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Other entries in Ipiales

Santuario de Las Lajas (25 July 2004)

Do not leave Colombia without having see Las Lajas. That was the message in my guidebook. Well, first a great breakfast across the road. Eggs, bread, an excellent coffee and juice set me back the still amazing price of 2000 pesos, 75 eurocents. I was counting the pesos I had left and it was juste enough for a return taxi trip to Las Lajas, 7 km away, a drink, a taxi trip to the border and an apple.

The sanctuario is set in a deep canyon and has huge Gothic church on a bridge that spans the canyon. Have I used the word spectacular a few times already to describe Colombia? Then I will say splendid this time. It was really amazing this site. Who ever came up with idea to build a church on that location is either crazy or brilliant. The drive to the place was beautiful too, along scenic hills with patches of land in different colours of gren and brown with low clouds above the mountains in the background. The church was built between 1916 and 1948 after an image of the Virgin supposedly had appeared on a rock wall there. The church is built in such a way that the picture forms the altar.

Along the path down to the bridge in the canyon are thousands of plaques mentioning all sorts of miracles that are said to have occurred. The place has become a pilgrim destination for Colombians from all over the country. It was sunday when I visited so there were lots of people there, including many beautifully dressed mountain people from Ecuador. My book was right, this excursion is about the best way of ending a visit to Colombia.

A taxi back to town took 10 minutes and after having picked up my luggage I took another one to the border, a few kilometers away for 1000 pesos. There I could not believe what I saw. About 200 people in front of me and only one window open for passport stamping, for both emigration and immigration. It took 4 hours to process the queue. The weather was nice but I had not had lunch yet! I had 600 pesos left to buy one apple and I was lucky that I still had some drink left. In front of me was friendly Colombian (understatement, they are ALL friendly!) from Cali and the two middle aged women were impressed with my Spanish. Well, so was I haha. I managed to be friendly to the emigration officer who took just 30 seconds to stamp my passport. At 15:30 I was VERY hungry and ran to the restaurant that was situated between the border post and the international bridge for lunch. It had closed! Aaaarrrggh. Sad and hungry but with great memories of the country I crossed the bridge into the 62nd country I have visited so far.