Villa De Leyva is a fossil hunters paradise. everywhere you look there are fossils, in the cement, on the ground, even in the hotels courtyard I stayed in. Fossils are literally lying around, but the reason for coming to this area was to see one very specific fossil. But first the abundance of fossils around the hotel.
Although the fossils in the hotel were small but nicely formed the fossil in the museum of fossils is breathtaking. It is of a Kronosaurus which lived in the Early Cretaceous Period. Most of these fossils are found in Australia, where they were first discovered in 1889 in Queensland, which was covered by shallow sea some 120 million years ago, though the most complete fossil to date was found in Villa de Leyva (Colombia) in 1977, Bearing in mind Villa de leyva is some 2500m above sea level it proves without doubt that at one time the Andes were submerged. The interest in this fossil was so great the Colombian government didn't move it, rather they built a Museum over it preserving the location where it was discovered. The photo's here do not do the 9m long fossil justice, but I hope they give an idea of how incredible it was to stand within feet of where this creature swam millions of years ago.
The fossil museum has many other fossils, but they are all dwarfed by the beauty and power of the main exhibit. Outside the musem are local people who have made a business out of selling the fossils they find. One perfect ammonite (or I believe it is an ammonite - no doubt my dad can tell me better), was about the size of a frisbee or large soup plate, and on sale for a mere £90! This smaller version was a bit more affordable, and will be given to my dad on my return to UK as a momento of South American Fossils, needless to say I did not get any examples from the other place I had been previously for my mother.(Sorry Mum)
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