The Road to Villa de Leyva

I took one of many minibuses leaving from the Bogota terminal to Villa de Leyva. It was not an express bus, stopping for just about anybody who wanted to ride it, or so it seemed.

My seatmate

 Finally, out of the city I got my first glimpse of rural Columbia. I was taken by the many shades of green as fields checkered through valleys, up and over hills, some fairly steep.  Small villages lined the roads, mostly white houses with gently sloping rooflines covered in red tile or corrugated fiberglass and a cow was tethered here, another there, along the highway. As the mountains got steeper and rockier, there was more cultivation, mostly potatoes. I love the look of those heavily furrowed fields, many being harvested with huge pink plastic bags full of spuds dotting the rows. I saw one fellow leading two horses with sacks of potatoes slung over their backs but mostly there were trucks with rounded forms over the back covered with black shiny tarp material, looking like dark, rolling greenhouses.

  

In Tunja, the bus was turned back due to road construction. We were led by a motorcycle cop over what was barely more than a one lane dirt track that wound for an extra hour´s worth of slow, creeping miles along the edge of the mountains. It was steep, very rocky, rutted and quite a different challenge for a driver who was accustomed to cornering at top speed as though he had foot pegs to scrape. Our brakes were screaming and everyone looked really tense. I was the only one that seemed to enjoy the adventure, looking out at plants and trees I´ve never seen before, beautiful green valleys and spring-fed lush little homesteads.

I can´t count the times I had to keep myself from shouting out ´stop the bus!´ so I could take a photo. Shooting pictures through dusty windows of a moving, lurching vehicle is a challenge and I had little success.