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Villa de Leyva, Colombia

Villa de Leyva is a perfectly preserved colonial town north of Bogota, and the surrounding mountains are stunning too. It has decent tourist infrastructure but is not overrun by tourism yet. You easily can see the entire village in a few hours, but you'll want to hang out longer. Hiking in the surroundings is great, and you can go camping too.

Villa de Leyva was declared a national monument in 1954, and has been preserved almost perfectly: houses are whitewashed, streets are cobblestoned. The town is small, but the surrounding area will make you want to stay and hike and perhaps camp out.

Average temperature: 18 degrees Celcius. | Editing history.

Villa de Leyva

Things to do:

Villa de Leyva is a town for walking. You can just stroll through the streets (it's pretty small), sip a coffee on the main square, drink a warm wine in the evening. Apart from that, there are lots of interesting sights and trekking around the town.

The market on Saturday is a must of course. It's locals selling fruits and vegetables (no handicrafts), and you can eat there too. There is an older gentleman who uses a particularly hard-core selling method to sell overpriced cheese - be warned. He's friendly but insistent!

Apart from that, there are lots of stores that sell very nice warm clothing and handicrafts, just walk around the town, especially during the weekends. The ruanas (warm woollen ponchos) are particularly nice. Not all of them are made of real wool or handmade, so shop around.

There is a lot of great hiking around Villa de Leyva - see our separate Villa de Leyva hiking guide.

There are also a number of sights to see in the surrounding area. You can take buses there (ask at the bus station), taxis (who offer tours) or hike (not to all of them). Sights include:

• Ostrich Farm (about 5km southwest). You can visit and eat ostrich meat at the restaurant.
• El Fosil. A baby-kronosaurus fossil measuring 7 meters.
• El Infiernito. A kind of stonehenge of the Indians.
• Convento del Santo Ecce Homo: a convent founded in 1620. The monks will show you around.
• Santuario de Iguaque: see our hiking guide.
• The architect Octavio Mendoza has built an interesting, Gaudi-like mud house. It's a short walk from the town.

For friendly tourist information, tours etc try Guias y Travesias (732 0742 guiadevilladeleyva at yahoo.com), run by the friendly and knowledgable Enrique Maldanado. He has lots of maps (6000 pesos for a map of the region) and information, and rents bicycles (30000 for a day, 17000 for 6 hours) and tents (15000 for 2 people). He also does tours to various sights and can help you organize custom hikes.

Another good option for tours etc. is Colombian Highlands (732 1379 colombianhighlands at hotmail.com), which is connected to the Renacer guesthouse.

The atmosphere of the village can get touristy in the high season and on bus weekends. During the week in low season it's pretty quiet.

Some of the dates when it gets really busy:

• June 12: this is the "birthday" of the town and the market is held on the main square for once.
• July 16: fiesta de carmen: this is a big local event, tourists don't really come here at this time, but all the campesinos from the surrounding area have a big event.
• 7-8 December: festival de luzes (big party with fireworks).
• The whole of December is tourist season.

Places to stay:

Hotel El Dorado (0 comments) Carrera 4 No 15 -00 (entry on the corner) Tel: 334 399 88 Tel: 281 72 71
A decent option in a good location. The building is nice and colonial, and rooms are clean and large enough. A double with bathroom is 30000 pesos (US$ 12) - rooms at the street side can be a bit noisy on Friday and Saturday. Before you decide to stay here, you should know that they do rent out rooms per hour as well, which might turn you off.

Casa Molina del Balcon (0 comments) Carrera 12 # 11 - 51
A camping ground with lots of trees and a house (it's like a big park). At the entry (there's a sign), pull the chord at the door to ring a bell. They charge 5000 per person for camping, there are showers, bathroom and you can cook.

Zona de camping (0 comments) On the corner of Calle 10 and Carrera 10
A big grassy square with a wall around it. You just put up your tent, and someone will come to collect 5000 to 7000 per person. There's a shower and basic bathrooms.

EL Solar (0 comments) 1 block from the main square
Run by a friendly lady called Martha, it offers camping (8000 pesos), dorm rooms (15000 per person) and double rooms. She has an outside shower in the garden, surrounded by plants, that could be fun.

Posada Don Blas (0 comments) Tel: 987 320 406 Private rooms available.
Charges 30.000 for a double, 15.000 for one person.

The family Fitata (0 comments) Calle 12 # 7 - 31 Tel: 7320 574 Private rooms available.
The family Fitata doesn't run an official hostel but they rent out rooms anyway. Prices are negotiable around 15000 per person.

The Renacer Guesthouse (0 comments) Tel: 732 1379 Dorm beds available. Private rooms available.
This place is out of town (quite a walk, or go to Colombian Highlands and they might take you there), in a very nice house. It's run by Oscar Gilede, and it's connected to the Colombian Highlands tours. It's one of the only backpacker-y places. Dorm beds are 12000, rooms are 18000 per person (more in high season), and they have a "suite" (a big double room) for 24000 per person. Breakfast is extra at 5000 pesos, and you're unlikely to walk all the way to town to have breakfast there. You can also camp there for 7000 per person (12000 in the high season).

Posada San Martin (0 comments) Private rooms available.
It's located in a beautiful historic house, and the friendly couple (that lives there too) will make you breakfast beyond the usual eggs-n-toast. It charges 50000 for a double with bathroom and breakfast. Rooms are very clean and well kept.

Hospederia La Roca (0 comments) Main square
Hospederia La Roca seems to have raised its prices, it now charges 50,000 for a double without breakfast. It has a great location on the main square, and a lot of rooms.

 

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Getting around & transportation:

Villa de Leyva is easily reached from Bogota. It's on the way to the coast.

Buses from Bogota leave twice a day at the Bogota terminal, and take about 4 hours (6 US$). There are nice views along the way. There are also 2 buses a day to Bogota, one leaves from the Villa de Leyva bus station at 5am and one at 1pm. The alternative to a direct trip like this is to take a bus to Tunja and change there.

There are regular minibuses to and from Tunja - 45 minutes, US$ 2. From there you can move on to Bogota.

Buses to the Ecce Homo convent leave at 8:00am, 9:00am, 10:00am, 13:00pm and 16:00pm (2500 pesos - US$1).

Taxi prices: to El Fosil 17000 pesos (US$ 7), to El Fosil + Infiernito + Ecce Homo convent 47000 pesos (US$ 20). There is a paper with official taxi prices posted at the bus station.

Travelguides:

Tunja trek: The walk towards Tunja is beautiful and not too hard. It takes about 3 hours in total, perhaps 4 if you hang out a bit.

Walk to Sagrado Corazon: This is a short (3 hours return) but steep walk to a statue of Christ on a hill with a great view of the town. The locals call this walk "subir al sancto" ("go up to the saint").

Trek to Laguna de Iguaque.: This trek takes all day and takes you up high in the mountains to 3800 meters. There's an 8$ cover charge to enter the park. Take good walking shoes!

 

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Cali2005 says on Jul 28, 2008, 18:35: great map peter Medellin Apartments and Tours http://www.MedellinApartments.INFO 0 funny, 0 helpful.

Peter (Moderator) (☼Travelguide writer) says on Nov 19, 2008, 01:59: Thanks. Also, Villa de Leyva during the week is pretty quiet outside of the holidays, during the weekend it fills up with Bogotanos and there's more partying. Poor but snappy 0 funny, 0 helpful.

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