The Salsa Train and a Cathedral Made of Salt

After having a gander at things we could get up to in and around Bogota in Columbia, we found the bizarre sounding Catedral de Sal (cathedral of salt), located about an hour and a quarter from Bogota by bus in the town of Zipaquira. This sounded suitably interesting, but what really made it was the fact that you could also get there by the one and only operational Columbian steam train! Obviously this wasn't quite as exciting for Clairy, but my immense enthusiasm was more than enough for both of us. Also the journey wook a mammoth 3 hours each way (a very slow train then), but that was ok because a band was on board to entertain you. Hurrah!

Sadly, when we arrived at Palapa station on the morning we were off, the steam train was out of action, boooo! The replacement, however, was still pretty lovely and our excitement wasn't diminished too much.


So on we popped along with a cheerful selection of Bogotan locals, young and old. We were slightly relieved to find we weren't sharing a carriage with the insanely excited herd of school kids. The carriages were genuine 1950's beauties.

The train jerked its way into motion, and set off at a snails pace through the centre of Bogota. Every road it crossed required a seemingly endless honking of the horn to make sure no one was in the way, and the big roads all had a worker who miraculously seemed to appear to make sure we got across ok. The area we started in was very poor, with lots of people sleeping rough, and crazed stray dogs barking at the train.

Eventually we reached the second pickup station at Usaquen. Here we got to see our first taste of the band, as they traipsed off the train and serenaded us from the station. It was great. There were a few surly looking police on board. We weren't quite sure what eventuality they were there in case of, but I managed to get a comedy picture.


Yeah, check out this clever 'stick my hand out the window and take a picture of us both' shot.


Once we were on our way again, a very attentive waitress bought along endless snacks and drinks for people to purchase. Then the band started working their way through each car, playing a couple of tunes in each. It was absolutely hilarious. Everyone was clapping and bopping along. They were genuinely great as well.


I didn't realise Clairy was going to take this piccy. But hell yeah! I was clapping along an all.


Check out the quality video.


Trundling along round some very slow bends. It was great to see more of the surrounding country as we worked our way out of the suburbs.


When we finally arrived at our destination we were whisked off in a minibus to the Salt Cathedral. I have to say we were totally unprepared for just how barking it was to be. The cathedral is located about 85m underground in what used to be the main working area of a salt mine that apparently still has enough salt left for its continuing operation for the next 500 years. Obviously they're not actually mining where the Cathedral is anymore as it might be bit dangerous, but they're still hacking away at another seam nearby.

Essentially at some point during the mine's history, someone decided that building a cathedral in stone above ground was just plain dull, and proceeded to carve a large room into the soft salt caves for some fun worship, Catholic style. Unfortunately they weren't too hot on the old engineering theory, and it proved to be structurally unsound and was promptly condenmed. Then, in the early 90's, the columbian tourist office figured it would be a good idea to make one that was actually safe to be in, and they really went to town on the plans.

We were grouped up at the entrance with a spanish only tour guide, and proceeded down a dark tunnel with salt crystals oozing out of the stone, corroding all the steel it came into contact with.


We were maybe expecting a small corridor then some gurt room, but it was a total rabbit warren, corridors and stairs went off all over the place. We were led by our guide on a route that took us to various different room/views which apparently represented the 10 stages of christ or something. Some of them were massive caverns lit in this eery blue light.


They all had a cross in there somewhere, but I have to say the symbolism was pretty much lost on us, not just because of our total lack of spanish.


One of the final rooms had this beautiful blue lit ceiling that looked like some kind of planet.


You can't have a cathedral without angels and trumpets.


And finally we arrived at the main cathedral hall. It was vast, with a huge cross at one end and rows of pews leading up to the altar. Strangely, slightly trancy chill-out tunes were being piped in from various hidden speakers.


Along the sides of the cathedral walls were these vast calved stoned columns, 7 metres in diameter. There's me there too.


Obviously, here and there were a few of Clair's favourite religous icons.


By this point we were a little catho-loco and couldn't help ourselves from posing in an appropriate style.






And here's me giving the big thumbs up to Jesus, just before some people who probably really care about this stuff came around the corner.


We loved this statue of a miner outside the entrance. Nice moody clouds behind as well.


This was the view of the town of Zapaquira.


Slightly dazed, we left the salty cathedral and were zipped over to the town of Cajica. We attempted to find somewhere to eat something, but in the settled for sitting in the pretty main plaza and watching the kids from our train drench each other in the fountain whilst screaming at each other.

Clair got this great pic of an old man being guilt tripped into sharing his ice cream with the poor old doogy.


We quickly ran out of stuff to do, so headed back to the train and were the first to arrive. Oh hi! I've got it all to myself.


The journey back was just as fun as on the way there. The band knocked out a few more numbers before retiring, and the excitement of the school kids proceeded to an ungodly peak whereby they screamed and shouted undescriminately at every poor unsuspecting person we passed. Clairy found this utterly hilarious, and almost became histerical herself. I think this must have had something to do with previous teaching experiences involving extreme waving.




There were a lot of homeless types around who didn't escape the demands of the shouting kids on the train.


And then just as we were arriving back at the station, low and behold, there was the actual steam train with its boiler being fired up! Bloody cheek. I've no idea why it wasn't in use on the day we travelled.


What a great day though. Thoroughly hilarious from start to finish.