Steam Train to the Salt Cathedral (Part 1)

If you've been reading this blog you might recall that we planned to visit the salt mines in Zipaquira on our way to Bogota from Villa de Leyva.

But we neglected to get off the bus when we were supposed to.

That mistake turned out to be very fortuitous, because today we rode a steam train to the salt mine. Yes, we had to backtrack a bit, but Zipaquira is only about 30 miles north of Bogota.

The train trip was a blast (please click on these pictures to get a good look).

We bought our tickets two days ago, and it was good we did, because the 13 car train was sold out. Tickets were reasonably priced, about $23 for an adult.

It was mostly a Feliz Dia Mama crowd. Entire families, sometimes with three generations of moms, were riding the train.

Everyone was ready to have a great time. The tourist trains we took in Ecuador catered to a lot of foreign tourists, but here the tourists were nearly all Bogotanos. We only saw two or three foreign tourists, including a nice older guy from Salt Lake City visiting here with his Colombian wife.

Neither Daniel nor I had ever ridden on a train powered by a steam locomotive.

We were told this was a German narrow gauge train.

We left the station right on schedule at 8:30 and headed north.

It took over an hour just to get out of Bogota.