If it is good enough for Indonesia and New Zealand....

Then Colombia can have hot springs too! 

But first we headed out of Bogota to Macheta, a small hill town, about 2 hours north. It turned out to be market day! Result! So went spent a while just wandering round. I loved it. Everyone had smiles for us. 

I met a man selling pineapples from the boot of his car. When he realised I didn't want pineapple he tried to sell me the car! An old (and quite classic) Mercedes for 15 million pesoes! I told him my suitcase wasn't big enough and he roared with laughter!

 

What you notice in Bogota is that the people don't particularly look South American, but as soon as you leave the city there is more of the local flavour with local dress. Lots of hats and ponchos!

We then headed to the hot springs. We had to trek down the valley to get there but all of a sudden buildings appear through the forest that would not look out of place on the side of a Swiss Alp! The springs were very, very hot and I felt half roasted after only 10minutes! I started feeling sympathy for boiled lobsters!

By the time I got out and changed I was so wiped out I could have gone for a snooze, but of course we had to trek back up the valley!

Next stop was a town called Zipaquira. Famous for its salt mines, and now the number one attraction in Colombia (as voted by Colombians) it's salt cathedral (the only other one of course being in Poland).

A quick wander around the town, basically to find some lunch (most things come with cheese here) and we headed to the salt mine. 

The salt mine was amazing. You walk about 3km down through a wide tunnel and get to various anti chambers before the cathedral itself. It was a lot more abstract than I was expecting, and they had piped music of gregorian chants to provide atmosphere (which was much better than when it switched to Enya!).

It was a massive place, and all of it carved from salt. There is a font but they have to use salt brine, as spring water would cause the font to dissolve!