Zipaquira and the Salt Cathedral

Gosh, I didn’t realize how much the pictures meant to the blog stalkers. I always thought it was my interesting writing and wry sense of humor that kept people looking at the blog. I have a couple pictures from yesterday I guess I can post.

Here is Traci and the ninos. Maria is currently in a stage 2 pout right here. I figure there are about 5-6 stages of her pouts. So stage 2 can pretty much be ignored. Stages 5 & 6 aren't bad though. I have seen worse.


Driving out to the airport, we passed the old, historic part of town again. Traci took some photos of the wall surrounding the old city. In the first photo, you can see a small, dirt soccer field some people were playing on. Just like in Kansas, any extra flat patch of ground is soon turned into a soccer field.






Traci, Andres and Luke on the plane waiting for lift off. Don't they look like they just got out of a sauna (i.e. Cartagena airport)?


This picture is pretty terrible. Maria was listening to my ipod on the plane and would flip through songs until she found on she liked. Here she stopped on a song by my cousin Ryan's band, The Rinse. Yeah, I bought the album. It was kind of a bargin on iTunes. Anyway, I am posting it as proof that Ryan has a new fan.


Back in Bogota, breakfast at the compound was pretty much the same. Again, Maria insisted on a fried egg and only ate cereal. Andres ate everything and Luke ate two pieces of toast with butter and sugar on them. Traci ate the French toast (again). Anymore, I pretty much just let everyone order and eat whatever nobody else is eating. We tried to eat early because they were going to feed us an early lunch due to the fact that we had to leave a little early for our appointment with the judge. So, the next few hours we kind of spent getting ready to get ready to leave. The kids played a bit and I ironed my clothes which were pretty wrinkled from being in storage here at the compound while we were in Cartagena. Traci worked on her hair which she says is “totally fried” at this point in the trip. Apparently, I am coming home with a bald wife by the end of the trip (which should cut down on the “at least 45 minutes” to get ready routine).

Lunch was a little busier than usual. We had the kids all dressed up to see the judge and didn’t want them to spill anything on themselves. So, we probably spent more time hovering over them than we did eating out own lunch. Our only mishap was that Andres spilled his water on his shirt (thank gawd it wasn’t juice). Today, we had soft tacos and French fries. They were pretty good but way too big to pick up and eat with your hands. Therefore, several hands were required in getting the ninos fed while keeping them clean. Maria ate well, Andres ate everything and Luke ate nothing. I don’t know what we can do to feed Luke. I mean, if he won’t eat tacos, there isn’t much else to be tried. Now he is reverting way back to his “well, it looks different so I don’t want to eat it” stage.

Here are the ninos all dressed up and ready to meet the judge. They don’t look very thrilled in the pictures, but they were actually in good spirits. Traci says the matching yellows was just a coincidence.


Here is the family. We are standing in the living room of the compound. Behind us is the front door. Just past the yellow wall on the left are the stairs up to our room. I don’t know if we have done a very good job of describing the El Refugio compound, but we will try to do better in the future.


David, our driver, translator and tour guide, stopped by a little after one. As I explained before, David is the son of Lucia who is our agency’s point person in Colombia. He speaks great English and seems to know just about everything about the area we are in (and if he was making it up, he did a good job of keeping things interesting). The court where the legal proceedings are taking place is up north a bit in Zipaquira. We rode in David's car and took pretty much the same route that we took on the way to Ubate to get the kids.

We are in the mountains but were on a little highway that kind of runs through a valley between them. Once out of Bogota, there are farms, cows, greenhouse and some very nice homes tucked away in the mountains. I tried to get a few shots from the moving car on the way.




This is some kind of restaurant or banquent hall that looks like a castle. We thought it was neat and sort of out of place.


Zipaquira is a pretty small town, but still much larger than Ubate. I took a few pictures driving into town.



As we were driving through familiar territory, Traci asked David if sometimes when they drove kids back out to these areas they recognized stuff and started to freak out a little. David said he had seen it happen but it was very rare. Sure enough, as we got into Zipaquira, Maria began to cry. Luckily, we quickly arrived at our destination. At least, David parked the car but I couldn't see a courthouse anywhere and assumed we would have to walk a bit. Nope, the courthouse was right next door. I've been in quite a few courthouses in my life and I don't know how I missed this one (insert sarcasm here).


We arrived a few minutes after 1:00 which had me a little worried that we would be in trouble (we would in the States). But there were no problems and the judge was ready to see us right away. We were ushered into a small conference room on the top floor (that little triangluar window at the top of the building in the picture). I think everyone was too anxious to get this over with to be nervous. The judge came in and just had a pleasant discussion with us and the kids. Maria seemed to be having fun and Andres had his "flirt mode" in overdirve. He was sitting on the judge's lap giving her hugs and kisses and she ate it up. I hope for his sake he can keep that action up once he outgrows his "Webster phase." The judge asked Luke a few questions and he gave great honest answers. For instance, she asked if he sometimes fought a little with his new siblings and he said, "yes." She asked which one he fought with the most and after careful thought he said his sister. A toughter question was given to Andres when he was asked to point to his daddy. At first he pointed to David (which I am sure made him a little uncomfortable). Then he pointed to the wall and some objects on the counter. I don't know if he ever got it right, but Maria was shouting the answer in his ear the whole time. It was pretty funny, but I might have to wear a bigger "papi" badge in the future.

The judge was a terrific lady. She was distinguished, classy and provided us with what turned out to be a very nice visit. She even agreed to stand with us all for a picture when we were done.


When it was over, we stopped off at a little minimarket next door for sodas, juice and chips.


These chips were really good. They taste just like chicken (I was actually trying to take a picture of the Aguila girl in the poster behind Traci. She was wearing a heck of a lot less than a bag of chips in the poster).


Traci thinks I am getting everyone's hopes up too much with my talk about sentencia and coming home. I'll just give the facts as best we know them and let everyone else draw their own conclusions. Soon after we left the courthouse, the judge signed the sentencia papers. These papers also require the signature of our attorney, Oscar, and the lady from the children's services that we met with when we got the kids and at integracion. Oscar happened to be in Zipaquira later that day and signed the papers. So, all we are waiting on is children's services and I believe she also works in Zipaquira.

If the papers get done early in the morning, we can drive out to Zipaquira to get them and continue on to Ubate to get the birth certificates changed. We want to do this all in one trip because they are so close together and way up north. If the papers are not signed until the afternoon, we will probably have to wait until Thursday before we do the trip to Zipaquira & Ubate.

After that, we need to get Colombian passports for the ninos and physicals. I think, but I am not sure that these can be taken care of in a day. The physicals are a requirement for U.S. visas and are pretty cursory (I would liken it to getting your medical release form signed to play high school football, but those who know me know that is not a good example).

Running into the end of the week, our problem is with the U.S. Embassy. A visa requires 24 hours to turn around. However, they do not accept new applicaitons on Friday. So, if we can complete all of the other steps before the end of the week, we can probably vist the embassy on Monday and have visas on Tuesday. That would possibly mean coming home on Wednesday. This of course assumes we have no glitches in the Matrix. We still haven't called Delta to make arrangements to come home. When that happens, we will let everyone know and we can pretty much call that a firm coming home date.

On the way to Zipaquira, Traci had expressed interest to David in the Salt Cathedral which is in the mountains next to the town. As we were heading back to the car, he offered to take us there for a quick tour. Even though the kids hadn't had naps, they were in pretty good spirts and we agreed to go.

By way of background, salt has been mined from the mountains surrounding Zipaquira for hundreds of years and is still being mined today. After much of the salt was mined out of a particular area, they made it into a sort of cathedral. Actually, what we toured was the second salt cathedral. The original was closed in the early 1990's because it was unsafe (if you can imagine a cathedral made of salt in an area where it rains practically every day, I'm not surprised - even if it is under ground).

So, here is the entrance. At the entereance we met our English speaking guide named Nixon (yes, like the president). Normally, on weekends and holidays this place is packed. Today, however, we pretty much had the run of the place.


After you walk in, the first section you go through are the stations of the cross. In each station, Jesus is represented by the cross and there are various forms of symbolism used to depict each scene in each station. Here are pictures of a couple of the stations. I've kind of forgotten what the symbolism is in each of these photos or what station they are from. One example (of which I do not have a picture of), is a cross with huge boulders on either side. Each rock represents Mary Madalene and the Virgin Mary. The ground in front was pretty rugged and torn up and is suppsed to represent the rocky ground that women have to walk on. Get the picture? As you can see that it is a pretty subdued sort of symbolism. Honestly, as pretty as it all was, by the 14th station I felt kind of like I just waled past 14 crosses made of salt.



Luke and Andres taking in some heavy symbolism. I don't think either of them got "the calling" the become priests on this tour.


Here is some of the salt build up on the walls of the tunnels we walked through. And Nixon, our guide, pulled some fools gold out of one of the walls and gave it to Luke. He thought that was pretty neat. Personally, I was terrified at how crumbly the walls were.


This is the chapel where they still give mass on Sundays and will even perform weddings if you have a little cash. The relief that Luke and Andres are checking out is actually made of marble - not salt. It is sort of a recreation of Michelangelo's "Creation (?)" painting in the Sistene Chapel with a few modifications (no face of God, God's hand is bigger and the fingers touch).



This is the choir loft in the back of the chapel.


This is an area where they can do baptisms in a separate chamber off to the left of the chapel. And, yes, it is really about as dark in this place and it shows in the photos.


Traci, Luke and Maria emerging from the mine with our guide Nixon. I asked where he learned English so well and he said he taught himself by studying at home and watching TV shows with subtitles. Maybe there is hope for me yet.


In all, it was a worhtwhile trip. They even had a 3-D movie at the end that talked a little about how the mine was made and how the salt was used, but we had to leave right before it ended because we realized that we had been in the place for well over an hour (the time we told David we would be leaving as he waited for us outside). I don't think this place is in Kathy's 1,000 Place You Have to See Before You Die book, but it should be (better than the Sofitel).

David wasn't at all agitated that we were late getting out of the time. On the way back, he even took us on a little bonus driving tour of Zipaquira. I can't recall the name of this Church (I'm not sure David knew either), but it was pretty.




The streets are pretty narrow. At one point, we had oncoming traffic and that was kind of tricky.


Luke's favorite part of the trip through Zipaquira was this sight. This guys drives his truck around town loaded up with kitchen wares trying to sell to people. He even has a bell or something that he rings like the icecream man. I have to admit, the thought of women running out of their homes at the sound of the bell and yelling "cocina! cocina!" (kitchen! kitchen!) at the top of their lungs instead of "ice cream! ice cream!" made me laugh.


Heading back to Bogota was a bit of a bear. We were in rush hour traffic and it took well over and hour to get back to the compound. Nevertheless, David kept it interesting with his stories and just being a tour guide. He is as free of a spirit as I have ever met and I am bummed that we didn't get a picture of him for all of you. One interesting story he touched on was how he went hitchhiking with his girlfriend when he was 15 year old. In Colombia?!?! Although pretty much everyone we have met in Colombia is extremely nice, David has to be one of the nicest people and most interesting characters we have met on our trip. Oh, and to the Kitts family, he said he remembers you in his head and his heart. I could never say things like that without getting punched by somene. But it seems to come from him naturally.

Dinner was a breaded and fried pork (?) and rice. Luke had two bites of pork but no rice. Even the ranch dressing we brought from the States couldn't help him. We were then served bananas for dessert. The ninos are getting much better about finishing their dinners before "demanding" their dessert.

No baths tonight which made things a little easier. Maria has to take a shower and I end up having to stand in the door to make sure she gets all of the soap out of her hair. I'm usually about as wet as she is when it is all done (the bathtub at the Hilton was so much better). For Andres, we have a little tub that we fill with water in the shower. It's a little small for him but does the job.

Bed time reading was 102 Dalmations (in Spanish). Another bed time story the kids really like but i have neglected to mention is "Perro Grande . . . Perro Pequenllo . . ." I like that one too because the Spanish words are pretty easy to read. I kind of fumble through the Lion King and Dalmations. As I told Traci tonight, half of the time i don't even know what I am saying, I am just concentrating on getting my pronunciation right. The kids weren't real ready for bed when I was done, but I put them down anyway. There was a lot of difficulty in getting them to go to sleep tonight, but it's a long story and I am too tired to tell it tonight.

That's about it for day whatever we are on now. Each day we grow more anxious to go home. Even Maria is a little anxious to see her new home. I showed her the video tape of her room again this morning and she just giggles (it was incentive not to screw things up in front of the judge later in the day). There is light at the end of the tunnel and we should know a little more tomorrow on when we can make those changes to our Delta tickets to come home.