After my escape to La Minga in Choachi, I decided to run off from Bogota the next weekend on another short hotel mission. Hayda, a friend of a friend, who is also managing a hotel, took me to see her new « baby », five hours south of the capital, in the ‘department’ of Meta. Welcome to La Cachamera hotel in the little town of Granada.
La Cachamera; a workshop on best practices for ethical tourism
I met Hayda through Lorena, an Argentinian tourism consultant that I met in Nicaragua but who is based in Bogota. And how fortunate that I met her! Hayda and I are somewhat akin, professionally-speaking. She comes from a small village in Boyaca, and started from nothing, working very hard going from an on-the-ground job in the hotel-restaurant business to a job at the Ministry of Tourism. She is presently consultant, professor and hotel manager. And what is more, Hayda is also a woman full of vitality, with a big heart; I adore her.
I spent a weekend with her and Daniel, a Venezuelan national recently settled in Bogota because of increasingly difficult living conditions in his home country. Daniel used to be Commercial Director of the Intercontinental Hotel of Caracas; he will now help out with the commercial side of the two hotels that Hayda manages. I had hesitated for quite a while … do include Venezuela in my Hoptour or not? But it would seem that the social climate there is rather tense so I decided to keep Venezuela for another trip, unfortunately.
Hayda would like to put in place in her hotels many best practices for responsible tourism. We organized a workshop with her team so we could brainstorm on the subject, the objective being to make the employees more aware of the challenges presented by responsible tourism, and allowing everyone to give us ideas on the practices that could be put in place within La Cachamera. You will find on Hopineo a presentation on the hotel, and some great ideas from Hayda on how to make your own natural soap and keep ants away with the help of white vinegar.
Salt mining, religion and tourism at Zipaquira
Moreover, Hayda will soon manage a second hotel, one that is presently under construction and due to open next month in the small town of Zipaquira, right near Bogota.
«Florie, you haven’t visited the Salt Cathedral yet? No way; you can’t leave Bogota without seeing Zipaquira—I’m going to organize something for you!» Hayda kept her word and three days later, I found myself on my way to Zipaquira with Daniel, where the owner of the hotel still under construction (Luis) is waiting for us to visit his construction site (very promising: a small 35-room boutique hotel which looks as if it will end up being quite cosy one day) … and the famous Salt Cathedral.
I did not know exactly what to expect … what on earth could a salt cathedral look like? What I had failed to understand is that the Salt Cathedral is in fact carved within a commercial salt mine, 180 m. deep! That is, it is situated in a part of the salt extraction installation, because the business is still active.
I found all that quite impressive, especially since I had no idea I would be plunging into mining shafts. And what was so neat is that Luis, the hotel owner, had previously worked as an engineer in the mining enterprise in question; as a result he introduced us to the present Security Chief of the mine who gave us a tour of what the business looks like behind the scenes; how great is that!
All of this was topped with a delicious B-B-Q on the spit … yum … a big thank-you to Haya, Luis and Daniel for that fabulous excursion!!
Translated by my friend Hélène Masson