Catedral de Sal

September 11, 2015

Out of Bogota our second day, Shay and I traveled to Zipaquirá to see the salt mines. We figured out buses from the northern terminal, and 2 hours later arrived to 'Zipa'

Its a super cute little town, and we passed by the main square on our way to the edge of town and the Catedral de Sal.

We followed the white brick road to the top of the hill

Then headed down into the mine.

The plastic guy was a little freaky and had a mustache drawn on...

Its just busting with crosses down there. The guided tour took us past all of them, following Jesus' journey with the cross. Stations represented him falling the three times, getting helped by Simon, meeting the Virgin Mary, etc. I called a little bit of shenanigans since every cross looked pretty similar, and the stripe of other colored rock across the ceiling would represent him getting his face washed by Veronica or whatever. That didn't take away from the fact that the carvings were beautiful and the mines extensive.

Each cross was lit up with lighting of some sort.  They were way easier to see than to take pictures of unfortunately

The two rocks on either side represented the women of Jerusalem he consoled.

Half carved into the wall, half relief.  I thought this one was especially cool.

There was the giant cross way back in the tunnels, 18 meters high and 10 meters wide. It looked suspended, but we found out later when we went a little farther down closer to the bottom that its actually carved into the wall and shows light through the hole.

View from a balcony, maybe 30 meters back from the cross

View from closer up, you can kind of see that it is carved into the wall instead of hanging

Way way in the back were all the gift shops selling salt sculptures, emerald jewelry and all the usual trinkets. There was a cafe 180m below ground, and a claw machine which cracked me up.

Also due to the money amounts here and  the fact that the symbol for pesos is the doller sign, to play said claw machine was only a mere $500

Carving in the walls down by the giftshop

We were confused for a bit, since we definitely didn't do 180 meters of elevation walking, but the mine entrance is halfway down the hill.  It was only 32 meters of elevation on the 2km path through the mine, but then there was more hill above us in the middle.

Mine plan, lots of tunnels

It was a great little excursion, and the walls really did taste like salt. Yes I checked.

Salt precipitating out of the walls near the entrance, hand for scale

Also this was the fat little fish in the pond outside.  I giggled.

The next day I had to watch Shay drive away in a taxi to go back to the US.  We sure had a great run of adventures though, and I have more solo adventures to look forward to now.