I awake from a groggy nap in the back of the truck.

We hit the winding road. I honk at my bar friends still going hard. I wonder just how long they have been partying?

Nacho and crew are caravan’ng with us. We climb through hills and valleys. I keep ahead of Nacho a bit but always wait to make sure my underpowered brother is OK with these steep hills.

Eventually we are idling through a small town when Brad pulls over. He smells burning oil and is wondering if its me.

I get out to check. Nope, not me.

I hear a recognizable “Sigh” coming from Brad as he peers under his truck at a pool of unidentifiable fluid.

What is it?

Not sure, looks like motor oil. Its not leaking too bad though, you guys go ahead.

You sure?

Ya we will be fine! I have plenty of oil. We will see you in Villa De Leyva.

OK….

I reluctantly drive off. Good luck friend!

We later learned that Nacho was in fact not fine after all. What we were examining that afternoon was Nacho’s transmission grenade’ing itself. You can read more about that fun-filled adventure on his blog here.

Our day-long drive takes us way off into the countryside of Colombia. Some beautiful albeit desolate areas. I almost ran out of gas due to the lack of any towns out here. I killed the truck and coasted my way down the hills to save gas. Made it to the station with just under 1/4 of a gallon. I had my reserve 5-gallons but who wants to bother with all that.

The road eventually leads us to the colonial town of Villa De Leyva nestled up in the mountains. A place where Spanish tile roofs and cobble-stone streets are still king. In fact, the area was deemed a UNESCO World Heritage site to limit modifications of the town.

Villa De Leyva is a popular spot with both foreign and local tourists. After spending a few days in the town its easy to see why. We dined at some great restaurants and explored all the little alley and side-streets full of shops of all shapes and sizes.

We camped up at Hostel Renacer. One of the nicest hostels we have stayed on the trip thusfar. They had a great common spaces, a nice kitchen, and an honor-bar. What more could you ask for?

A bonus feature of the hostel was the drop-dead stop you in your tracks sunsets that occurred every night. Free of charge.

We checked out some of the sites in the town… such as

A COMPLETE KRONOSAURUS FOSSIL. Crazy Ocean beast.

AND THE WORLDS SMALLEST CHURCH… Well I don’t know if its really the worlds smallest but it was pretty small.

As you can tell from our long-list of extracurricular activities most our time was doing what we do best, eating and drinking. And this town was great for that. Lots of wonderful bakeries and international cuisine.

We hit the road for Bogota after hanging around for a 5 days or so.