Day 3, Bogota and beyond

We spent our third day taking an all-day tour of the areas north of Bogota. Two nice tour guides picked us up at our hotel and we drove toward Zipaqueria, a colonial town at the base of a working salt mine. 

We made our way up, up the mountain to the salt mine. In the 1990's, an unused portion of the mine was turned into a cathedral, carved entirely out of salt. Twenty five acres on three levels, you could spend an entire day wandering around this place. 

Miners come to pray here after their shifts (85% of Colombia is Catholic), and Mass is held here on Sundays. 

There's a lot of symbolism I wish I could explain, but all I could focus on was that  everything was made of salt. EVERYTHING. 

Also, salty Jesus. 

There were beautiful carvings in the salt. 

A chapel. 

Amazing acoustics for religious and classical music performances. 

A salted confessional. 

Next adventure was hiking to Laguna del Cacique Guatavita. This is a high rimmed circular lake 9,842 feet in elevation. 

The lake resembles a meteor crater. It was sacred to the indigenous Muisca people.They would toss their gold into the jade colored water 

as an offering to the gods. An unsuccessful attempt to drain the lake for the gold in 1580 left a deep notch in the lake, still there today.

After hiking back down the mountain in Toms (slippery!), we drove onward to the "new" town of Guatavita to get some lunch. The town is new, circa 1968, because the Colombian government flooded the old Guatavita. A need for a large reservoir to supply Bogota with water meant the colonial-era town was submerged under water. Our tour guide was actually born in the old Guatavita and her family was forced to leave for Bogota when the water began creeping in. 

(See the reservoir in the background? Apparently, a few years ago the water got low that you could see the top of an obelisk monument peeking out the top.)

The new Guatavita is charming, in the Spanish style, and totally made for tourists. After a day of intermittent showers and chilly temperatures, we  sure were glad for some sun. 

(The priest's house.)

We had cafe and postres at an outdoor cafe. 

We then drove the 90 minutes back to Bogota through mountainous back roads and stopped for some pretty great views. 

 

(We get our own spotlight in Bogota.)

With two hours of daylight left, we decided to explore our neighborhood of Zona Rosa a bit more. A steady diet of meet and potatoes had left us hungry (literally) for what we stumbled upon next: a two-story fruit market!

I've been told we can't drink the water here, thus no uncooked vegetables and only fruits you can peel. 

And Alexis found a tree to match her hair. 

(Not a lot of natural blondes here.)

We finished off the night with dinner at Niko Cafe, a very nice Italian restaurant. 

(That's me, tired and happy that my pollo dish happened to be amazing. You never know exactly what you're ordering here.  Well, some people do, but those people speak Spanish much better than we do.)

Tomorrow's adventure: Bogota food tour!

p.s. We stopped at one of the only clothing stores open after dinner (it's a holiday here today, the Assumption of Mary) called Seven Seven. Think high-end H&M? I procured what I am calling my Colombia Outfit and what Alexis calls oh-my-god-that-is-hideous outfit. Stay tuned because I'm wearing it tomorrow...