David went out in search of some coffee this morning and didn't have to go far, just round the corner there was a small cafe that made it's own buñuelos. They are essentially a doughnut but in Colombia they are made with a small curd white cheese and formed into doughy balls then fried golden brown. David's Spanish is coming along well enough to order coffees & buñuelos for takeaway without the pointing, shrugging and blank looks.

We had decided to take a visit to the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquirá, a town an hour to north of Bogotá, using public transport. First we took Transmilenio bus from pretty much the very south of Bogotá to Portal del Norte which is actually the very north of Bogotá. Even with the buses having their own dedicated buslines and stops like metro, it took an hour to get to our destination. Unlike a metro in likes of London where routes have dedicated lines and platforms, the Transmileno buses share routes and platforms making the whole process of getting from A to B quite difficult to understand for the first time. For example, standing in the wrong place on the platform could mean never getting on the bus you want. Once we were on the bus however it was plain sailing, we could gick it back for the hour and watch Bogotá go by. It was intersting to note that even when we passed through what looked more affluent areas, there was still graffiti but not of the artistic kind, just the scrappy tagging.

Once at Portal del Norte, it was easy enough to find a bus to take us to Zipaquirá. As we made our way north, it began to rain, and quite heavily too. On arrival, the rain eased enough for us to walk through the historic centre to the Salt Cathedral.

The Catedral de Sal is an underground Roman Catholic church built within the tunnels of a salt mine 180 meters underground in a Halite mountain near the town of Zipaquirá. As well as being a very popular tourist destination, it's also a 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 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. As part of the entrance fee, you get a guided tour of the cathedral. As we couldn't be bothered waiting 90 minutes for the English speaking tour, Maria was listening to the Spanish while David busied himself taking photos. Not too many photos though because something in the mine had an effect on camera batteries which drained them quicker than usual (this turned out to be true!!).

We walked one kilometre down into the mine passing numerous via crucis and down to a level of 180m below the surface. The mine was mostly black salt, it is only white where water and air are infiltrating. The catherdral itself has 3 naves representing the birth, life and death of Jesus. It's 75m long and has an 18m high ceiling with a capacity of 8,400 people. The cathedral is the second one to be built in the mine, the old one being built by religiously devoted miners was closed after becoming unstable. The icons, ornaments and architectural details are hand carved in the halite rock and all came from old cathedral except for the "Hand of God and man" which is new.

There was a "Mirror Lake", a rectangural pool only 10cm deep with water three times saltier than sea water. The water was perfectly still and reflected the surrounding light magnificantly.

The salt mine is still in use today but instead of taking blocks of rock out, they use a much safer method of pumping water in and taking the saline solution out. They calculate that there is still salt for another 500 years inside the hill in an area of one square kilometre. A 3D educational movie explained how the hill was under sea once upon a time and thats why the salt can be found there. Only 5% of the salt produced is for eating, the rest is for industries.

On coming out the mine, the rain had stopped and the sun was out so we had a walk around the town. It was quite neat and very nice compared to a lot of Bogotá - narrow streets with coulorful buildings. We stopped in El Corral for a burger (the best burger ever) before jumping on a bus back to Bogotá.

Our timing was a bit off, we got on the Transmileno just at the start of rush hour. Not that the traffic was a problem with the dedicated bus lanes, it was the crush of people. The people ignored the fact they were on the bus, and crammed themselves in, as they would on a metro. Getting off was interesting, nobody got out the way to let you off while people simply pushed their way onto the already full bus.

As we walked up the street back to our hotel we noticed that every single shop for 4 blocks was an optician, there must have been over a 100 of them and it's a wonder they can all stay in business. We were getting more comfortable with being on the 'dangerous' streets now and took a longer walk up Carrera 7. In addition to all the vendors selling their wares on the pavements, there were people playing music, rows of chess boards with highly engrossed players and spectators. There was even an old grandpa shaking his ass in his white suit and highly polished shoes, Michael Jackson style.