Bogotá Water Manhole Covers

 I love that in Bogotá all the water manhole covers have a frog on them.  And there's quite a few different designs.  Here's just three of them.  

Zipaquira and the Catedral del Sal

After hiking to Piedra del Colgada we drove to Zipaquira to go to the Catedral del Sal, or Cathedral of Salt.  We'd been there before in 2009 and wowsers! It's changed a ton since then.  The main cathedral is still mostly the same, but they've added a ton of gift shops and other areas for art galleries, a little museum section and movie theater, bathrooms, etc. 

The dome room is still my favorite part of the main cathedral. 

They have the lights changing colors, it's pretty cool. 

I like the angel statues too. 

Down in the main cathedral.  They have mass there several times a week. 

The ceiling looks cools. 

This was one of the sculptures in the art gallery part. 

And a little section about miners.

This is the baptistry.  Really, you can't get a feel for the size without being there. 

But this is the salt crystal that is behind the baptistry.  It's massive.

They have this little section that represents the straight and narrow path leading to heaven.  I like that part too.

This is sculpted on the floor.

These are from different countries and places in Colombia.

And the gift shops and restaurants which are entirely new.  So yeah, ice cream at 590 feet underground. 

They had really pretty emerald jewelry and nativity crèches, many carved from salt and of course, all the typical Colombian souvenirs.

Up close of the wall per my kids' request.

This was a section depicting the indigenous people pre-Columbus who also mined salt here.

These were just random.  

They remind me of LOTR dwarves.    

We kind of rushed through the whole place because it was close to closing.

You can see the main plaza cathedral from the parking lot.

And then when we got to the restaurant to eat, it was almost closing too, and we had fewer choices of meat.  So sad.  So Elena and Sebastian tried chigüiro, otherwise known as capybara.  It was really good actually.  I like it better than pork.  It was La Catedral Llanera that we ate at.  It's very touristy and not as great as all that--out of different meats, overcooked/undercooked, etc--(I ate there three times while in Colombia) but their limonada de coco is to die for.  So good.  It's worth it just for that, and it's half the price as the place across the street that is rated much better. 

And then after dinner we went to the main plaza to see the Christmas lights.

One of our kids immediately climbed a tree.  Can you see Efraim?

Jefferson drove us,  and Alex came with him.  I don't remember if they came into the Salt Cathedral but they did have dinner with us.

The kids held races across the plaza in front of the cathedral.

I love the massive doors!

The whole square was so pretty!  But this doesn't really capture it.

And then we headed home.