The Salt Cathedral or the Catedral de Sal de Zipaquirá is a church that is decorated in a salt mine. The complex can be found near the Colombian city of Zipaquirá. It is part of a park called El Parque de la Sal, where there is also a museum.
Entering the mine, you will first pass 14 chapels with awful crosses that represent the Stations of the Cross of Jesus Christ. Everywhere during our visit the Ave Maria was played and for that reason I have put an instrumental version of this song under this presentation. As you walk, you arrive at the end at the actual cathedral, which is divided into three parts in which the birth, the life and the death of Jesus are depicted. There are also side chapels and there are some other subjects to be seen, which have to do with salt extraction.
The salt mine was already in use by the Muisca Indians, even before the Spaniards came to South America. In the beginning of the twentieth century a chapel was set up.
In 1950 only a larger church was carved out. The church was consecrated in 1954, but for safety reasons it was closed again in 1990. Immediately after that the construction of the current complex was started. The current church was consecrated in 1995.
The salt cathedral attracts a lot of visitors and outside the mine there are still remnants of the means to process the extracted salt.
