Salt Mine Cathedral, One of Colombia's Top Tour Sites!

Zipaquira draws visitors from all over the world to tour the Cathedral built deep underground in a salt mine. The Indigenous Peoples were the first to mine salt for commercial gain in the 5th century BC. The mines today are still active and the Cathedral we saw is the second of its kind. This version has been receiving visitors for only fifteen years, the chapel itself can hold 8000 people for mass.

The walk to the chapels includes passing The Stations of the Cross, all stark crosses carved from salt rock backlit in various colors. The large caverns housing each Station has carved kneeling benches. It's impressive but dark and damp. The sounds of blasting in other areas made me uneasy, but Keith wondered how it would feel in the night when no one else was there.





We had a taste of the total darkness on the Route of the Miners part of our experience. We donned hardhats with headlights and followed a miner down a tunnel that was completely black. I closed my eyes and held on to the back of Keith with one hand as my other rubbed the side of the rock wall. It was claustrophobic to the max! Keith took a turn mining with the heavy pick...he was a natural.

These smiles came at the END of that part of the tour.

There is something for everyone at the Salt Mine Park~ a 3-D movie that explained the formation and history of the mine, as well as demonstration of the processes using to extract the salt mineral from the rock.

Some brave souls enjoyed the climbing wall...

And other tamer-types, the two of us were in this group, took a train ride around the town of Zipaquira.


A miner handed me a great sample of pure salt as he left the mine for lunch. I put the palm-sized piece in my pocket for safe keeping. After we returned home and were taking a break during the afternoon rainstorm we heard a little BOOM! I pulled out the rock salt and it was warm and smell of sulphur filled our room. Some chemical reaction happened in my jeans, the piece is now crumbling in bits, interesting, huh?!

When the light storm passed we headed out into this fine colonial town to return the maps we had borrowed yesterday and look for some Mexican food. We both saw a Mexican restaurant on our train ride (really just a fake choo-choo) but after walking for about an hour we concluded it must have been a mirage. As a last resort we stopped for 'hamburgers'. We have had wierd hamburgers on this trip, but this is the first time I have ever been served pineapple topping with my burger. It was sweet and good, but I'm still trying to decide what the mystery meat was.

It's colder here at 8700 feet above sea level, what a difference in temperature we have experienced in the past week! From spring to HOT summer to a cool early spring rainy season. WOW, Colombia has it all!