HI ANGEL!

Your payment was received, yay! Let’s dig into a little bit about the cities we’ll be visiting in February.

BOGOTÁ- COLOMBIA’S BUSTLING CAPITAL CITY

The Muiscas, an indigenous people that were part of the larger Chibcha linguistic and cultural group, first populated Bogotá and its surrounding areas (including Villa de Leyva, which we’ll be going to.) The Muisca confederation were a highly advanced, creative group, specializing in salt production (which only the women would do) due to the abundant salt deposits as well as goldworking, mummification, and trade- they held markets every four days (their version of a week.) They reached a population of two million right before the Spanish conquest, which killed 65-85% of their population. Bogotá’s current name comes from the Muisca’s Bacatá, which was the small village the zipa (chief and leader) governed from. After colonization, the Spaniards changed the name to Santa Fe (Holy Faith), but Simón Bolívar, one of the most important figures in Colombia’s independence movement, changed it to Bogotá after successfully gaining independence from the Spanish.

It is a bastion of South America’s culture, famous for its cultural festivals, street art, colonial architecture, and rich gastronomy. Bogotá sits on a high plateau in the Andes mountains and is the largest city in the world at its elevation- 8,660 feet above sea level. Everywhere you turn there’s mountains and a wide, open sky.

VILLA DE LEYVA- A PLACE WHERE TIME HAS STOPPED

Villa de Leyva, the second city we’ll be visiting on our girls trip, was a crucial Muisca territory and a place they deemed sacred. There, in the Plaza Mayor (the 150,000 square feet plaza that sits in the middle of the town), they held markets to trade emeralds, gold, and other goods. It’s so exciting to think we’ll be visiting a market with a history spanning centuries before Spanish conquest, which happened in 1572 in this small town. Villa de Leyva is a place where it seems as if time has stopped. Its architecture is full of cobblestone streets, buildings dating back to the 16th century, and whitewashed colonial homes, making it the perfect place to stroll in and get lost in the intricacies of its history.
It is in the Boyacá Department of Colombia, which is known as “The Land of Freedom” because this region hosted a series of battles that ultimately led to Colombian independence. We’ll actually stop by the place where the final and decisive battle was fought on the 7th of August 1819- El Puente de Boyacá, which is a massive bridge surrounded by a lush green valley. It’s on the way to the town!

A few things about Colombia…

Our national sport involves beer and explosives… We’re talking tejo. Basically, players throw metal or stone disks at a clay covered board which has a few gunpowder targets. Ideally, you hit one and it explodes. Yes, we did find some bars that have tejo should we be in the mood.

Bogotá is an outdoor art gallery. Graffiti has been a thing in the city since the Chibcha people first wrote in petroglyphs on cave walls thousands of years ago. TLDR- Bring your cameras.

The city is becoming the Biking Capital of the World. More than half of all households own at least one bicycle and cyclists enjoy more than 220 miles of cycling paths within the city. The largest network in Latin America. Around 75 miles of roads shut down each Sunday for the ciclovia, when two million bogotanos hit the streets on foot, bike or rollerblade.

Colombia has 102 indigenous groups that own around one-third of the country’s land, and there are more than 60 languages spoken in Colombia representing 12 languages families.

Bogotá’s national drink is aguardiente, even though Colombia is the world’s third-largest exporter of coffee, aguardiente (firewater in English) is the national drink. It is made of sugarcane and anise. It goes down surprisingly smooth which is dangerous.

A popular Colombian snack is chocolate santafereño—hot chocolate served with chunks of melted cheese. But more on food and drink in the next payment confirmation email ;)

There’s so much to see and explore in the two cities we’re going to. We can’t wait to travel with you!