Catedral de Sal

Oh hey there. It's been a while, I know. I've been far from the internet for quite some time, but found some time to sneak in a little post to remind you all that I returned from Colombia almost 4 weeks ago now! Time flies sometimes!

Down to business, this post is about my visit to the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquirá, a town just about 30 minutes north of Bogotá. I went with Zayrho, his mother Adriana, and one of her friends. It was the first time being there for all of them, even though Briceño is just a 15 minute drive away! First of all, "What the heck is a salt cathedral??" is probably on your mind. This is a place that is unique to the entire world-- on of a kind. I watched a video that explained all about it while I was there, but basically, this underground giant pocket of salt was created by the movement of the earth due to tectonic plates, after the ocean had receded from the area (hence the huge amount of salt). When miners looking for emeralds (las esmeraldas in Spanish) and gold in the area, they discovered that all of the earth in the area was made of salt. They began to excavate through the salt, creating tunnels, rooms, and passages. Eventually, someone decided to build what is basically a cathedral with an altar and everything underground in this place. The coolest thing is that everywhere you look around you there-- up, down, to your left or your right-- it's carved and chiseled salt. There was a little bit of marble every once in a while, of course which was brought in later, but basically everything else was salt. Here is what the walls looked like around the tunnel where there was a lot of moisture and water running:

Another thing that was super cool about this place was the story that was told as you walked through the passages, on your way to the altar. The story of Jesus' passion was told in 15 stages along the way. Each station had a cross of some sort, either carved out of or made out of salt, that were supposed to visually represent that point of Jesus' passion. This was my favorite of the representations:

There was also this very famous reflecting pool a little passed the altar way down underground. It's almost hard to tell if this is a mirror, water, or glass that shows something down below! The cool part is that it's only a couple centimeters of water that allow this effect to occur. So cool!

Now for the altar (really hard to get a good picture of because of the lighting in there!). By the way, they actually hold church services in here every Sunday and perform wedding ceremonies here from time to time:

And in front of the altar is this beautiful marble carved replica of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam... kinda reminded me of our trip to Rome!! :)

I'll see what else I can scrounge together about my trip to Colombia to share with you. Keep posted and cross your fingers that I can keep my motivation up! hahaha I also have a life update that could be worth putting on here for those of you interested in my travels. More details to come. Until then....

Catch me later :)