Off The Beaten Track Colombia: Colonial towns to the Llanos

1

Arrive in Bogotá and transfer to your hotel

You’ll be met at the airport and escorted to your hotel in Bogotá.

Founded in 1598, the effervescent capital sits on an upland Andean plateau. It’s a city of striking contrasts; skyscrapers and colonial single-storey houses, fast highways and cobbled lanes with chaotic traffic and the occasional mule cart. There are humble homes clinging to the mountainside and affluent tree-lined residential boulevards; crowded alleys and large parks; and a cultured middle class jostling with workers and their families from all over Colombia.

Stay at - La Opera

2

Walking tour of Bogotá

Explore ‘La Candelaria’ on foot, Bogotá’s atmospheric colonial district, and the setting for many defining moments in Colombia’s turbulent and painful history. This is a special opportunity to learn about the country’s Peace Agreement in 2016 and sample products from a new breed of ‘Peace Weavers’, who are using their entrepreneurial spirit and creative flair to help post conflict zones move forward.

Stay at - La Opera

3

Fly to Bucaramanga and continue by road to Barichara

Fly to Bucaramanga (1 hour), a major city in the east of Colombia and continue by road to Barichara.

Founded in 1705 in an area once inhabited by Guane Indians, Barichara is an enchanting town with whitewashed colonial houses lining picturesque cobblestone streets, and the lush green Suarez River canyon as a backdrop.

En route, you can stop at the Chicamocha National Park and take a cable car ride across the canyon for dramatic views.

Stay at - La Nube Posada

4

Hike along the Camino Real to Guane

A relatively easy two-hour downhill hike (6km) on an ancient path (“Camino Real”) leads you from Barichara to the sleepy village of Guane. Not a lot happens in Guane but that is part of its charm. There’s a small Archaeology Museum housing interesting artifacts from the Guane culture which you can visit before returning to Barichara by vehicle.

Stay at - La Nube Posada

5

At leisure in Barichara.

Translating as ‘a place for rest’ in the indigenous Guane dialect, you can spend time relaxing at your hotel or wandering around town at a leisurely pace, taking in the pretty churches, tiny squares, restaurants, cafes, art galleries and ceramic and paper workshops.

Stay at - La Nube Posada

6

Continue by road to Villa de Leyva.

It’s a scenic four-hour drive from Barichara to Villa de Leyva, the road gradually climbing into the highlands of the Boyacá department.

Villa de Leyva is another beautiful colonial town in Colombia that was declared a national monument in 1954 to preserve its architecture. The town’s focal point is the massive, yet understated, cobbled Plaza Mayor and the striking Iguaque mountains that rise behind.

Stay at - Casa Terra

7

Discover Villa de Leyva and the surrounding countryside

Take a walking tour of Villa de Leyva, visiting its most significant churches and colonial houses, as well as the Luis Alberto Acuña Museum which features works by one of Colombia’s most influential painters, sculptors, writers, and historians.

The area around Villa de Leyva has a rich palaeontological heritage with fossils found in such abundance that they decorate many town buildings and pavements. A short drive away is El Fosil, a 7m petrified skeleton of a large marine reptile that inhabited the region approximately 110 million years ago, as well as the archaeological site of El Infiernito.

Stay at - Casa Terra

8

Continue by road to Yopal.

There are many spectacular and diverse overland journeys in Colombia and today’s drive is no exception: leaving Villa de Leyva behind you’ll climb even higher into the cold and rugged highlands of Boyacá (3,000m), before descending into Los Llanos, the hot and humid eastern plains.

Yopal is the regional capital and the gateway to Los Llanos. You’ll spend one night on the outskirts of the city in a friendly family-run guesthouse set within extensive grounds.

9

Drive deeper into Los Llanos to the Encanto de Guanapalo reserve.

Los Llanos is a yawning, flat plain of seasonally flooded grasslands, almost twice the size of the UK. Jesuit missionaries colonised the region from the sixteenth century onwards, creating hatos, large cattle farms which ever since have been tightly linked to the region’s cowboy lifestyle and traditions.

The region seethes with a breath-taking profusion of wildlife: clouds of scarlet ibis return to their roosting trees at sunset, monkeys squabble in the canopy, caiman sprawl on the watery beaches, anacondas lurk in lagoons, and giant capybara and anteaters roam cross the pasture. All the while co-existing happily alongside humpy zebu cattle which graze on the farmsteads composing the hatos.

El Encanto de Guanapalo is a 9,000-hectare private reserve two hours from Yopal, and owned and run as working farms by the grandchildren of Gerardo Zambrano, the founder of the reserve over a hundred years ago.

Stay at - Hato Mata de Palma

10-11

Wildlife explorations in the Encanto de Guanapalo reserve.

Whether you embark on a 4WD safari, take a canoe trip on one of the lagoons, or head out on horseback and herd cattle with the llaneros (cowboys) you’re bound to observe a real abundance of birds, mammals, and reptiles.
Explorations generally take place early in the morning and late in the afternoon when it’s cooler and wildlife is more active. You’ll return to your hato for lunch and a well-earned siesta before going back out in the late afternoon, returning to your hato as an incendiary sun begins to set.

Stay at - Hato Mata de Palma

12

Return to Yopal and fly to Bogotá

Return to Yopal (2 hours) and fly to Bogotá (1 hour) for your final night in Colombia.

If you have time, we recommend visiting Bogotá’s Museo del Oro (gold museum), recognised as being one of the best in Latin America. The collection is staggering in its opulence, there are more than 35,000 well displayed exhibits all fashioned with immense skill by pre-Columbian craftsmen.

Stay at - La Opera

13

Transfer to Bogotá airport for your international flight