Villa de Leyva

On our drive north, we passed rolling hills covered with farms…

… and we were happy to leave the clouds and grey skies of Bogota.

This was definitely the breadbasket of the area…

… with the proverbial:

… and ponchos are a serious thing here -

We drove through a mountain pass with some unique geology…

… and the climate turned quite dry. Welcome to Villa de Leyva!

The picture above was actually taken after we had hiked a mile (nearly vertically it seemed) on our second day here. You can get a sense of that by finding the “tiny” Jesus statue in the next picture:

This town is known for the largest cobblestone square in Colombia, and possibly even Latin America…

… as well as its frozen-in-time architecture from the 18th - 19th centuries -

On our first full day here, we left our hotel at 0445 to go hiking and birdwatching. Steve wasn’t so thrilled at this hour, but he proved quite adept at spotting movement or color ahead of us. We did see some beautiful birds…

(Golden-rumped Euphonia, if you care)

… as well as the cool looking Acorn Woodpecker that is endemic to Colombia -

A trio decided to show off for us -

After hiking through dry scrub forest…

… we descended to the base of this waterfall -

Because it was the dry season, it wasn’t running particularly fast…

… but the vegetation was still quite lush -

Bromeliads were very common…

… but these tiny orchids also caught our eye, right along the roadside -

(with my finger for scale)

Back at our hotel, the feeder attracted quite a variety of brightly colored friends…

(Thick-billed Euphonia)

… and it even got two deep at times!

a Scrub Tanager on a Blue-gray Tanager

I’ll end on that light hearted note.