HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: The Salt Cathedral
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Rainy weather in Bogota-I did ask for cooler weather
WORD OF THE DAY: Bogota-who would ever think to come here?
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 192km
Today was to be a ‘short’ day in the truck, all going to plan getting us into Bogota by 3pm, and worst case scenario, in at least before dark, which it has been a long time since that has happened. Either option sounded good to a truck weary group who would be happy with anything less than a double digit number in the truck.
Our hotel had the 2 tap option and I am happy to report that I got some hot water. It has been a long time since we have had hot showers so I made sure I didn’t take too long as to try and leave some for Shaz, who got a little hot water before it went cold. It really is pot luck and just another thing that we take for granted back home. Ethiopia was the same, very few hot showers which I don’t mind, but I can’t do an icy shower, especially when you have to wash your hair.
It is still funny to see people’s reactions as we drive in Rosita. The town folk in Villa El Leyva pretty much stopped and watched as we loaded the truck and hopped on. I guess that it would be a sightseeing us all jostle, scramble getting our bags and crap on the truck. It is a sight for us and we have been doing it the last 140 days. As we drove out people have all sorts of reactions from shock, reading the trucks signage to themselves, waves and the one that I remember the most was a small boy was half way through eating a banana and we drove past, quite slowly, and he stopped in mid munch, and watched with awe as we drove past with the banana half way to his mouth. It was hilarious.
We arrived into Zipaquira at 12.40pm. This place is famous for The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá. It is an underground Roman Catholic church built within the tunnels of a salt mine 200 meters underground in a Halite Mountain near the town of Zipaquirá. It is a very popular tourist destination and place of pilgrimage in the country. The name "Salt Cathedral" is mostly to attract tourists - while a functioning church that receives as many as 3,000 visitors on Sundays, it has no bishop and therefore no official status as a cathedral in Catholicism. The temple at the bottom has three sections, representing the birth, life, and death of Jesus. The icons, ornaments and architectural details are hand carved in the halite rock. Some marble sculptures are included. The Salt Cathedral is considered one of the most notable achievements of Colombian architecture. Also it has been denominated as "Jewel of Modern Architecture". The cathedral represents for the Colombian people a valuable cultural, environmental and religious patrimony.
The cathedral is part of a larger complex including "Parque de la Sal" (Salt Park), and a Museum of mining, mineralogy, Geology and natural resources. Salt deposits in Zipaquirá were formed 250 million years ago, and were raised above sea level during the late Tertiary period, when the Andes were formed. The complex is located at 2.652 m Altitude. The town is recognized, not only for the Cathedral, but for being near one of the oldest human settlements in the Americas, El Abra archaeological place.
The halite mines were exploited already by the pre-Columbian Muisca culture since the 5th century BC, being one of their most important economic activities. The traditional halite mining was described by Alexander von Humboldt during his visit to Zipaquira in 1801. He depicts this deposit as bigger than the main halite mines of the time, such as those in Spain, Switzerland, Poland and the County of Tyrol with a calculated resource estimation of one million cubic meters. Von Humboldt also criticized the excavation techniques as being unpractical for future exploitation, recommending drift mining instead, since the halite tunnels don't require beams, lowering the costs.
Years before the underground church was built, (around 1932) the miners had carved a sanctuary, as a place for their daily prayers asking for protection to the saints before starting to work. In 1950 the construction of a bigger project had begun: the Salt Cathedral which was inaugurated on August 15, 1954 and dedicated to Our Lady of Rosary, Patron saint of miners. It was compound of three naves and a monumental cross. Part of the galleries was actually carved by the ancient muisca’s. However, as the cathedral was carved inside an active mine, so structural problems and safety concerns led the authorities to shut down the sanctuary in 1990. This construction cost over 285 million U.S. dollars. The building had 120m length, 5.500 m² surface and 22m height. It had six main columns, and a maximum capacity of 8,000 people. The main nave included the monumental cross, which was illuminated from the base up, projecting a large cross-shaped shadow in the ceiling. The right nave included the Stations of the Cross icons and the Rosary chapel, with the Virgin of Rosary Icon (sculpted by Daniel Rodriguez Moreno and later transported to the new cathedral). The left nave included the icons of the birth of Jesus and the baptism of Jesus, with a waterfall symbolizing the Jordan River.
The Industrial Investment Institute, together with Salinas Concession and the Colombian Society of Architects opened a contest for the design of the new cathedral, the winner of which was the project presented by Roswell Garavito Pearl which included structural changes in the access tunnel and the dome. In 1991 the construction of a new Cathedral was undertaken, 200 feet under the older one. This new Cathedral was inaugurated in 1995. Its various corridors and sanctuaries were achieved by making small but significant additions to the caves left behind by previous mining operations.
The main sections of the building are:
The Stations of the Cross: At the entrance of the church, there are 14 small chapels, representing the Stations of the Cross, which illustrate the events of Jesus' last journey. Each station has a cross and several kneeling platforms carved into the halite structure.
The Dome: Located at the end of the main descending entrance ramp. From here, the visitor descends to the base relief cross chambers, the balcony and the Narthex labyrinth.
The three naves: They are interconnected by a crack, symbolizing the birth and death of Christ. Copies of Creation of Adam and Pietá can be seen.
Four large cylindric columns represent the Four Evangelists.
The cathedral has electrical generator and access for vehicles to the inner space (for emergencies only).
The Salt Theme park covers an area of 32 hectares. The visitors can observe pieces of art, depictions of the mining process, geology displays, educational exhibitions about environmental friendly mining and sustainable development. The main places at the park are: "The Sacred Axis" A square with an halite hand carved cross (4.20 Meters height), The Salt Dome, The Mine, The Brine Museum, where the visitor learns about how works the extraction process of salt from the halite. Also, exhibitions of the geological studies, engineering and architecture process in the creation of the cathedral can be seen.
The Reservoir, the Forests and the Salt Auditorium.
We made it to the Salt Cathedral just in time for the 1pm English tour and this is where we also met up with the gang that flew in from Cartagena earlier that morning and they caught a taxi out to the mine around 40km from the airport. Apparently it only cost them 130,000 pesos which is around 15 bucks each so they didn’t get to miss the experience. I have been to the salt mines in Krakow, Poland, so I knew I was going to expect something pretty special but I wasn’t prepared for the enormity of the actual Cathedral and the smaller 14 chapels that were in consecutive order illustrating the events of Jesus' last journey. They chapels were discreetly lit with changing lights of blues, purples, yellows and reds highlight the cross that had been carved into the salt. The tunnels were massive, so even if you get claustrophobic this place would still be okay as there were no ‘small’ spots you had to duck or weave through. It was MASSIVE. After viewing all 14 chapels passed the beautifully carved Dome located at the end of the main descending entrance ramp and from here we descended to the base relief cross chambers, the balcony and the Narthex labyrinth. Here we saw the Three Naves that are interconnected by a crack, symbolizing the birth and death of Christ. These chambers were AMAZING and also MASSIVE. This really was an architectural achievement and really impressive. Also well light in discreet ways it really made for a great ambience. They also had a marble statue of a full figure of Adam pointing his finger to a larger hand also pointing to Adam symbolizing God and he had no face or body to respect all religions and cultures that their gods are all different. It was a respectful touch to the whole complex.
We watched a 3D movie in The Salt Auditorium on how the mine was created, first mined and where it is at today and the modern mining techniques that they are using today. They had a mass of shops on this level as well, of course, and I had to buy ‘something’ and I got a bag that I think I will use instead of another trinket; it is a pretty cool bag I must say. So after 1.5 hours in the mine it was time to head back out into the sunshine and back on the truck for the past push to Bogota. The signs indicated that we only had 28km to go, so it took us only 50 minutes to get to the outskirts of the city, but another hour once in the city to get to our hotel for the night. A combination of bad traffic, as it had started to rain and possibly a wrong turn or 2 we arrived just after 5pm. We are staying in a more residential area around 30 minutes from the city center, but I am guessing this is more for security reasons than any other reason. The hotel was a groovy little hacienda that used to be a family home that they turned into a hotel. The rooms didn’t have room numbers they were all individually named and for the next 2 nights Shaz and I were in Centro Internatcional. With courtyards and small sitting rooms spread throughout the ‘hotel’ it was a nice little place to spend 2 nights. Not to mention the superfast Wi-Fi, hot water and a big flatscreen TV all in our room-I knew that we would enjoy ourselves here.
After we had settled in, Mark was going to take us for a walk to a shopping center about 20 minutes away, but I didn’t really need to shop, so Gray took a rouge group the opposite direction to a restaurant section to just have dinner which was only a 10 minute walk away. It ended up that they wanted to go and have a few beers before dinner, so Michelle, Blue Heather and I decided to just eat, so we found this great ribs place and we all had some form of steak and it was cooked to perfection and I also had a few prawns in a mustard sauce and it was scrum-dilly-dicious.
Back to the hotel I watched a horror movie, which was pretty much all that was on in English, which I never watch horrors, and I finally applied for my USA visa online, replied to some emails and the BIG news for the day was after hearing back from Drew and having his help scanning the divorce affidavit as a PDF I was able to complete and lodge our divorce application. So it finally it has gone to the Magistrates Court in Brisbane and I am not too sure what I have to do now, I have emailed Drew all the links and waiting for him to get back to me, but it is now in the system and the final process underway. I don’t think I like the title of divorcee, I like the title of Zeme’s girlfriend though and it will be nice to know that I am now legally not married anymore. I have had a few people ask me if I will change back to my maiden name of McAnally, but with the move to Ethiopia and what I have to organize in 7 weeks, I think I will just keep Jamieson for now and see how things pan out. I liked being a Jamieson and see no immediate need to change this.
So it’s a rainy goodnight from a wet Bogota as the rain pounds the roof of the hotel and I contemplate becoming a non-married woman again, not separated, not married but non-married. Life just keeps on getting better and I am one of the luckiest people in the world to be where I am, who I am, who I am with and the people I have in my life. xx
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