One of the most famous places near Bogotá is inevitably Villa de Leyva. On the one hand, Villa de Leyva has a supra-regional appeal thanks to one of the largest city squares in the whole of South America. This is not the only reason why Villa de Leyva is famous; many city dwellers from Bogotá and Medellín come here to spend their leisure time in the temperate climate of the Boyacá department.
It has been a weekend resort for the slightly better-off city dwellers for several centuries. As a result, there are some beautiful old houses to admire here and the town is generally in a well-kept condition.

Milhoja – the Colombian sweet treat

For some unknown reason, one dessert is particularly popular in Villa de Leyva: milhoja, which literally translates as thousand leaves. This is of course strongly based on the French version millefeuille and is derived from this influence. In a nutshell: Milhoja is the Colombian version of the swiss dessert of the literal translation of a cream slice.
On our tour of Villa de Leyva, we simply have to try this dessert, because of its reputation. Finally, in a side street very close to the main square, we find a fine little bakery with specialty coffee. It looks inviting and we immediately pounce on the dessert. The cream is sweetened cream, the sugar icing has been replaced with liquid caramel sauce or dulce de leche, at least the puff pastry is just as tasty as in Europe. All in all, a variation on the cream slice that is well worth trying. We like this dessert.

The terracotta house

A unique house has now been converted into a tourist attraction: The Terracotta House. It lives up to its name and is actually a fired clay house. After all, Villa de Leyva is not far from Raquirá, where the craft of pottery is still practiced at a high level today. In the end, the best master potters came to Villa de Leyva to help the architect Octavio Mendoza Morales build his visionary house.

The entire house was built layer by layer from clay, almost like a 3D printing process. The individual layers were then left to dry for up to four days, depending on their thickness, before the next layer was added. Ultimately, this also had a significant influence on the shape and load-bearing structure of the house, as this construction method meant that the weights of the upper story and the roofs in particular had to be supported.
The architect was also heavily inspired by Antoni Gaudí. Organic architecture was thus used again during the construction of the terracotta house in the early 2000s. Many of the windows and lamps, for example, were made from recycled materials in the shape of animals in order to minimize the ecological impact of the house. Like the raw material clay, most of the other building materials also come from the immediate surroundings.

The last big challenge came when the structure of the house was finished. It was dry and in shape, but the firing process was still missing to make the clay durable. Using many individual kilns, all parts of the house were finally fired in situ and processed into unglazed ceramics. The kilns were specially made in different shapes to be able to heat curved walls, columns and flat floors to the required temperature to transform the house from a mud house into a terracotta house. The thickness of individual house components in particular made it necessary to fire the kilns constantly for up to four days in order to ensure the correct firing process right down to the core of the solid parts.

The terracotta house is therefore probably the largest single ceramic piece in the world.

Easter in Villa de Leyva

During Easter, Villa de Leyva is literally flooded with tourists thanks to the main holiday season throughout Colombia and the number of people present in the town quickly triples over the Easter weekend. At the same time, many Easter services and some processions with saints are held. The statues of the saints are moved from the churches to carrying frames and the saints are carried through the various neighborhoods and squares. On Good Friday, we experience a silent or prayerful procession. Somehow still impressive, but by no means a joyful event, as according to the Christian religion it is also about the death of Jesus. After this experience, we make no great effort to experience any other religious ceremonies. So, this year Easter takes place quietly and calmly for us together with two other Overlander couples on a campsite.

Easter week – we stay off the roads

As Easter week is one of the main travel times for Colombians, we stay off the roads with our campervan Ben during this time. The luxury of our trip is that we have enough time to stay off the roads for a few days until the traffic situation has normalized again. Of course, we use this time not only to do nothing, but also to completely remove our rear roof window, which occasionally shows a small leak, but probably only when we stand at an angle to one side and not the other and install it with new sealing adhesive.

With that we spent a relaxed and happy Easter week in Villa de Leyva and were also able to make some minor improvements to our campervan. A good feeling, now we are perfectly prepared again for the further adventures that are still to come in South America!