I travelled to Zipaquira to see the beautiful salt cathedral,now reckoned to be the foremost tourist attraction in Colombia. It replaced an original salt cathedral carved by the miners in the salt mine decades ago,allowing them to pray while they worked underground. When it became unsafe it was decided to hold a national competition to design a new cathedral underground. It is spectacular.
The mines , which have enough salt left for a further 500 years of production, date back to the time of the Muiscas, the indigenous people who lived and ruled in this region before the Spanish invaded in 1525 ,although the first Spaniard arrived in 1499.
The Muiscas were a clever and resourceful people who built around 50 cities in this region. Latest estimates suggest that there were four million of them when the Spaniards arrived , with 3.9 million being subsequently killed by the colonial invaders and the 100,000 that were left systematically moved around and dispersed to integrate them with the arriving Spaniards. They were stripped of their ancient traditions, customs and religion, indoctrinated into the Catholic faith and forced to speak Spanish.