Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral and Laguna de Guatavita Day Trips from Bogotá

Less than sixty kilometres north of Bogotá across the high savanna of Cundinamarca lie two of Colombia's most remarkable cultural and geological sites: an underground sanctuary carved 200 metres inside a prehistoric salt mountain at Zipaquirá, and the emerald-green mountain lake of Guatavita, where Muisca rituals gave birth to the legend of El Dorado. Both sit along the northern highway corridor out of the capital and can be visited individually or combined on a full-day excursion.

The Underground Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá

Located 49 kilometres north of Bogotá in Zipaquirá (elevation 2,650 metres), the Catedral de Sal de Zipaquirá is hollowed out 200 metres (660 feet) underground inside halite salt deposits formed roughly 250 million years ago when an ancient inland sea evaporated as the Andes rose. The indigenous Muisca boiled brine from these springs in clay pots to trade solid salt loaves across the highlands. After miners carved an initial chapel that opened in 1954 and closed in 1992, architect Roswell Garavito Pearl designed the current sanctuary 60 metres deeper inside the rock, inaugurating it in December 1995.

Via Crucis, the Salt Dome and the Three Naves

Visitors walk down a 386-metre Via Crucis where 14 minimalist Stations of the Cross are chiselled into dark grey halite walls, leading to a glowing subterranean dome and the Choir balcony. Below stretch three barrel-vaulted naves (Birth, Life, and Death and Resurrection) culminating in a 16-metre-high cross carved in relief into the salt cliff and an underground Water Mirror (Espejo de Agua) where still brine creates the optical illusion of a bottomless chasm.

Historic Zipaquirá and the Weekend Tren de la Sabana

In the historic centre of Zipaquirá, visit the stone-paved Plaza de los Comuneros (where the 1781 Comunero Revolt treaties were signed) and the twin-towered Diocesan Cathedral designed by Domingo de Petrés. On Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays, you can travel between Bogotá (Estación de la Sabana or Estación Usaquén) and Zipaquirá aboard the historic Tren Turístico de la Sabana; on weekdays, frequent buses run from Bogotá's Terminal del Norte and Portal del Norte TransMilenio station.

Laguna de Guatavita: Sacred Muisca Crater Lake

Fifty-seven kilometres northeast of Bogotá in Sesquilé at roughly 3,000 metres elevation, Laguna de Guatavita fills a circular 19.8-hectare sinkhole bowl formed by the dissolution of underground salt anticlines. Surrounded by páramo slopes, this sacred Muisca sanctuary was the setting for the royal ceremony depicted by the golden raft in the Museo del Oro. Look at the northern rim to see the deep V-shaped notch cut in 1580 by merchant Antonio de Sepúlveda in an attempt to drain the lake for sunken gold. Today, park rangers lead small groups along a stepped ridge trail through native encenillo and frailejón vegetation to viewpoints overlooking the emerald water (check the official CAR Cundinamarca site, as the reserve closes on Mondays).