I was of two minds what to do with my first full day in Bogotá. I had been flying in and out of airports every weekend for the past month, and was looking forward to taking it easy; at the same time I was eager to explore. My cousin Alice told me I should book a trip. She was right; I booked myself on a bus tour to the Guatavita lagoon and what some bill as the first wonder of Columbia: the Salt Cathedral.

We were picked up early in the morning on a corner ofParque 93. The park itself had been set up for festivities, with geodesic domes that housed shops lining the edges and a stage set up at one end. I wasn’t sure what the celebrations were about, but I couldn’t argue with the lit-up sign that encouraged us to “Be Happy” that stood in the center.

We drove for a few hours out of the city and into the country, past various parks and activities. We could gague the popularity of each attraction by the number of cars lined up to enter or that filled the parking lots. At one point we slowed by the Casa Loca, an upside down house constructed by Fritz Shall, an Austrian who’s been living in Colombia for 22 years. The parking lot was filled and our driver slowed so we could take photos.

In Guatavita, we stopped in a small town for a bathroom break and to pick up snacks. Our guides lead us to a town square where they had us line up for a photo before moving on. Back at the bus, I asked the driver if I could sit in the front. He agreed and we exchanged names. Walter told me we were close to the volcano and that we didn’t have much longer to go.

We were let off on a dirt road and found ourselves walking to the entrance of the park. I kept pace with one of the guides, who was surprised when he saw me following behind him. We were at 3,000 meters and walking fast.

To visit the lagoon is to join a group tour, which I hadn’t realized. We gathered around the entrance and soon a guide appeared to lead us forward. An English guide had accompanied us on the bus, and she stepped up to translate. She said she had to speak softly as one of the guides yelled at her recently for disturbing the others. I told her it was ok, that it was nice to be immersed in a language.

There was a surprising amount of content at each stop along the way to the lagoon, and Ms. Becerra did her best to fill in the gaps as we walked from point to point, giving me the Cliffs Notes version of the flora and fauna, and of the different ways in which the same words are used to mean different things in the local culture.

Along the way my guide and I talked about music and about Bogotá. She was a little under the weather and hadn’t slept the night before. Coming out of a party she was unable to find an Uber driver and she and a friend ended up having to walk almost all the way home in the wee hours of the morning. It wasn’t safe; she said they could have been assaulted, but they made it home ok.

At the edge of the crater we finally had our first look at the lake. It was a smaller, shallower lake than the one I had visited in Ecuador, and there were no paths down to the edge. The park guide spoke at length and then told us we could follow the path the rest of the way on our own.

The path lead us around part of the caldera before coming back down the volcano to a parking lot where Walter waited. As our group assembled, people bought corn and snacks from a well-situated stand.

Walter drove us to lunch in Zipaquirá, a cavernous restaurant that felt as if it had been converted from a garage. We sat at long tables while waitresses zipped around and took orders. At one end singers would take the mic and sing to recorded backing tracks.

At lunch I met a couple from Mexico City who was visiting Colombia for a little over a week. I asked if they knew any of the songs that were being sung and they said they were mostly local songs, though at one point they lit up at one. I asked if they went to concerts much and they said that they were seeing Willie Colón as soon as they were back. It was to be his last concert; delayed because of Covid. I was jealous that they were going to catch the last act of a legend.

The salt cathedral was not far off, and when we arrived we were told that we’d be getting audio guides and that we should do the tour on our own. The bus was planning on leaving at 6:00pm, and if we weren’t back we were on our own.

From Wikipedia:

The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá is an underground Roman Catholic church built within the tunnels of a salt mine 200 metres underground in a halite mountain near the city of Zipaquirá, in Cundinamarca, Colombia. The cathedral is a functioning church that receives as many as 3,000 visitors on Sundays, but it has no bishop and therefore no official status as a cathedral in Catholicism.

The audio guide took us down into the mines, explicating the various stations of the cross that were carved into various naves. I listened to a few stations ahead of time and had formulated an idea of what the sculptures might look like; I was wrong. Each station was abstract and featured a large stone cross, either in relief or presented as negative space.

The final room was an impressive cavernous space dominated by a huge cross at one end. As in the naves, lights shifted in color illuminating the chamber in various shades. At one point, the lights dimmed and a projected film played against the main cross.

Coming to the end of the tour, there was a line to take a ‘train’ back to the surface, past various shops and restaurants; there was a veritable mall in the mine.. Checking my watch I wasn’t sure I’d have enough time to wait and so made my way back the way I came. I had seen some of my tourmates while wandering the mines but none were to be seen now.

Back at the bus I was the first to arrive. Walter and the other driver checked the time and we waited. Six came and went and only about half of our crew were back. We finally collected everyone by around six thirty and started to head back to the city.

We hit traffic, and it took us over an hour to travel 12 kilometers. We crawled along the highway slowly approaching the city. When we got back to the park it was almost nine. I ate a sandwich I had bought in the morning at a picnic table and then called an Uber to take me home. 🇨🇴