We
headed back to Colombia from Venezuela, and we were there before we knew it – literally! We got a tip from a Venezuelan that there was
an easier and more direct border crossing than the one we were headed to. He directed us down a road which we followed
for some time. There were some
checkpoints on this road, like usual for Venezuela, where we had to stop and
show our documents, etc. At one
particular checkpoint, the officer was especially thorough. He searched Cubby, checked our vehicle
paperwork and passports, and even asked us, “Did you get your passports
stamped?” What a weird question, we
thought, of course we had gotten stamped into the country.
After
some squinting at the passports, he gave them back to us and told us that we
could continue. We got back in the car
and drove a little further, thinking that we should soon be approaching the
border. 10 minutes down the road, we
find yet another checkpoint. They
stop us, of course, and ask to see our documents. We hand them over, and the officer says “This
is a vehicle permit for Venezuela.”
“Yes,”
we respond.
“You’re
in Colombia now.”
We
looked at each other and laughed. How in
the world did we cross a border and not even know it???? Apparently, that overly thorough officer at
the last checkpoint was not a checkpoint at all – he was the border. And he had been asking if we had been stamped
out.
There were no immigration or customs buildings, no signs, nothing to
indicate that it was a border, since it was just a small, rarely-used border
crossing. So there we were, in Colombia,
with no documents. We explained the
situation to the officers, and they told us that since it was a Sunday (just
our luck) there was no one at the border office anyway. Technically, without proper documentation,
they could have confiscated our vehicle, but they were understanding and
advised us to drive to the next city, Cucuta, and take care of the paperwork
there in the morning.
We drove the hour to Cucuta
and spent the next morning being sent to different locations around the city to
take care of the paperwork. In the end,
we had to go back to the border (we went to the large Cucuta crossing this
time), walk into Venezuela in order to be stamped out, walk back into Colombia
to be stamped in, and only then could we take care of the vehicle
paperwork. It took almost the whole day,
but eventually we found ourselves legally
back in Colombia.
We headed
into the mountains to visit some of the towns on the way to Bogota. We wound through the steep, curvy roads of the
Colombian Andes.
The
first town we stopped in was Pamplona. A
pretty town, it had a large central plaza that reminded us of Mexico, although
with cool, damp weather.
We
parked and stayed right there at the plaza that night.
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| See Cubby? |
We
walked through the town and treated ourselves to some delicious pastries from
the pasteleria that evening!
We
left Pamplona and ended up next in Barichara.
Barichara is a lovely colonial town that looks over the Chicamocha canyon. Again, we parked and stayed right at the
central plaza!
We
explored the cobblestone streets of the city and walked to a lookout point with
a fantastic view of the canyon below.
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| lookout point over the canyon |
 |
| Chicamocha canyon |
We
were relaxing in the plaza when who shows up but Sonja and Dietmar, a German
couple we met in Panama! They are also
driving overland through the Americas and were shipping their vehicle at the
same that we did. They were
eye-witnesses to the whole fiasco of us trying (and failing) to fit the camper
into the shipping container. It was
great to see them again and swap shipping and travel stories. We hung out with them that night and tried
our first Colombian Aguardiente. It was
a fun night!
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| With Sonja and Dietmar |
Our
next stop was the town of Villa de Leyva; this is a big tourist destination,
and for good reason – it is a beautiful place, quite charming and relaxed, with
beautiful spring-like weather. The plaza
is huge and striking.
We
enjoyed wandering this town very much!
Villa
de Leyva has a colorful and fun Sunday Market.
Great fruits and veggies!
Near
Villa de Leyva there is a museum called “El Fosil” – where you can view the
fossilized skeleton of a kronosaurus. The
skeleton is in the exact place where farmers found it in 1977. Pretty impressive!
From
Villa de Leyva, we went to Colombia’s capital city, Bogota. Bogota is high in the mountains. It is a cool place.
We ate
some “typical” Colombian food, I tried the peto, a sweet oatmeal-type
concoction made from corn, and Ricardo had Changua, a soup with milk, egg, veggies, and bread. Yum!
We
went to the independence museum and learned how Colombia gained its independence. The museum is located in the old house of Jose Gonzalez Llorente, a Spanish loyalist. As the story goes, on July 20, 1810, Colombian patriots asked to use a fancy flower vase that belonged to Llorente. He refused, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back, so we say. A riot broke out, the flower vase was smashed in the process, and the patriots declared their independence from Spain.
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| statue in the independence museum |
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| What remains of the broken "florero" |
In Bogota we also went to the world-famous Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) and learned about the history of
metalworking, all the way back through precolombian times. There were many, many, maaaany pieces of gold on display...
I took
the tram up to Monserrate.
At the top, you are 3170 meters above sea level and can look down over
the whole city below. I took the cable car back down.
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| the train going up to Monserrate |
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| panoramic of Bogota from Monserrate |
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| teleferico |
We had
been told by friends to check out the Bogota Beer Company, the local craft
brewery, while we were in town, but we were not quite sure where it was. Nobody we asked seemed to know anything about
it. On our last evening in Bogota, we
were talking about how disappointed we were to miss it, when we just happened
to walk by! It was the perfect way to
spend our last night in Bogota, although we spent more money than we should
have on the first delicious microbrew we had had in many months!
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| celebrating a good beer after months and months of lager |
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