Catedral de Sal

Eight of us set out from the Platypus hostel armed with clever instructions on how to get to the salt cathedral neatly printed on a nice little slip of paper provided to us by the hostel. Very clear and consice directions indicating that two buses need to be taken in order to get to the town of Zapaquiri.

It just so happens that the bus stop next to the hostel was closed on this particular day, so we were facing an extra 11 block walk to the next one. How fun. It must however be stated that this was the only problem encountered on the way there thanks to the clever instructions on how to get to the salt cathedral neatly printed on a nice little slip of paper provided to us by the hostel.

Entrance is half price on Wednesdays, and being the good back-packers we are, we just can not say no to such an excellent bargain such as this one. We managed to save oyurselves a whole pound fifty! Something I would not even have batted an eye-lid over back home, but it makes a huge difference here.

The tour of the salt mine was in English, but frankly there is not much to be saif about a salt mine, so had the tour been in any other language I would not have missed much.

We walked through the tunnels for about 5 minutes before finally getting to the cathedral. Along the way were some statues representing the stages of the cross. All of this was neatly lit using fluorenscent lighting, but I could not figure out how they have done it becuase there were no cables anywhere. How does an electrician hide his work in a salt mine? Surely not plaster. Maybe that would have been a good question for the guide...

Despite this cool lighting - or maybe because of it - I was unable to take any pictures. Everything came out completely black. I suppose this is what I have to expect from the cheapest camera available at ASDA. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. I have put up with this pathetic excuse of a camera for long enough, and decided that I needed a new one. That crap cost me pictures of a beautiful sight.

The cathedral itself was very impressive. One of the biggest rooms I have even been in. It definately made me feel very insignificant stepping in such an enormous space. The first thing that came to mins was how excellent a cenue it would make. The acoustics were unbelievable, and I am sure it would have been possible to fit thousands of people. Everyone agreed.

The journey back to the hostel was far less simple than the one to the cathedral. The clever instructions on how to get to the salt cathedral neatly printed on a nice little slip of paper provided to us by the hostel forgot to tell us how to get back. It should not have been very difficult. Just take the same buses in the opposite direction. The only problem is that the bus lines going in the opposite direction are given completely different numbers and none of the bus drivers could agree on which bus we needed to take. We eventually just jumped on one even though the driver assured us that it would not take us to the right place. Good thing we paid no attention to him because we ended up exactly where we wanted.