Bogota - Cerro de Monserrate and La Catedral De Sal

The day started with the sun shinng and a few clouds in the blue sky. It was chilly when we left the apartment hotel at 8:00.  Our prearanged taxi drove thorough the fairly quiet city streets to the funicular railway station at tyhe base of El Cerro De Monserrate - the Hill of Monserrate - where we waited for a transport to the top of the hill.  The hill can be accessed by funicular railway, cable car or by walking.  The summit is 3,152 meters (10,314 feet) above sea level.  Bogota is ~2,650 meters above sea level.

The hill of Monserrate contains the Sanctuary of El Senor Caido, (the fallen man) a favoriote place of pilgrimage for locals and visitors.  The sanctuary was first built more than four centuries ago - in 1657 - as a monastery, but got its current name from a shrine that contains a sculpture made by Pedro de Lugo y Albarracin of Christ lying on his side after apparently being taken down from the cross. 

The hill now contains the sanctuary, which is a working catholic church, a French restaurant, a Colombian restaurant and a self service cafeteria, a host of souvenir shops and some amazing views of Bogota, to which our camera can hardly do justice.

After descending the hill on the funicular railway, our taxi took us an hour or so north of Bogota to the town of Zipaquira and it's salt cathedral. The hill of Zipa contains a salt dome that has been exploited for centuries, first by the local indians and later by the Spanish conquistadiores and now by the Colombian Salt Company.

The current salt Cathedral lies in the second level of the salt mine.   The salt dome was formed from an inland sea that existed in this area in Pre-Tertiary times.  During the Teriray era ~250 million years ago, the pacific plate and the south american plate collided to form the Andes and the salt dome was pushed upwards to be part of the east Cordillera of the Andes.  It is currently 2,652 meteres above sea level.

The first salt cathedral was closed and abandoned when the first level where the cathedral was located became unstable.  The current cathedral was started in 199 and inaugurated in 1995 by President Ernesto Samper Pizano using several of the galleries from the original cathedral but with a completely new main gallery containing a 16 feet x 10 feet (known in mathematics as the perfect ratio) cross. There are fourteen small chapels built nto the rock at the sides of the main tunnel leadng down to the cathedral.  Each of these chapels contain a cross and seveal small kneeling platforms and each chapel represents one of the fourteen events that the bible says occurred on Jesus' last journey carrying the cross to his crucifixion.  There is also a wedding chapel, a stone sculpture depicting the birth of Christ and a stone sculpture inlaid into the floor that takes inspiration from Michelangelo's creation of Adam