El Salvador - Downtown’s Beautiful Buildings

January 24

Hello everyone!

As part of our learning about being historians, my minions visited the old centre of the city of San Salvador: Centro Historico. It was a good opportunity for them to learn about their home city and its past. It was a good opportunity for me to visit some of the city’s grand buildings and gain behind-the-scenes access to them.

Teatro Nacional

Embossed symbol in Palacio Nacional

I have visited the area before, on a walking tour in December 2022. That blog focused on the history of the country, from its pre-Hispanic roots to the present day via its colonial period. I didn’t actually spend much time talking about the city itself.

Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador 

Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador who was canonised in 2018

The city was founded in 1525, a year after Pedro de Alvarado started conquering the area now known as El Salvador for the Spanish. The Pipiles people had their major settlement, Cuzcatlan, nearby. The new city lasted…a year. Later attempts by the Spanish stuck, with San Salvador becoming the country’s largest and most important city.

Centro Historico sits on the eastern side of San Salvador

Above the camera there are bullet holes, a
reminder of less safe times in the country

The Spanish built many beautiful buildings, some of which have survived the multitude of volcanic eruptions and tremors. Earthquakes like the one in 1986 significantly rocked the city and its historic centre. Many damaged buildings have been rebuilt or renovated, and Centro Historico itself is currently under significant redevelopment to make it a safer, cleaner and happier place.

The painting of General Barrios, who served as President three times
in a six-year period. The main square of Centro Historico is named after him. 

A recent renovation in Centro Historico is the Jardin Centroamerica

Some of the places we went on our trip are buildings which I have been in before, such as San Salvador Cathedral and BINAES, the city’s new futuristic library. Going with a school has its perks, however; in the latter, we had access to their workshop areas and laboratories connected to robotics and prototyping.

The prototyping lab has cutting edge technology

Different sections of the library are themed - in the prototype lab, they
make initial versions of the final product which may stand next to certain books

Two buildings were new to me. The first was the National Theatre: Teatro Nacional. This theatre opened 107 years ago, in 1917.

Outside the Teatro Nacional

View from one of the booths - on the website, the
maximum ticket price is $10, which seems cheap to me!

The inside is stunning. I don’t know a lot about architectural styles, but the internet tells me that a wide variety are used throughout the building, including Rococo, Romantic and Art Nouveau. Mostly the building has a French Renaissance design.

The hallways are very nice - the main lobby is spectacular
but my pictures of that are full of kids!

Logo of Teatro Nacional

The theatre has 650 seats, all sitting below an incredible fresco. It is called ‘El mestizaje cultural’, which translates as ‘the cultural convergence’. The theatre certainly converges many cultures in both its building and performances, which occur regularly.

Inside of Teatro Nacional

The fresco

The other new building for me, or at least its interior, was the Palacio Nacional: the National Palace. It is no longer a functioning parliament - this is in the Legislative Assembly building about 2 km to the northwest of Centro Historico - but is a national landmark. It has also been used by subsequent leaders, most recently President Nayib Bukele, to address supporters.

View of Palacio Nacional from BINAES

Photo of the palace from my first visit in December 2022 -
you'll notice the sign has shifted to a different part of the square

This version of the palace was built in the early twentieth century, after the previous palace was destroyed by a fire in 1889. To ensure the project finished, a tax was implemented on coffee exports which would go directly to the construction of the palace.

The palace ceased to function as government headquarters in 1974

Photo from Wikipedia of Palacio Nacional
shortly after reconstruction in 1911

After entering the building, you emerge in a courtyard containing five large Norfolk Pine trees. These trees represent the five Central American nations which created a federation in 1823 after declaring independence from Spain two years previously. Well, it did. There are now only four, with one being dug up last year without a reason being offered.

The five nations were Guatemala, El Salvador,
Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica 

The trees are taller than the palace, which is 15 metres tall

There are 104 rooms in the palace. Four of them are particularly special, and are named after their colour. The Red Room, Blue Room, Yellow Room and Pink Room were once the settings for vital state functions, such as the Legislative Assembly and the Supreme Court of Justice. 

The Pink Room housed the Supreme Court of Justice

The Blue Room, which I thought was the
most ornate, was the Legislative Assembly

Most of the rooms have been redecorated but showcase what they would have resembled in a bygone era. 

The Yellow Room hosted the Presidency of the Republic

The Red Room has portraits of the
first six Presidents of El Salvador

Recent renovations of the palace have been somewhat controversial. The ornate tiled flooring has been entirely replaced with marble. Apparently many of these tiles, which have historical and heritage value, were found dumped in a river. 

The strip in the middle is the original

Photo from the linked article showing examples of the floor tiling

El Salvador is motoring towards modernity, after being left behind somewhat due to civil and gang warfare. Ensuring that Centro Historico retains its classical charm will help future generations learn its history so it doesn’t get washed away in the rush of the 21st century.

Robotic arm in BINAES - our future?

The El Salvador flag fluttering above Palacio Nacional

Love you all,

Matt

Colombia - Salt of the Earth

January 3

Hello everyone!

Last time out I talked about one of Colombia’s historically important resources: gold. This blog will focus on another mineral which is the focus of the ‘First Wonder’ of the country. Imagine if they added pepper…

Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral

To build it, 250 thousand tons of rock salt had to be extracted

About 50 km north of the capital, Bogotá, is the small town of Zipaquirá. This town is arguably the most popular day trip from the big smoke. I visited on a larger day trip, having spent the morning at Lake Guatavita. Having lunch before entering the main attraction allowed me to try one of Colombia’s national dishes: bandeja paisa. Imagine that you needed to use up everything in the kitchen and cooked it up before tossing it all on one plate. Huge meal.

Colombia is massive!

Plantain, chorizo, blood sausage, beans,
egg, rice, pork rind, meat, avocado...

Allowing myself to digress slightly, the food has been generally wonderful. The fruit is juicy and fresh, the sweets are…very sweet. I found a possible new favourite random food at a restaurant in Bogotá. In El Salvador, I often buy crisps called patacones - plantain slices which are double fried. Imagine that…but a crisp the size of a large pizza. Then imagine that with a ton of toppings. San Salvador needs this restaurant!

Fresh mango - big mango - less than $1

Looks amazing...until you try to eat it!

The food didn’t need salt. If it did, I could have easily brought some from Zipaquirá. That’s my terrible segue back to the main point of this blog. Zipaquirá has a cathedral. No biggie, a lot of places have big churches. We even passed one on the way, in a beautiful town called Sesquilé.

The Cathedral in Bogotá

Sesquilé is a charming little town where
we stopped on the way to Lake Guatavita

Zipaquirá Cathedral is different for two reasons. Firstly, it is underground. About 200 metres underground, actually. Secondly, incredibly…it is made of salt.

The old temple was the world’s first underground cathedral

The most recent cathedral was created and opened in 1995

That’s why it’s such a popular place to visit. I have been to an underground salt cathedral, near the Polish city of Krakow. There aren’t many, though!

It was declared the First Wonder of Colombia on February 4, 2007

This mine was temporarily closed in 1975 and 1992 for safety reasons

Like the Polish version, Zipaquirá started out life as a mine. The indigenous Muiscas were able to use basic techniques to extract salt, before colonists later used more modern technology to mine more of the mineral. 

Zipaquirá became one of Colombia’s biggest cities due to the salt trade

There have been four levels of extraction thus far

Entering the mine, you head steadily down to about 180 metres below the entrance. On the way, you pass under a fun set of lights which illuminate the flags of different countries.

Vamos Argentina!

The passageway is 386 metres

Before entering the main halls of the cathedral, you walk through the 14 Stations of the Cross. Many of these are made by creating rock-hewn structures and images.

An example of one of the stations

Station 14 took 2.5 years to finish due to polishing

After seeing the final station, you pass under a large dome before heading through a small labyrinth. At the end of this, about 200 metres below the ground, are the three main chambers of the cathedral.

The dome is 11m in diameter, built by 7 miners

It’s not a ‘working’ cathedral, as it has no bishop

At this stage, most of the cathedral looks more rock than salt. There are elements here which are made of marble and granite; however, the vast majority is salt rock known as halite.

This is Pope Francis, who visited in 2017

Some sculptures like this angel are made of sandstone - you can’t put that much detail on salt due to impurities

The eye-catching part of the main chamber is the cross. It is the largest underground cross in the world, with a height of 16 metres and a span of 10 metres. The changing, colourful lights around it add to a mysterious aura.

The cross

The largest cross in the world is in Spain,
and is ten times larger at 150m tall

The cathedral’s main chamber had a light show - more like a shadow show - to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Also underground, there is a 3D cinema which charts the history of the mine and cathedral.

I wonder if they do shows like this throughout the year

The film featured a slightly scary robot made of rocks

As I said earlier, it is a popular visit and pilgrimage site. This is reflected in the number of shops at the bottom of the mine - it looked like a garish bazaar.

There are also two museums and a 'hand spa'

I bought this, and I'll be amazed if it makes
it back to El Salvador in one piece

Apparently over 13 million people have visited the Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral. Constantly reminding yourself of the difficult and intricacy of its construction makes you realise how special this place is.

The world's largest underground cross

Amazing place

Love you all,

Matt