Dinosaurs & terracota

Since we loved the area up here we decided to explore a little more. We went north west from Federicos farm , and during the day , we realized that the area around Villa de Leyva is actually quite desert like. They call an intermontane valley, i never heard that term before so i read up on it:

Intermontane is a physiographic adjective formed from the prefic “inter” (signifying among, between, amid, during, within, mutual, reciprocal) and the adjective “montane” (inhabiting, or growing in mountainous regions, especially cool, moist upland slopes below the timberline.

Long story short, or short story long , it is definitely worth checking out! Because one Sunday in June 1977, a peasant called Samuel
Vargas, an experienced local fossil hunter, was on his way to find a worker to help him harvest peas, when he noticed what seemed to be part of a buried fossil. He called upon his masters Enrique and German
Zubieta, father and son, from a well-respected family and known in the region for their knowledge of
paleontology. The Zubieta family, after obtaining the consent of Mr Tito Hurtado, the land owner, started
the excavation of what turned out to be the amazing skeleton of a chronosaurus. During that time, the
Monquirá Community Action Group was led by Mr. Marcolino Munevar, who assisted and supervised the
team during the excavation process. A little later, scientific studies were able to identify the animal, which was more than eight meters in length, as Kronosaurus boyacensis, carnivorous marine reptile
that lived in the seas more than 110 million years ago.

Actually the most intact and complete chronosaurus in the world.They build a museum for it and called it “El Fósil”

Since the discovery of the chronosaurus, the local inhabitants of the region have learned to sharpen their eyes and have recognized the fossilized remains of fish, reptiles, wood and seeds in the local rocks. The identification and excavation of these fossils has primarily occurred using their own methods to uncover them, and personal development in the care and handling of the fossil
material. In recent years, work with the community, has tried to generate awareness among the inhabitants about the proper use and correct ways to interact with these paleontological remains. For
fossils are witnesses to the history of the planet, evidence for evolution, and part of the local people’s identity and connection with the land and ancestors that have helped to develop the another museum of today. The place is tiny and is, without outside funding, entirely community owned and run. They have some great pieces there too.

My favorites obviously being the Sauropterygia

The entire sabertooth because everybody likes a sabertooth!

And what i think is a some sort of raptor ( its little fang arms were missing along with the name shield)

I do not think it was the famous “Velociraptor” that became famous in the movie but i am pretty sure that those guys were found in the Gobi desert and also its head was not birdlike and thus “ veloci “ enough 😉 But this is Jojo guess work , so do not call me out on that one..

Next up was a house build of Terracota.

Lu and i loved it, even though i have seen much cooler and bigger ones in Mexico. Be that as it may , i promised Lu to build one for her at some point in our live.. Sometimes it is better to just put humongous hot dogs in that mouth of mine…

Ráquira was our next stop. It had beautifully painted houses and is famous for its ceramics.

While beautiful, we did not like it here much since the houses and shops where way too overloaded and designed to host massive tourist buses , that just stop there to buy things. Bit of a shame.

And when you take a turn of the main street, this is what it looks like. Just a normal Colombian mountain town.

The rest of that walkabout was nice though. They have a different kind of agave here , that is much “greener” and bigger compared to the ones we are used to. I could not stop talking about them until Lu finally took a picture and made me shut up about it.