Yesterday I woke up early to meet Scott, Susan, and Bentley (BentleysBigAdventure) at the Catedral de Sal. The Salt Cathedral 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, in Cundinamarca, Colombia. It was a chilly ride out of Bogota, but nice winding roads blended with exhilarating traffic woke me up fast and allowed me to enjoy the ride.
It took about an hour to reach my destination. I paid my 4k COP to park the bike and walked up to purchase a ticket (23k COP). When you enter the mine you walk down a Tron-like neon lit tunnel. From there you walk past 10'ish alcoves with different cross sculptures that have prayer alters scattered about. Further into the mine is the main cathedral area, which is really, really, incredibly impressive. It is absolutely MASSIVE and a true feat of engineering/architecture. It is beautiful and awe inspiring. I skipped out on my tour group and meandered through the tunnels alone. At one point I sat on a pew and stared at the cross in the main cathedral for almost an hour. It was mesmerizing, and I can only imagine a pretty special place to practice your worship/religion. It allowed me to think and I felt a sense of peace, so I stayed much longer than expected.

Once you clear 11,100 feet, you start to head downhill into Choachi. Just before the town there is a turnoff for Cascada la Chorrera. I took the left and blasted the dirt road for around 4 or 5 miles. I couldn't seem to find the route to the waterfall, but could see and hear it thundering in the distance. It was getting late, so I turned back and made my way into town. Choachi is a small colonial puebla with a typical plaza surrounding a beautiful church. I had a Coke and a bag of platano crisps and watched some kids kicking a soccer ball for a bit. There were zero other gringos around, which was a nice change from other places that I've been recently. Not that it's a bad thing to be around other tourists, but I felt like I escaped the beaten path when I arrived there. After finishing my snack I needed to get back quickly as the sun was starting to settle behind the mountains. I flipped the lid on my helmet, kicked the bike into gear, wheelied out of town, and flew back to Bogota. The road is amazing and it is very easy to treat it like a race course of sorts. I really enjoyed the (very) brisk ride home.

I just made it home a little while ago and figured I'd throw up this report before Nina gets here. We have dinner date plans tonight. However, she just arrived so I better get moving. For now, enjoy several more pics from the past few days...
First few from the Salt Cathedral...
Second bunch from the ride into/around Choachi...
Catch everyone soon...
~ D
PS... Don't have time to proof this one, so sorry for any errors.
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