The Salt Cathederal

Today we slept in a little later than usual. We had breakfast with everyone and then about the time that we were done our driver arrived to take us to the Salt Cathederal. The kids were excited that they were going. We piled in the car and off we went. Patricia was good at pointing out some cool stuff as we went along. She showed us the refining plant where they take the raw salt and process it for exporting. She also explained that Colombia is the 2nd largest exporter of flowers, especially ROSES. You will see pictures of all in the album marked "Salt Cathedral". We passed a government castle and a bridge that were over 600 years old. The Andes mountains surrounded us on both sides. There were portions of the trip where you could see houses on the mountain side. Most of the these areas she said were where the least fortunate people live. There were some homes on the mountain side that were large homes with multi-levels and were where the wealthy people lived. The Salt Cathederal is the first tourist attraction. It was very cool (not literally - It was not as cool as the caves we went into when we lived in St. Louis). Maria and J.P. had a great time touching and tasting the salt which was everywhere. By the end of the tour little J.P. was ready to sit for a while....I think he was tired. The tour took about an hour. We were with some other English speaking families on the tour - our guide also spoke English. After the tour we had a small cup of coffe at the bottom of the mine then we made the hike back up to the entrance/exit. We let the kids play on a playground for about 10 minutes and then we were off to find some lunch. Patricia took us to theis really cool place. Steve had chicken, beef and sausage with french fries, an arepa and a piece of banna bread. I had the same except the beef and chicken. The kids both had what else but CARNE, their favorite. The rain started to come in about the time we got ready to leave. I thought the kids would sleep on the way home but, they were too wound up. We got back into Bogota around 5:00PM and piled in the room for a quick siesta before dinner. Dinner was a simple red beans, rice, carne, plantains and guak. Just enough after the late lunch we had. The kids didn't really get a good siesta so after dinner they were ready for bed. We got them in their jammies and they fell off to sleep. We watched a movie and then we went off to bed. Tomorrow we'll catch up with Paster Mark at Calvary Chapel Melbourne (ccmmelbourne.com) on the web then probably go up to one of the local flea markets. It will be an easy day. Don't forget to check back for the pics. We'll try to get them up ASAP. Hasta Luego