Zipaquirá

Day 184 – The Salt Cathedral

We hiked up the hill from central Zipaquirá to reach the Catedral de Sal (Salt Cathedral) around opening time.  As most people visit on a day trip from Bogotá we were hoping it would be fairly quiet, alas we arrived to find a school group waiting to go in.  Thankfully they were delayed for some reason and we made it through the doorway in peace.

The cathedral has been fashioned out of a former salt mine, with the main chambers 200m below ground.  The original cathedral was opened in 1954, but closed again in 1992 due to safety concerns.  This new cathedral was opened in 1995 and includes 13 cross sculptures representing Jesus’ last walk as well as three huge chambers that can accommodate up to 8,400 for a service.  The whole place is dully lit in various colours and Gregorian chants play in the main chamber.  The three main chambers were especially impressive.

One of the cross sculptures.

 
One of the dimly lit main chambers.

 
The altar in the first main chamber.

 
Shadow of the angel cast against the roof of the chamber above.

 
Looking back at the angel toward the main chamber.

As a part of the Salt Complex there is a huge freestanding climbing wall, but we resisted the temptation to have a go.

From the Salt Cathedral we wandered back to the hotel to collect our things, through Zipaquirá’s  pretty main plaza to snap some photos and back out of town to the bus terminal.

Zipaquirá’s main plaza.

At the bus terminal we were informed that there are no direct buses from Zipaquirá to Villa de Leyva and that the buses to the town in which we needed to change (Chiquinquirá, it took me about 15 goes to get the pronunciation of that one down-pat) didn’t leave from the terminal.  Instead we had to get a cab to a couple of bus company offices on the outskirts of town and wait by the side of the road for buses coming from Bogotá.  The first three or four were full, and Colombian buses seem reluctant to take standing passengers (some government regulation I guess), so it took us a while to finally get a bus.  Luckily when we arrived in Chiquinquirá the wait for a bus onto Villa de Leyva was only about 10 minutes, so in the end the journey was not too tedious.

We hadn’t booked any accommodation, but a kind local pointed us in the direction of the hostel office we were looking for.  Colombian Highlands (the hostel) is on a rural block on the outskirts of town.  So the office took our money and paid for a cab to take us and our bags out there.  The rain started just after we got there so we relaxed in the lounge for a little while waiting for it to pass.  As it got dark it became apparent that the rain had set in, but now we were hungry and didn’t have enough cash left for a cab, so we donned out raincoats and walked back into town.

As we came into the square we spotted Hanneke and Maaike having dinner under the balcony in front of a restaurant.  So we sat and had dinner with them then hit a cosy little bar for some drinks and a catch up.  When it came time to head home the rain had stopped, so we had a pleasant walk back up the hill in the dark.