Bodacious Booties of Bogota

Bodacious Booties of Bogota

Las Lajas Sanctuary

We took a bus from Latagunga, switched at Quito and then on to Ipiales, all in all not a bad journey. Anywhoo we got to the border crossing, slightly confusing just working out which buildings to go into. The whole place was awash with poor Venezuelans who had been there for hours, their whole homes packed up in old suitcases and wrapped up in blankets as they waited in line to get their various medical injections and entry into Colombia/Ecuador. There must have been a couple of thousand refugees their children and dogs waiting to gain entry. For us it didn't take too long as we didn't want residency or have need of medical care. After escaping what was a bit of a tense atmosphere we took a cab to our hotel in Ipiales, a town just a stones throw from the border but one that has a magnificent cathedral.

The Inside of the Cathedral

The Cathedral is called Las Lajas sanctuary and its construction was inspired by a miraculous event in 1754 when a mother and daughter took sanctuary from a storm. The daugher was deaf and mute but during the storm announced that a woman was calling her, an apparition of Mary appeared. This was kept secret for a long time until the daughter died, the mother bought her to the sanctuary and Mary bought her back to life. They no longer kept it a secret and a shrine was built there, the moral of the story is clearly to make good friends with Mary.

The front of the Cathedral

The cathedral in Ipailes (just a small collectivo ride away) is absolutely stunning, its built over a river in the crack of a mountain. Every inch of the outside is iced like gingerbread house. (You can tell we're thinking about Christmas.) It has a bridge over the river with a dozen musical angels tooting away in their marbley statue form as the waterfall cascades in the background. We spent some time looking at the view and watching the doggy's sleeping in the sunshine. (There are lots of doggies in South America). Before doing the next leg of our journey to Bogota.

A tooting angel

I'm not joking when I say the journey to Bogota was horrendous,  it was a 22 hour coach trip, on a standard British coach, not those luxury ones that you can catch up and down South America. It did most of its miles at high speed along small  mountain roads, as we gripped on to our chairs for dear life. The journey felt as though it would never end though, fortunately, it was vomit free.

The Colourful Day of the dead monument in Bogota

Eventually it ended and we were in Bogota! Yay! These are some of the fun things we have done since being here. We went to the Gold museum and saw the golden snitch from Hogwarts. This was good to see some of the actual gold that has been talked about. Most museums about the Incas and the previous rulers talk about the wealth of gold that the Inca people had and that the temples were smothered in it. But on our journey so far we haven't actually seen any gold. Or even any replica gold as the Spanish and the Portuguese nicked it all when they took over. So it was exciting to actually see some.

Death Masks

Some of my favorite pieces were the death masks, flatten out pieces of gold about a foot round with some very crude drawings of faces on them with big cheesy grins and eye flaps. Presumably for seeing into the after life. It was only later on that I read that, they too use the mummification process, though a little different from the Egyptians (more like those in Arica), and they mummify them into a basket and kept them in their houses. Can you imagine. 'Oh don't sit on that hamper darling, that's auntie Ethel, yes her with the shiny face, get your ass off now!'

The Snitch

Other pieces were willy protectors, various religious animals leg cuffs and nose rings. These nose rings were enormous and were worn on the septum part of the nose, and they probably came down to the wearer's chins. This must have made eating difficult. I imagine one used to swing their heads from side to side making the large round disk of gold to swing rhythmically out of the way allowing small treats to be snuffled into the corners of the mouth.

A room laden with gold

They did a lot of gold casting back in the day, and believe it or not they used to make the casts out of beeswax, which they fired to make hard then poured the molten gold into. Another later development was that of pins, some of the later pieces (before colonisation) were cast into separate pieces and then pinned together. They even used to gold plate naturalistic objects like shells, now hundreds of years later these golden shells remain where the natural shell has disintegrated.

Tamales and Hot Chocolate

One of the places we have frequented was the False Door (La Puerta Falsa) restaurant. They are a very small and always busy restaurant. They only have 3 dishes, one of which is a very rich hot chocolate, served with cheese a bread. Now traditionally you're supposed to put your cheese directly in to your hot beverage and wait for it to melt before eating it and then drinking your drink. To me a great lover of both cheese and chocolate that sounded awful so I, tentatively added cheese to spoon fulls of hot chocolate. Though it wasn't yucky, it wasn't delicious either. But the hot chocolate on its own was incredible. Another dish we tried was a Tamales a dish of spiced grains and really well cooked chicken, cooked and served in banana leaves. This was seriously delicious and a nice winter warmer preparing us from the torrential storm that did not beckon us outside. The restaurant is called La Puerta Falsa because it's named after the false doors in the Cathedral that put off potential attackers. The place received its name as it was just a family restaurant and has been since 1816, locals called it the false door due to it's location and the name and recipes have been the same since then. One of the best things we found over all and shall eat till we can eat no more was a brand of crisps called choclitos weirdly which were lime flavored tortillas. They were seriously good and so limey that at the end of the packet they made your eyes wince. Yum.

Enjoying La Puerta Falsa

If you find yourself in Bogota and have not got much to do then got to the salt cathedral. It's a nice day out, where you visit an old salt mine that they have converted into a cathedral the town it's in Zipaquira is lovely too, with a couple of nice big colonial  squares. The salt cathedral is a little like Disneyland in comparison to the rest of the tourist sites that you will see in South America, wherein the streets are all paved, there are directions on the roads, there are food vendors there, you can go rock climbing and zip lining (outside). They have a prerecorded audioguide for free, heath and safety, and neon lights.

The 'Normal' Cathedral in the Town Square

The Cathedral was originally constructed before 1932 as a chapel. In 1950 they started work on a larger scale which was inaugerated in 1954. Eventually this cathedral became unsafe so a competition (won by Roswell Garavito Pearl) was held by new designs for the cathedral constructed in 1991 (completed 1995). This new cathedral was built 200 meters under the old one and made use of previously dug out tunnels. Oddly, despite 3000 worshippers attending mass on Sundays it is not officially recognised by the Vatican so technically isn't a Cathedral proper. Alongside the aforementioned Las Lajas Sanctuary these are on the list of the seven wonders of Colombia, the Salt Cathedral being named the first wonder.

The Central Nave in the Cathedral

Now we had read that the neon light or LED displays were quite invasive before we went, I personally did not find this. Though they were not always level, (pet peeve) they were not the thing for me that detracted from the religious sight. The cathedral has the fourteen stations of the cross in various caves along the way to the main ventricles of the cathedral. These are done in a very modernist style, very simple carvings done of the cross out of the surrounding salty walls with mood lighting and kneeling altars. But for me I couldn't really 'feel' the art work, or the reverence for the place because I kept getting distracted but all the selfies people were taking. Standing right in the art displays and disrupting the created mood by pouting at each other and around the giant salty cross. I am of the selfie generation and of course I do discreetly take them in places I feel is ok, but sometimes I feel the magnitude and or significance of a place is lost because of today's tendances towards narcissism. Thoughts?

The creation of Adam

One question you have probably been asking yourself is: Is Botero a chubby chaser? Well, we have visited his museum here and I am inclined to think so. His paintings are the cheeriest paintings I have ever seen, his colour choices just lighten your mood. The disproportion towards the curvy he uses in his paintings just bring a smile to your face. It's nice to look at a still life painting and not see a woman kind of bored of sitting in a chair, or typically seductive, his paintings are quite cheeky. And I like it.  We enjoyed it so terrifically we intend to go to another of his museums further up the country, (and maybe buy a poster to put in a frame when were rich and posh). There are some examples below:

Right next were off to Medellin, still in Colombia, hopefully to another Botero museum, and some other lovely stuff. I hope you're all well. Less than a month to go.

The beautifully iced cathedral

Love Olivia

The water mirror, really impressive actually

In the meantime

See some more of our posts

• Overview
• European Ecstasy
• Adventures in Asia
• Pacific Paradise
• Southern South American Splendour
• Central Celestial Scenes
• Incan Delights
• Heading North

Check out some more of our pictures here and what we're up to currently.

Amazing carvings out of salt rock
Not sure who the random is...