How could she kill the black rooster?

After doing a last little ride on the back roads of Villa de Leyva, we returned to the main road towards Bogota. We kept on going back and forth as to whether we should visit Bogota or not: on one hand we were eager to discover the capital city but on the other we know that capitals are more dangerous, from a security standpoint and traffic wise and we would have to be super careful. After much thinking, we decided to skip the capital and after visiting the Catedral de Sal in Zipaquira, we would head towards the Zona Cafetera in the mountains.

An unexpected gastronomical stop

Zipaquira is only 30 Kms north of Bogota and we were following the main highway, passing through multiple medium sized cities to get there. It was definitively a change from our nice countryside roads, back into civilization. As we drove through Simajica, Caroline very tuned to these things, noticed that there were quite a few shops selling cheese. Kind of makes sense given the number of milk cows we had seen between the towns. First, she thought it was just a coincidence but soon enough they were just lining up the road. We had to stop and try them... and the good news is that we were close to lunch time. As we entered the store, our eyes were lured towards the huge cheese display. The friendly store tenant started to pull them out to show them to us and in no time, we were trying a sample. So tasty, it was a soft double cream light yellow cheese that was just melting in our mouth.
We bought a whole cheese for the road, in case we get hungry of course, and for immediate consumption a white cow cheese filled with Apricot preserve, some soft and warm little breads and as a final treat, a Tres Leches cream. It was so simple, so good and the store tenant was laughing as we told her that we would become fat if we were to work here since everything was so tasty. The Tres Leches was so delicious, sweet but not too much, tasting like a milky caramel with a milk cream on top. Too bad they had to be refrigerated otherwise we would have bought more of it.

A unique cathedral 180 meters underground

We were climbing up the hills of Zipaquira to visit one of its salt mines, this one uniquely converted into a cathedral. It was the town's second salt cathedral as the first one had been degrading, the salt structure weakening and hence they started building another one in the mid 90's. The entrance really looked like a mining tunnel, a half circle with metal arches strengthening the structure. We started our descent on the gentle slope of the mine, following our guide. The cathedral was into the original mine structure, with multiple connected tunnels making the cathedral's design. Each tunnel was used as a chamber to depict the different stages of Jesus' crucification. Before we entered, we were expecting the wall to be white with salt crystals but they were mostly black or gray with some white. We were told that this salt mine was 85% salt and 15% impurity, giving its darker color to the walls but when flashing a light through them, you could see through it, revealing that it was indeed salt.

We continued our walk, passing through the purification path, made of three staircases where the purest souls would go right and the darkest on the left (we won't tell you which paths we chose:), walked under the main dome with dark blue light revealing the intricate patters of the mix of salt and impurities, the salt cascade and finally entered the main area of the cathedral. They used a whole tunnel to create this magnificent environment, whith colorful lighting and an enormous cross sculpted behind the altar. It was so peaceful to sit there, in the cool underground area, listening to the soft music. A very unique place to celebrate God.

After the visit of the cathedral, we stayed underground and started another part of the tour: the Mining Route. We would learn more about how salt is mined and what the life of miners look like. First, we had to put our gear one: a miner's helmet with a light. We were now ready to explore other areas of this mines, that had been active for 11 years before the cathedral was constructed. After a short walk, our guide asked us to turn off our all our lights: walk straight forward in the tunnel in front of you and use your hands for direction. One after the other, we entered the total darkness, stretching our hands from wall to wall to know where we were going. It was a little scary to be in total obscurity, our eyes unable to see any form of light, and we periodically had to check as well that we were not about to bump into the person in front of us. This minute long walk was quite an experience and we were happy to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our second task would be to mine salt: we were each given a pick and asked to extract the salt from the wall by hitting it as hard as we could. It was harder than we thought and just getting a little pieces of salt off the wall was a lot of work and usually resulted in salt powder directlty in your eyes or mouth. Definitively not a piece of cake. Finally, our guide explained how the miners used dynamite to enlarge tunnels and progress in the extraction process. We went through a simulation of an explosion where he pretended to light up dynamite (we almost believed he was about to do it for real), mentionning the dangers of getting into a pocket of Grisou or Methane, an explosive gas. Many miners die each year taken by a Grisou explosion. At the end of the visit, we were all paid for the hard work we had done in the mine... with a piece of salt. Believe it or not but this is where the word “salary” comes from.

After leaving the mine, we rode a little more towards Bogota and turned west towards the coffee area. As we rode further and further the next day from the capital city, we were getting back into the rural areas, but this time high into altitude where the coffee is grown. We were now riding curvy roads again, through small villages and very drastic mountainous landscape. The coffee fields were beautiful on the steep hills of the mountains, the dark green leaves of the little tress shining in the sun. We drove through the clouds, where it was pretty chilly, and as we emerged above the clouds line, the sun was back to warm us up. Suddenly, as we were approaching a few isolated houses, a rooster started flying across the road, right towards Caroline's bike, who was in the lead. The rooster was just randomly moving and flapping his wings and there was little she could do to predict what it was doing and finally, pow!!! it went into the bike, hitting Caroline into her left boot. The shock was strong, but thankfully not strong enough to make her fall. She looked back in her mirror and saw a cloud of black feathers and the rooster jerking on the road. Chad witnesses the whole scene in total disbelief and as we turned back to check on the rooster, it was lying dead on the road. Chad picked it up and brought it to the owners in the nearby house, apologizing for the kill. They were all apologetic too that the rooster had flown into the bike. We continued our ride, Caroline still feeling guilty of having taken the life of an innocent, though stupid, black rooster.