6 hours and 175 km later we reached Villa De Leyva. The last part of the road was bad and damaged by the flooding rain that seemed to have come from nowhere but was relentless. We splashed through the roads and tried to dodge the holes where possible and it was worth every second of it. We arrived in a bustling cobbled street town with people wrapped in waterproofs milling around the picturesque streets. A small river flowed down the cobbles and as we drove along we oohed and aahed at the lovely little boutique shops selling ponchos and knitted hats.

We drove around for a while (getting lost, naturally) and eventually found a tiny sign for the hostel we had found in the Lonely Planet and wanted to try to camp at. The book said “good 2km walk up a steep hill from town”, no problem, we were in Peggy. We trundled up a low river (normally the dirt road in times of less rain) and arrived safely at Renacer Guesthouse.

We pulled up and asked to camp, “of course” was the response and we were shown around, offered electricity, maps, the wifi code and given a cup of freshly brewed Colombian coffee. Perfect…maybe this was where our luck would turn for good! We settled in and admired the view of the clouds hanging on the hills at the other side of the valley.
The next morning was market day so with an early start planned we watched a movie and wrapped up warm, its amazing how much the temperature changes once you leave the coast.
Our 6am start was actually really refreshing. We wrapped up warm and
waterproof and walked the 2km down the hill into the village and strolled the empty streets to the market. As we arrived people were still setting up and finishing off breakfast at Comida Tipica stands. We watched the vedors lay out their produce and gossip as their warm breath turned to fog in the crisp air. We people watched for a while and then got stuck into shopping. We had noticed the hostel had a blender in the kitchen and with the fresh wet weather had planned to make soup. We gathered up our ingredients…and more of course and left laden with fruit and vegetables.

We shouldn’t be let loose near fresh food and we dragged our heavy bags to the other side of the square for fresh bread and then remembered the long uphill walk back…we in unison looked at each other and said…’Taxi?’ and walked over the street and jumped a ride. We sighed with relief as we lugged our shopping up the 5 steps to the kitchen and emptied enough food onto the sides to feed a small army…we cooked up our super soup and heard a familiar voice booming in the background. It was David, we had met him in Costa Rica and he is travelling solo on a motor bike on a similar South America route to ourselves. We caught up and poor David had had a terrible few weeks (sounds familiar) with small things amounting to completely soul destroying days. We knew just how he felt.

Over the next couple of days we totally relaxed and befriended several people that were staying at the hostel and to our surprise Tineke and Jose arrived there too! Alex’s birthday was coming up and we had friends that we could celebrate with so we started a few days early and arranged to have a pizza night. The hostel had a wood burning pizza oven, we went into the village and brought supplies to make pizza for 12 and set off back up the hill and got to making the dough. Lots of drinks later the fire just would not heat the oven quick enough, it got to 10 pm before we put the first -heavily loaded- pizza into the oven.
David stood back and waited hungrily for his now calzone pizza to be cooked. After that one we were on a roll, we made around 20 pizzas and between the 12 of us we ate every last piece. We had a great night and enjoyed having so much lovely company, the fire blazed and Bastian played the guitar as we all drunkenly sang along. We were a good old mixed bunch with us from England, Tineke and Jose from Holland, Bastion from France, Macha from Russia, Karl and Inga from Germany and David and Nick from the US. We had all enjoyed cooking and eating together so much that we agreed we should eat our way around everyones countries. The next night we made and ate enough Perogies to feed an army, a Russian recipe, and again drank enough wine to sink a battleship as it was Macha’s birthday. We sang Happy Birthday in everyones language and even the owners of the campsite came and sang along and donated a bottle of wine. The following day was Alex’s birthday and we lit the fire for a BBQ…kind of universal right?! We all ate our body weight in Kebabs
and pork steaks and again drank the place dry in celebration. We had been there for 6 days and had loved every minute of it.
Inbetween all of the eating and drinking, birthdaying and making new friends and recipes we had wandered the beautiful streets of Villa de Leyva AND we had, with the help of Jose…arranged a wedding!!!!!!!!
We had been in contact with a great photographer (reputably the best in Colombia, but don’t say that to him as he blushes!) and had asked his advice on where would be best to hold a wedding in Colombia. He immediately told us Villa De Leyva, hence us arriving there in plenty of time. He was right, we loved the place. Stunning streets, views, clouds that you could watch all day long and a list of things to do as long as the proverbial arm and did I mention the place was beautiful??
As we arrived Semana Santa was in full swing and as the village is so high up it was cold and had a very Christmassy feel. Everyone wrapped in big woolen ponchos wandering around the square clutching cups of mulled wine and linking arms with their loved ones. The festivities didn’t involve much more than everyone gathering in Colombias largest square and waiting around for what I presume was midnight mass. All of the restaurants were packed to the rafters of laughing families and friends and the bars spilled drinkers onto the cobbled streets.
Everyone was enjoying the merriment, it was infectious and didn’t seem to stop the whole time we were there. Everyone was so friendly!
We were really happy with Juans suggestion and called upon Jose’s Spanish speaking skills to help us communicate with our wedding planner who has just opened a cute little florists in the village. We went to meet Laura who was excited to be a part of the wedding day. The only words we could understand her saying was Boda…Wedding and Loco…crazy…we get the picture! Jose was such a huge help with translating for us and as Laura got excited telling Jose about the plans for the day and Jose got excited speaking back to her we sat and watched the interaction like a tennis match! Jose told us the plans that Laura had and we loved everything about it! The traditions were a little wild and we would be having the wedding in the afore mentioned LARGEST SQUARE in COLOMBIA but we left really excited and eager for the day to arrive. The wedding was the day after Alex’s birthday and we knew we were in great hands…our only worry was the rain. Since we had arrived in VDL it had rained every day. Some days had been bright in the morning but by lunch the clouds would gather and literally it would pour down. The thunder and lightening was so close it made Peggy shake and the lightening lit up the curtains at night. We hoped and hoped for good weather come our 19th wedding day and even enlisted the help of friends to hope with us!
Would the good old Pelling luck be on our side or not?!

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!