Villa de Leyva

Villa de Leyva is a colonial town and municipality, in the Boyacá department of Colombia, part of the subregion of the Ricaurte Province. The town is located some 40 km west of Tunja and has a population of about 9,600 people. Villa de Leyva is considered one of the finest colonial villages of Colombia, and was declared a National Monument on December 17, 1954 to preserve its architecture. It is located in a high altitude valley at 2,144 m altitude where fossils from the Mesozoic and the Cretaceous abound.

It was founded on June 12, 1572 by Hernán Suarez de Villalobos and named after the first president of the New Kingdom of Granada, Andrés Díaz Venero de Leyva.

Among the main areas of interests are the Plaza Mayor (Main Square) where besides the Church, many restaurants and stores selling some handcrafted art pieces. Most of the streets around the downtown are made of stones, similar to colonial times.

Near the town itself and about a 30 minutes drive away from the main square several attractions can be found, an ostrich farm, a museum (El Fósil) and an old astronomic observatory made of phallic stones ("El Infiernito", for "little hell" in Spanish). There is also a group of seven waterfalls named "La Piriquera" some 15 km away from the town.

The El Fósil (Spanish for the fossil) museum has an almost complete kronosaurus fossil on display, in the same place in which it was found in 1977.