Finding the Footpath: Colombia January 2016

I'm posting this from San Agustín where we have spent the last three nights. I'm falling behind already!

I'm sitting in the airport at Bogotá waiting on a flight to Neiva, drinking a cafe latte from an espresso-sized cup. I won't be getting my usual 12 oz of milk this way! The coffee here tastes like chocolate, smooth and creamy. The flight before ours is late, but so far we are set to be on time.

From Neiva we will catch a taxi or colectivo to take us to Villavieja, a small town in the Tatacoa desert. This is just a side trip mostly to indulge me, on the way to San Agustín. Last night Margaret bravely booked our room over the phone in Spanish. The hotel has a guide, who will take us into the park to walk through desert mountains and then to the astrological site where we will “stare at the sky”. It's a nice stopover en route to elsewhere, and makes for a short day of travel today, before several bus trips over rough roads for the next week. I don't expect to have any internet connection, but we'll see.

(There is a BIG gap here, due to a 6 day bout of TD. The trip from here to San Agustín and beyond is posted in retrospect with photos after I arrived home to Edmonton.)

Yesterday we went to Zipaquira, Zipa for short to visit El Catedral de Sal. Rather than close an old salt mine, the miners kept working to create an underground cathedral from the remaining shafts. You are completely underground, and everything around you is salt. It begins with a long climb up from town to the entrance to the mine. The first section is the Stations of the Cross. Each cross is carved from salt, and labeled with the appropriate number and description. You hear the occasionally chords of Ave Maria as the lights change colour and hue, creating a surreal effect. Here are some of my favourites:

We ended our day streetwalking in Bogotá. Talk about surreal. We have been in many big cities, including in South America, but the bustle on the streets in the Candelaria district defies description. Calle 7 is a peatonal so street vendors compete with artists for attention. Seems everyone is a small business here! Never have we seen so many. Young, clean shaven, mostly male, they are everywhere, in groups usually. Every major store has private security often with a muzzled, closely controlled, dog. I felt very safe!