July in Highland Colombia

Hello everyone!

We hope you are all having lovely summers - we sure are! Our last post came from action adventure San Gil, and from there we've moved south and west through highland Colombia. This post will be fairly brief: it is the last post we'll make before Lisa returns to Canada on the weekend. It is a bit of a shock that the end of our trip together has come this fast, and we both agree the reality of it hasn't fully set in. But more on that later.

From San Gil we took a beautiful scenic bus ride through rugged foothills and brilliantly green pastures, to the dry, colonial town of Villa de Lleyva. This whitewashed, red-tile roofed village seems to be locked in the past: clean cobblestone streets, friendly people, proud architecture and a frontier feel make it a great place to simply wander around. A venture out to the 7-meter sea-monster fossil a few kilometers outside of town makes a nice day trip, something to do between coffees in the plaza. Villa de Lleyva also had crafts out the wazoo, so, as with all the textile and weaving meccas we have visited, I had to physically drag Lis out of there.

The church, plaza and Andes at Villa de Leyva

Seamonster and Tormonster

After our stay in Villa was extended from two days to three (Latin American mystery stomach horror strikes again!) we set off on a fairly ambitious travel day, to one of the largest churches in the world - which is also underground - and then a bus switch in Big Bad Bogota.

The famous Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira was our stop, and it was maybe the most flavourful chuch we've visited (pun intended). Another old town, this one with an enormous underground Cathedral, carved boldly into an active salt mine. A downhill march into the Earth takes you through the 14 stages of Jesus's crucifiction, then into several chapels where people still come to pray. These chapels, 180 meters below the ground and the size of football fields, boast some of the biggest crosses in the world and pillars of 8 meter diameter - all carved from salt encrusted rock.

It turns out salt cathedrals are very hard to photograph. This is me trying my hand in the salt business on the Miner's Tour.

Lisa, the miner, using a dynamite drill!

El Catedral de Sal is very popular with Colombians, and has all the ammentities of domestic tourist attractions of this country: deep fried food, rock climbing walls, horrendously tacky souvenirs, colourful lighting, photobooths, etc. etc. Despite all this, we were impressed with the natural salt formations and the sheer size of it all. And believe it or not, watching a pushy and demanding Colombian family of 15 pose for a photo for t-shirts and coffee mugs is funner than it sounds!

It is even more fun once you have had a coffee! This is us drinking a cup at 180m below ground.

After the cathedral we bussed into the 8.5 million person metropolis of Bogota, where we found the main terminal and caught a bus to Manizales in the heart of the Coffee Zone. Manizales is a beautiful hilly city, surrounded by parks and mountains. We took the 5am milk truck to the entrance of Parque Los Nevados, 4300 meters above sea level. From there we hiked 25 km downhill - through high-alpine, pamplona, cloud, and tropical forests. Our only company was some cows and their friendly herds, and we made some pit-stops at a few aguas calientes - our favorite! Even though we had a nice post-hike soak and were given a ride the last few kilometers to our hostel (middle-aged Colombian couples leap at every opportunity to show travellers that their general kindness and hospitality is far more representative of Colombia than its turbulent history) 25 kilometers downhill is murder on the hamstrings, and we were sore for a solid few days.

Luckily our next stop was Salento, a perfect place to relax. Nestelled amongst coffee farms in the foothills of the Andes, Salento is another beautiful colonial higland town (you'd need several years to see all of them, we discovered) and the gateway to the magical Valle de Cocora. Boasting high-pasture, dense cloud forests, a hummingbird sanctuary, and meadows filled with mighty Wax Palms, the iconic 60 meter national tree of Colombia, Cocora was definitely a trip highlight.

The entrance of the Valle de Cocora.

Hummingbird doing hummingbird business.

Soggy-bottoms in the valley bottom.

Lis and the Wax Palms.

Will she miss me?

With comedors serving hearty 3 course meals of local food for me, and dozens of artesan craft shops (yes, more artesan craft shops) for Lisa, coffee fincas, to tour, waterfalls to venture to on horseback, and one of the most popular hiking destinations in the country, Salento has been the perfect place to spend our last week together. Throw in a little camping, a beautiful hostel, some new friends, and "the best latte in Latin America", and our trip together has ended with a bang.

Trying not to fall off my horse.

Yeeeee-haw!

Rincon de Lucy - we put some serious food away right here!

So this weekend we'll get the bus back to Bogota, where we've got a hostel booked to relax in for the day (I've already dubbed the room "Chamber of Tears") before heading to the airport for Lisa's evening flight. And so will end this part of our adventure together, and what can we say, it's been an incredible four and a half months. Lisa heads home for a Vancouver house-hunt, part of a few chores before she starts grad school at UBC in September. Bridesmaid duty for her friend Angela is another exciting highlight for her.

I'll be making the transition to travelling alone, and on that note I've got an exciting announcement. I've accepted a volunteer offer in Sucre, Bolivia, starting around the first of August. Sucre is nearly 6000 kilometers from Bogota, and because South American flights are insanely expensive, my next few weeks will be Man Vs. Bus.

Once I arrive in Sucre, I will join the volunteers at Condortrekkers, a non-profit group that guides multi-day hikes in the Andes. Because the guides are unpaid, the money from the hikes supports an orphanage and several childrens projects in Sucre. My time will be split between guiding treks and working with the kids - a perfect balance for me.

I intend to keep up this blog, and under the same name (lisaandtornomore.com is a little depressing, no?), so feel free to keep reading, even though the exploits described will be lacking the cute, blonde-haired component that has made up half this blog so far.

Thanks for reading!

Love Torrance and Lisa

ps. (This is from Lisa) Thanks for reading my section of the blog so far! I´m sure Torrie´s continued blogging will be more brief but more hilarious (and likely slightly more obscene). Im looking forward to seeing so many of you so soon! Much love, Lisa.