Colombia Trip: Day 6 Zipaquira

Today we visited Zipaquira, It is a village not too far from Bogota, (around an hour by bus). The village was very nice and clean and the people as always were very friendly.

Tasting a typical Colombian Ice Cream, tastes a little bit like petit Suisse yoghurts and they have them in all the flavours.

Walking the Streets of Zipaquira.

We came to Zipaquira to visit the first wonder of Colombia which is the underground Cathedral made of salt. Sounds strange I know and I had no idea what it would be like but it was incredible. Basically we were taken on a tour, it was full of tunnels and labyrinths. The Cathedral has only been built in the last 40 years and been open for 14. The Indigenous were the ones to discover the salt in the mountains and it was left but then after the Colombians began to mine tunnels, they then stopped and the Germans were the ones to finish it. As you go along the guide shows and explains the religious part of why they were built and then he explains the technical way of how they put explosives to create the tunnels. There are 3 floors of tunnels and each tunnel took 1 year to finish. It is around 600 acres of salt mines underground. As you walk along you are allowed to try the walls, floor or ceiling and all tastes like Salt!!!

We also enquired and they can hold weddings in the Cathedral......they also do raves which is pretty crazy considering it is such a sacred place.

The helmets are dedicated to 35 Colombians that had died while mining. But this picture is a tad scary as you will see it is black and white but I took it in Colour!!!

There is the largest cross built inside which was 18 metres high and 10 metres long. You also have statues made by an Italian artist. You also have a nativity scene........

.......To be honest the whole place is amamzing to see. Also it is inexpensive to visit, it costs around 17,000 pesos, which is around 6 Pounds.

After visiting the Cathedral we went for dinner at a local restaurant. I had a nice cream Onion soup and then different meats. All for very cheap.

We then got the bus home and it was a nice comfortable journey as they had a TV on. But we had one problem, we got off a stop late and we got off at a stop which is equivalent to Victoria in London, we were meant to get off a stop before so when we got off they wanted us to pay to get out!!!!

But one bus driver let us get on the bus one stop, and all the people were very friendly. They didn't want us to leave with a deception and to be honest I wouldn't as the people are very helpful.....I love Bogota.