Cathedral del Sal
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2010
1
78
366
Trip End
Jul 13, 2012
Zipaquira, Colombia
Saturday, April 16, 2011
We both got woken at 4am by the guy on the top bunk snoring (well, it sounded more like he was killing a small animal) and didnīt really get back to sleep at all. At 8 we gave in and got up and had breakfast and at 9.30 we caught a Transmilenium bus to the North Portal station, where we had to change bus to go to Zipaquira (or as we like to call it (zipa de do da). In the centre is a beautiful main plaza and just up from there is the salt cathedral which is built inside a salt mine. We had a guided tour (in English) and John (our guide) did an excellent job of telling us all about the the type of salt mined here and that it was for industrial use not for food. On the way down to the cathedral were the 14 stations of the cross which depicts the journey Jesus had from being condemned to death and him being put into the sacred sepulcher. The cathedral is amazing and itīs hard to belive that it is a working mine, if only at night (so no tourists are blown up!). We bought the package that allows you to go into the path of the miners, and we were supposed to have an English guide, but partly due to me wanting to do "everything" we missed the English guide slot even though we were there 1min after the time. We think he said that the English tour was canceled and we would have to go on the Spanish one in half an hour. To be honest we didnīt need to go on it, as most of it was covered on the way down and they got someone to light a sparkler and he pressed a button to make the bang, which was a bit lame, but a kind chap did translate some of the important stuff to us. We came out of the mine at around 4pm and was very hungry as we had had no lunch, so we grabbed a quick snack and caught the bus back to the North Portal station. We did want to go in the big supermarket, but Colombia has a weird bus system here and once you stop at the bus station you have to pay to get on a bus and canīt get out until the next stop. So we paid and caught the bus back to the centre and went to the smaller one round the corner for some supplies for dinner. Once back at the hostel we cooked dinner and caught up on some internet. After another lovely hot shower, we settled in for the night to watch a movie (Run Fat Boy Run) and then plug in our earplugs, pillow over heads for another animal killing session!
