The underground Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá, Colombia, and the legend of the Muisca people.
Colombia Adventures.
When I first heard about this place, I thought, who wants to visit an underground cathedral, I am not Catholic, and then I began to study the area’s history and decided to visit.
Today, I went to see the famous Underground Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá, Colombia, an underground Roman Catholic church built within the salt mines 660ft underground and buried deep in the hill of Zipa ( named after the most important indigenous chief).
The mines contain rock salt and originated 250 million years ago in an inland sea, and when the sea dried up, a large salt deposit was left behind in the mud and eventually became giant rocks of salt.
As civilizations began settling in the region, they too began mining the salt; however, the first people recorded to use the salt mines were the Muisca.
The Muisca, also known as the Salt People.
The Muisca civilization had one of the more advanced pre-Hispanic civilizations and found ways to use the salt to their advantage. Salt became more crucial than Gold; they even traded and paid for goods in salt instead of money or Gold.
