One of the statues looking down on the
main chapel in Zipaquira’s Salt Cathedral
Hanging Out in Colombia’s Small Towns:
Realizing the oldest travel niche market, anew
While it’s not officially recognized as a niche interest, we need to give serious thought to how many
people travel somewhere just to ‘hang out’. Hanging out can mean a number of things from ‘simply
being there’ to ‘watching the world go by’ to ‘actively engaging in a non-specific agenda of inactivity’.
On package tour itineraries, this usually boils down to ‘free time to explore’.
During my travels in Colombia, I found the major cities of Bogota, Medellin and Cartegena to be
fascinating and they offered lots of activities, museums, amazing restaurants and places to wander and
take photos. But it was the small towns just outside of those cities that were so memorable, and it was
the ‘hanging out’ that made all the difference.
Getting to Villa de Leyva, roughly four
hours north of Bogota, can be an
adventure. You can rent a car or take a
package tour or do what we did-- take
local buses. And while this can be time
consuming, it can also be a journey of
discovery, especially if you don’t speak
Spanish (like me!).
The first bus took us to Zipaquira, known
for the Cathedral built in the salt mines
200 meters below the surface.
We
roamed through the tunnels on our own
Souvenir store, just off the main square in Chichinquira