(Zipaquirá, Colombia)... (Note that this text originally was written in 2001) ... Colombia is a beautiful country and an exquisite last frontier for commonsense travelers. When people ask me, I say, “it’s a wonderful place if you know how to walk down a street and get off a train,” meaning that it’s not for the first-time traveler. If someone gives you advice as to where not to go within the country, listen! Fly, don’t drive, between major cities. That said, I was very impressed with Bogotá. It’s a city with a lot of vitality, and the people have a healthy, positive outlook on life.
The train analogy is a little ironic, for Colombia currently has only one train line left, upon which on weekends leaves the Tren Turistica de la Sabana de Bogotá. Four trains, numbered 72, 75, 76, and 85, are active on the line, each of them between 100 and 150 years old (apparently they sleep somewhere in the beginnings of the dangerous southern barrios of the city, so I did not investigate).
Most people catch the train at its second station at Calle 110 and Carretera 10 (the photo above is a train station in the province of Boyacá, a little distant from the towns described in this post and, as far as I am aware, without a train for sometime). This is in the upscale northern section of Chicó, where you might be staying anyway (look for one of Bogotá’s few roundabouts and then walk along the grassy path of single-line track). The train (it was the #76) is a magnificent but slightly grimy black beast with red wooden sides and yellow and blue skirting, mirroring the colors of the national flag, and its loud, deep whistle is still rare enough to turn busy Bogotano heads. A handful of people were with me, all destined for the town of Zipaquirá, 35 kilometers to the north.
The journey is sufficiently obscure and adventurous to make for great travel. The French couple opposite me, from Lyon, were in Colombia essentially to adopt a child (the French come here to do that in the same way Americans were going to Romania 10 years ago) but were taking a break from the red tape to see the famous salt cathedral at Zipaquirá.
Initially, the train goes through suburban areas, but soon the landscape dries out, long lines of polar trees skirt large haciendas, and the train passes through small towns and villages. But don’t bother to hold on to your Panama hat, as it is not necessary at 20 kilometers an hour. The advantage is that one can really inspect the countryside, which is glorious. A restaurant car, lined with the same rich wood as the passenger carriages, sells beef or chicken and egg empanada rolls, tinto (black coffee), and barbecue and mayonnaise-flavor potato chips. A band entertains, playing Papayera music, security guards add that element of safety that is unfortunately a needed thing here, and the train has a circular front plate that conjured up images of the Wild West and Casey Jones.
The town of Zipaquirá itself is a joy, with a grassy square of palm trees, colonial churches and neat flower patches. It is worth a poke around, but most people on leaving the station head to the salt cathedrals. Literally hacked out of a huge mountain of salt, the cathedrals have been here for more than 125 years. The original cathedrals are closed, but a recent president of Colombia opened new ones several years ago. Consisting of 16 large chambers of various lengths and numerous passageways, this ode to God, which is still used for prayer and worked for salt, is impressive. Blue light magnifies huge crosses and altars, some of which are made of marble and some of salt. All of a sudden one stumbles over a Nativity scene or a statue of Christ.