they’re not unfriendly, they just don’t do anything quickly and don’t see a whole lot of tourists: it’s the capital, but the capital of Boyaca, and is provincial compared to Bogota - wonderfully provincial.
The green of Boyaca tends to have faded a bit by the time you get to the hills in which the grim town of Tunja is perched. After that the road to Villa de Leiva winds between smooth and increasingly dry hills. It reminded me of the San Bernadino mountains in Californa; the valleys in this part of Boyaca are also fertile and much farmed, though not on the scale of the San Joaquin valley. It is dry and sunny most of the time in the region around Villa de Leiva, and you’ll see the crops and greenhouses as you approach.
Villa de Leiva is a genuine, bona fide tourist trap. By their proliferating hotels and hostels shall ye know them, and by the souvenirs, the cobblestones, the whitewashed buildings with wooden trim all painted green all according to regulation faux-colonial, and by the abundance of effete eateries that serve what I’m pleased to call "art food": long on presentation and short on substance.
The regulation faux-colonial is not bad, actually. In fact, it is so pleasant that one wishes there were more of these considerations about the aesthetic of a town observed in Colombia. And there is a lot of real colonial architecture there, with all the charm of an old and gracious way of life, especially attractive in days when architecture seems at times to be at war with human-kind. And it is welcoming to have so many handy places to stay.
If you go left upon exiting the bus terminal you will find a good many hotels, and if you take the next road running parallel and one block west you will find more. If you go to the center square and then turn right immediately, proceeding onto the block beyond the square you will find even more, including the Hospederia Colonial where I stayed for COP60,000, which is not bad. It had a huge bathtub and for the first time since coming to Colombia I had a good, long soak. Yes, the water was hot and everything. I’m sure there are cheaper Hospederias there if you wander far enough, and I’m certain that if you want more expensive, with breakfast included, with jacuzzi, a terrace and so on, you can get it (look for hotels on the plazas: there are three or four and the hotels on them are more expensive).
Villa de Leiva, being a tourist trap, has a dismayingly large number of gringos wandering around. But besides the embarrassing gringos, there are the abundant Colombian tourists, who have mostly come from Bogota. That’s the thing about places that are easy to travel to, with a lot of accommodation, and obliging natives who look upon you as on a fatted calf;full of horse rides, bike rentals, excursions to waterfalls, crawling with parasitic artists cranking out paintings, sculptures, crafts, weavings, etc., and existing in stark contrast to the city. Everybody has caught on by now, that Villa de Leiva is a nice place to be.
Villa de Leiva is pleasant to walk around because of its streets: they are paved with flags and cobbles so that no car can go fast, and in this country where it seems pedestrians are given fewer rights than they deserve, it is odd to be in a place where the sense is that every automobile is an intruder. It is also full of museums; if you want to be scrupulous about your vacations, and if your idea of a good time is to part with your money, you can shop for exactly the sort of things designed to give people the excuse of opening their bulging wallet and relieving some of the pressure therein.
When darkness comes, they light up the great lamps hanging from those colonial eaves. They’re bright, the whitewash is very obliging, and the result is that the streets at night are well lit. So you can amble in that strange world and hear the sounds of the night, listen to the dogs barking, have something to eat or drink in the open air - the way Colombians like to.
tomtom33
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... Can you expand upon your Gringo comments? Exactly how do Gringos embarrass you? Having lived in the Colombian tourist trap of all tourist traps, Cartagena, for four years, I actually found the behavior of Colombian tourists to be more embarrassing and irritating. Maybe that's because I am a Gringo. However, I certainly have been embarrassed by Gringo behavior as well. Maybe embarrassing behavior is not the sole province of any one group. Rather than being dismayed by the number of Gringos, you could try to appreciate the money they spend and the chance Colombians have to learn about a different culture. |
Joel Zartman (author)
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... That is a good comment, and I hesitated at including mine. I am a gringo myself, having US citizenship and being born of American parents. The answer of why gringos embarrass me is probably more complicated than you want to hear about, but it has to do with conflicts of self-identity I'm trying to work out in my thinking. It isn't what they do, it is their mere presence. It is like their are oblivious to the fact that they're strangers and stick out, and one is always trying to mitigate that however one can. Whatever the reason, whenever in another country I run into Americans I feel embarrassed and wished I didn't look so much like one. I wish there were a way of traveling that were more incognito, perhaps. Or perhaps it is that Colombians are just being Colombians in their own country and I wish tourists could be more Colombian. Or perhaps I wish American tourists were more characterized by sensitivity and not so much by gawking, pictures, and all the banalities to which the natives so eagerly pander. I think it might explain a bit more when the second part on Tunja comes out. |
tomtom33
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... Thanks. It seems that much of the Gringo-bashing is done by Gringos. We certainly do stand out here no matter how we behave or dress. I don't like bashing anyone. However, I am just as guilty. I did like the rest of your article. |
Santiago
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... "Slow and furtive" ... I've always been kind of puzzled by boyacos' attitude toward tourists and strangers in general. I don't like bashing anyone either but 'boyacos' . Maybe they want us to think they're slow? Furtive? Could not agree more. As a tourist from Bogota I've always felt them somewhat resentful. Gratuitious good service is just not in their genes. You will never get a nice, genuine smile from a waitress in Villa de Leyva. Boyacos will not go the extra mile for you. They're strange: restaurant staff seem happy to let you know they've run out of an ingredient, and they don't offer an alternative. They just don't care for your business. |
seattlesounder
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... "But besides the embarrassing gringos" Please, are we still in middle school? So much for what little credibility you may or may not have had. |
Kalcu
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... So the article is about attracting people to the history and culture, then the word Gringo comes up which is not always nice. It seems 'the gringo' can bring a lot of buisness investments and associations, so it's a good idea to provide a place that liberates deals. I am not entirely sure why 'the gringo' is hated but 'the gringo' has fueled the war on drugs significantly. I wouldn't want to travel around a place as unique as Colombia with some of the older family that I know. A lot of Americans are very judgmental but not at all every American or 'the gringo'. It appears more true in the past than the present that some Colombians resist, that 'the gringo' brings dangerous ideas. These dangerous ideas also increase profit, relations with the world and a more accommodating life. |
loiire
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... I liked the information about the buses, where to eat, what to see. The rest maybe put in a separate section titled "In My Opinion". My wife has been to Villa De Leiva with me twice and both times she has taken over a hundred pictures each time. She loves the place. And she is Colombian. I lived in Germany several years and had a bigger than normal red standard poodle. One day a tour bus was flying through a small village and I was on the sidewalk with my dog. All of a sudden the bus slide to a stop, smoking the tires. I was shocked because I was up on the sidewalk and in no danger of being hit. All of a sudden the bus door opened and what seemed like a hundred Japanese tourist came off the bus, heading straight for me with cameras ready. My dog had other ideas and showed his very large teeth, and not in a smile. Finally a translator came and none of the people had ever seen a big red poodle and wanted a pictures. I said ok, no problem because to me it was an exciting experience. I said I need to buy my dog some water and all of a sudden the mob went into a store and each bought a bottle of water for my dog. So I spent the next hour letting everyone, one by one take pictures of them with my dog .... and the bottle of water. It was a great experience. For sure, if some Japanese person was around it might have made them uncomfortable how their fellowman was acting. But if you put it in perspective, tourists are tourists and we need to understand and tolerate that fact. |
