After I came down from Monserrate, Fernán drove back down the Circunvalar and out Avenida de los Cerros, that skirts the edge of the city along the foothills. Looking downhill, you can tell when you pass from one neighborhood to another, by the quality of the housing. The farther north you go, the more modern and polished the buildings. To the right, looking uphill, most of the neighborhoods are poor, and the higher you look, the worse the construction. There are some exceptions as you get farther north – there are those who will pay for a view of the city – but generally, the barrios on the slopes look poor and unsafe. I find it an interesting irony that while so many Americans will pay a premium for houses high enough for a view, here, often the poorest of the poor throw up makeshift homes on higher ground just outside the city, because it’s unclaimed land and they figure if there are enough of them living on it, the government will find it hard to evict them. Instead of Reagan´s imaginary “shining city on the hill,” reality here is more “the bleak slum on the hill,” unconnected to the electrical grid, or water and sewer system, and where garbage isn’t collected unless you collect it yourself and throw it in a ravine. Rather than paying for a view of the valley, people pay to live lower, perhaps looking up for a view of the surrounding mountains, but where it’s warmer, and the utilities are all in place.
Probably the key word is warmer. Homes here do not usually have centralized heating. Even at 8,400 feet , it’s not really necessary. The temperature here has been in the mid-60s to about 70 ever since I arrived, and that stays pretty consistent year round. But the higher you go, the chillier it gets, and the more it rains. Under those circumstances, the “best” dwellings do not overlook the rest – unless you can afford to build an unusually well-insulated house, put in fireplaces or a heating system, and pay considerably more than anyone else to bring light, water, and other services to you. It may change as I learn more, but so far, my impression is that most Colombians would consider that foolish. And they don’t really want to live “away” from everyone else anyway.
These are very sociable people – they don’t seem to crave privacy the way so many Americans do. In most neighborhoods homes are built like row-houses, sharing exterior walls. And there are millions of apartments and condos. The idea of having a strip of grass between homes is rather alien. (Much less a fenced half acre with a house in the middle. That’s not a “normal” house, that’s a mansion for a politician, and it’s got a high wall around it, with one or more guards posted.) Instead, those who can afford it, have a “finca” like Bill’s, a place in the country or in a small town, where they can go on the weekends, not so much to get away from “people” (because they take the whole family with them and often invite friends and colleagues as well) but so they can destress from “work,” enjoying a simpler environment with family and friends. It often seems that it’s the foreigners, the gringos, who are anxious to get away not just from the noise and pollution of the city, but from everyone, building walled compounds on large properties, well away from any town, desperate to keep the world OUT. Are we all suffering from some kind of sensory overload?
This day, I was not on the hunt for a private estate away from the city. I was looking for a decent, middle class neighborhood close to my office. So we went to Chapinero, formerly an exclusive, but traditional Colombian neighborhood, these days a mixture of upper, middle and lower class housing. I was interested in an area of Chapinero called Quinta Camacho, that I had heard was “nice.” You can’t go by what you hear; you have to go look. But when we got to it, we found it highly commercial; very upscale, but with very little residential housing. And the areas around it seemed also to be a very “gringotizados”, Americanized, where housing would be luxurious by Colombian standards, but rents very high, close to what you would pay for the same in the U.S. This was NOT what I had in mind.
Fernán knew what I needed. He knew that neighborhoods that look close to each other on the map, often turn out to be considerably farther in the real world. In Chapinero, for example, you might get on a one-way street heading the direction you want to go, thinking you can stay on it until you reach your destination, only to discover that at some point you can’t go on because a portion of the street is blocked by a new building, or suddenly becomes one-way the other way! Unless you’re walking, you can end up going in what seem like never-ending circles to get to an address that on the map is only a few blocks away. Fernán suggested looking in a different direction, on the other side of Avenida Caracas, but still just a few blocks away from the office.
Generally, I think of Avenida Caracas as separating the “good” neighborhoods from the “questionable,” at least in that part of town. But it’s been 35 years, after all, and much has changed. Fernán pulled into an area very like Modelia; residential, but close to lots of small, neighborhood shops and a big grocery store. I guessed that this was Polo Club, made up of estrato 4 housing, and when we asked a neighborhood guard, it turned out I was right. A a few blocks north we entered Castellana, very similar, an estrato 4 and 5 neighborhood. Fernán said he could “picture” me living there, and I could too. One of the advantages of this area is that it’s VERY close to my office. I could walk the distance in about 20 minutes. And the streets are more regular, so if I wanted to take a taxi to the office, the driver wouldn’t have to go around in circles to get there. Yesterday the newspaper advertised two small apartments for rent in Castellana, both at about 460,000 pesos, or about $200 US per month. Perfect. And now I know where to look for an apartment when I come back in the summer.
Friday morning we waited for pico y placa to end at 9 am, and then set out for Zipaquirá and the Catedral de Sal, the Salt Cathedral. The trip was easy. We drove out of the city on Autopista Norte, heading out into the savannah. Bogota is on a great plateau called La Sabana de Bogotá. No hard driving. The hills were to our right, for the most part, and the highway fairly straight. There’s a toll of 3,000 pesos, not quite $1.50, as you leave the city, but none to get back in. We passed lots of fields surrounded by low walls. Some of these were clearly made by piling up rocks and stones, presumably pulled out of the field. In some cases the landowner had used mortar to hold these walls together, but most often, it appeared that nothing more than respect for tradition kept the wall in place. In other places low walls seemed to have been created by piling up rectangular strips of sod, and daubing the whole thing with mud. On many of those grass and moss were taking over. Perhaps that’s what keeps them from dissolving in the rain. The soil on the savannah must be good, because huge amounts of food for the city are grown there. But it looks rusty in many places, and there seems to be a lot of sand. In fact, we passed a huge mountain, half of it already gone, mined just for sand.
Eventually we began to climb into some foothills, and arrived at Zipaquirá. Nothing triggered any memory. I think 30 years ago Zipaquirá was little more than a large village. Today it’s a thriving city, at least the size of Mount Vernon, and probably bigger. After all, it possesses an attraction that brings it visitors from all over the world! I’m told that the only other cathedral in a salt mine is in Poland, and that it’s much smaller.
I don’t remember much about my first trip to the cathedral. I remember going underground through very wide passageways, and lots of nooks with religious statues in them, all made from salt. I remember the young man I was with picked up a “marmaja”, a nugget of fool’s gold from the ground and gave it to me. I still have it. And I remember being told that at one time, they allowed cars to drive invalids into the cathedral, but discovered that the carbon monoxide harmed other worshipers and the cathedral itself, so that was ended. That’s the extent of my memories of the cathedral.
When I got to the entrance of the grounds, I bought two tickets: one for the tour of the Cathedral and one to a fairly new Archeological Museum. As you enter the grounds, you pass through an area that had something to do with the salt mining processes of another age. The cathedral is indeed inside a mountain of salt, along with a salt mine that is very active today, producing hundreds of tons of salt every year. This mine produces virtually all the salt for the country, for agricultural, industrial uses, and for human consumption. The mountain has been mined since pre-columbian times. The local indigenous tribes found salty water that seeped out from inside the mountain, boiled it and turned it into salt crystals which they used as currency to buy necessities from other tribes. But no one was on hand that day to explain what I was walking through, which simply seemed to be deep troughs with rocks at the bottom.
Looking around, downhill you can see Zipaquirá; above you in the other direction, the mountains and a great forest of eucalyptus trees. Some distance away, in the foothills, there are a couple of buildings, perhaps where caretakers live. You’re very close to the city, but the grounds are an entirely peaceful and silent place. A bronze statue of a miner, with pick axe, chops away at a pile of salt. Beyond him, an amphitheater where I imagine talks and celebrations are sometimes held, was empty this day. Past the circular seats, a ramp leads down towards the opening in the mine. A young woman stands behind a counter there, and announces that you must wait until the next guide is available. No one goes into the cathedral unaccompanied. It would be easy to get lost in the dark.
The cathedral I visited was permanently closed in 1995. That was a surprise and a big disappointment. Apparently over the years the columns that supported its roof gradually developed cracks, and it became too dangerous for visitors. The guide said it was more “rustic” than the new one. Half my reason for coming was to awaken old memories, and now that wouldn’t be possible. Instead I’d have to make new ones, in a completely different cathedral.
There are apparently lots of natural tunnels and caverns in the salt mine, in addition to the ones created by men. So the planners of the new cathedral simply explored until they found an area they felt they could “work with.” Then they described it, and called for bids from architects and artists to design the new cathedral. They rescued what they could from the old cathedral, but got everyone used to the idea that this would not be a duplicate, but a completely different place. And, while my memories are vague, I’d say it is VERY different.
One of the first things they discovered was a set of tunnels that led to nine small caverns. The artist who won the bid suggested that those nine caverns be made into chapels, each to represent one of the nine stations of the cross. In the end, they actually created 14 chapels. The cathedral itself is divided into three great sections, representing birth, life, and death. Each holds 1,000 worshipers, so the cathedral can accommodate 3,000. I cannot even imagine what it must be like in there when 3,000 people are in attendance!
When you enter the “mine” you walk down a long straight tunnel as your eyes get used to the dark. There are dim lights here and there, it’s never totally dark, but it is a cave after all! In places the roof and walls are made of hundreds of eucalyptus logs. Apparently eucalyptus is resistant to salt. In other places, the support is a combination of eucalyptus logs and iron arches. But these are the exception. Most of the mountain is solid rock, which forms its own support, and needs no human invention. There are place where water seeps through the rock and clumps of white salt crystals form. We had permission to taste if we had the urge, but I didn’t. And wherever there was light, we could see fools gold sparkling in the walls. But I saw no nuggets on the ground; if there were any “marmajas” to be had, they were picked up for sale in the souvenir shop, long before we got there.
The chapels are impressive, but I didn’t find them particularly appealing. The style is modern, minimalist. I guess I prefer “rustic.” Each chapel contains one very massive stone crucifix, and a couple of kneelers, also made of stone. I got the impression that some of the crucifixes were made from salt, but I’m not certain about that. I do recall the guide saying that the kneelers were made from polished blocks of salt. They are very simple – merely two stones set together to form an L. Given the state of my knees, I wouldn’t last more than a minute or two on them, and they must feel very cold. The stone crucifix in each chapel is placed at a different height, which is supposed to be symbolic of the station of the cross that each represents. The intricacies of this symbolism were lost on me. However, I did figure out that the one placed lowest, represented the moment of Christ’s death on the cross. There were a couple of chapels where the crucifix was carved out of the stone wall behind, sort of in massive bas-relief, so its presence was made visible by the absence of stone. One of these was entirely dark; the other had recessed lighting in it. The one with lighting was to represent the purity of Christ’s soul as he ascended into heaven. I’m no longer sure what the dark one represented. The chapels were so similar, and identified only by brass roman numerals rescued from the original cathedral, that for a non-catholic like me they all looked pretty much the same. Perhaps for a person better versed in the stations of the cross the symbolism would be clearer.
Eventually we arrived at the great Narthex. This was more impressive, if only because of the size of the man-made cavern. But again, very minimal, made more minimal by the dark. The main altar is a massive piece of salt, polished like marble. Of the three large sections of the cathedral, I found the one representing birth the most interesting. The baptismal font is located in a large circular area, and is made entirely of salt. But of course, that means you can’t put water into it, because it would eventually dissolve the font. So while most of the baptismal ceremony takes place at this font, the actual use of water, takes place a few feet away, where the holy water is kept in something that won’t dissolve. Behind the area for baptisms, as you look up the wall of the cavern, you realize that about 20 feet up, a tunnel opens up, a big black chasm in the wall. Water must have run from the tunnel down that wall for centuries, because it is covered with white salt crystals that look in places to be more than a foot thick. Standing back from it, with a little imagination, it looks like a waterfall – or an avalanche frozen in mid slide. Perfect place for a baptismal font.
I saw no statues carved from salt. There is no Christ figure on the crucifix behind the main altar. There are basically only two “graven images” and they appeared to be porcelain: a Virgin Mary in a large chapel to herself, and a Christ child in a little nook outside the main sections of the cathedral. All else is grey rock, austere, and as simple as possible.
By the time you get to the Narthex, you are 1,840 meters underground. But that’s measuring from the top of the mountain. From the entrance you have descended a little more than 30 meters . In all places, at all times of the year the temperature in the mine is 57 degrees. There are ventilation tunnels to bring in air, and in many places you can feel a slight breeze. There are access tunnels wide enough for vehicles to bring in supplies (and to take out stone during construction), but vehicles are not often near the cathedral area. The mine generates a certain amount of sulphurous gas, and in a few places you get a whiff of it, but generally it’s not noticeable, and the ventilation moves it along pretty efficiently. The guide told us that during an earthquake, the cathedral is the safest place in the country. You might feel a little swaying, no more. With so much solid rock above and around you, and as much or more below you, you’d hardly even notice a quake.
To get back out of the cathedral the guide took us up the only stairs I saw, the “Penitents’ Stairway.” Incredibly steep, certainly on purpose. The guide told us that the heaviness you feel on your way up these stairs is said to be directly related to your sinfulness. I’m not good at stairs in the dark, penitent or otherwise, and there are no handrails to help steady you. (In fact, there are no handrails anywhere in the cathedral – you just have to be a very alert walker.) When I got to the last five steps or so, the light had shifted in such a way that I simply could not see where I was going any more, and I stopped, told the guide I must be a heckuva sinner, because I wasn’t even going to make it to the top. This must happen a lot, because she immediately gave me her hand, and guided me up the last bit. Whew!
That put us back at the 14th chapel, so we still had a longish uphill walk to get back to the surface. By the time I could see the light at the end of the last tunnel, I was beginning to wonder whether or not I really wanted to visit the archeological museum. Fernán had been right about not trying to visit both Montserrate AND the Salt Cathedral in the same day! But I decided I just needed a short rest, and determined to figure out where the museum was and go. Then I looked outside.
It was raining buckets, not just ordinary buckets, but great, gigantic buckets and it seemed that everywhere there was about an inch of water on the ground. And me without an umbrella. I had a light, knit jacket with me, so I put it over my head and shoulders and set out. I could feel large raindrops splash right through it. Worse, the jacket absorbed the water, and got heavy. Back up the long ramp, back through the amphitheater, back across the incomrehensible salt mine exhibit, I finally got to a snack bar, already packed with a crowd of very damp people. I bought a bottle of drinking water, and like everyone else, thought I’d just stay there and wait for the rain to let up a bit before I‘d walk down the road to where Fernán had parked. But then I caught a glimpse of his car at the entrance – what a doll! So I hoisted my heavy wet jacket onto my head again and stepped back out into the storm.
I don’t think I’ve been so thoroughly soaked since about 1990 when I decided to stand out in a rain storm at Uxmal in Mexico during a trip with students. It was so hot in the Yucatan… that soaking was a blessing. But this was cold mountain rain, nothing pleasant about it! It turned out the Museum was blocks away, and it was raining so hard, we could hardly see out the windshield. I had a pretty ticket in my wet bag. But the archeological treasures would have to wait for a drier day.
