Zipaquira, Columbia

On my last full day in Columbia I joined a group from the hostel for a trip to Zipaquira, about an hour from Bogota, where there is a salt mine turned cathedral. They call it the Salt Cathedral to attract tourists during the week but on Sunday it actually attracts a large number of worshipers even though it is not technically a church.

Inside the old mine are a series of crosses carved from the halite rock with blue lighting. I got bored pretty quickly with them as they didn't seem to vary. The claim is that the biggest underground cross is there but I didn't think it to be so impressive. There were pews in one section and statues of marble brought in from the outside. I saw only one carving that impressed me. A small drift was made up to look like an old emerald mine and there a small theater where one can watch the video explaining it all. For those with shopping on their minds, a fairly large section is dedicated to display cases full of emerald jewelry, icons and tourist stuff. Outside there are a statues, a playground and more shops.

I was actually more impressed with the café where we ate lunch in the town itself. This was not an inside dining area, it was  open but under a roof. The décor was an interesting assortment of antiques  on display as well as old posters and ads. We ate the usual almuerza, the lunch special, starting with a bowl of soup, then a plate of meat, rice, a small potato, yucca and plantain with a frutas naturales drink. Good food but way too much for me.

We ended our journey by driving to both of Zipaquira's squares to get out and take photos. Town  squares are starting to all look very similar, a sign that I've been there too long. One girl asked our guide why so many of the buildings have blue and reddish trim. The answer was that some politicos have colors, much like schools in the US.