El Fósil is one of the most unusual museums in Colombia. A 120-million-year-old Kronosaurus skeleton — a giant marine reptile that once swam in a shallow sea covering what is now the Boyacá highlands — lies exposed exactly where it was found in a farmer's field in 1977. A simple structure has been built around it to protect the bones, but the setting is otherwise unchanged: the fossil is surrounded by dry scrubland about 6 kilometres west of Villa de Leyva on the road to Chiquinquirá.
The Kronosaurus itself is remarkable — 7 metres of sea predator in full articulation, its long jaws still intact. There are also smaller ammonites and other marine fossils in the surrounding landscape; the entire high plateau was an inland sea in the Cretaceous period, and the evidence is visible everywhere if you know what to look for. El Fósil is best combined with a visit to El Infiernito and the Convent of El Santo Ecce Homo on the same road.