We are coming down in the world. After Bogotá (2600m), Tunja (2800m) and Villa de Leyva (2400m) we have now descended to 1300m. Barichara is another pueblo patrimonio or legacy town, only even more picturesque perhaps than Villa de Leyva. And the landscape is more impressive.
Capilla de Santa Bárbara Capilla de Santa Bárbara This, the dominant building in town, is routinely referred to as the „cathedral“, and it could easily pass for one, but there has never been a bishopric here. Then why is it so large? Mystery no. 1. The other is: when was it built? Bizarrely, apparently no one knows. A construction project of this magnitude must have left a paper trail, but it doesn‘t seem to have been researched — or the records are really missing, since there is in fact quite a bit of detailed material on the history of the place to be found on the worldwide web. Some date the „cathedral“ to the late 18th c., others give the date 1838. Though the fabric has a pre-industrial look to it, stylistically this latter date seems far more plausible, even though the grounds for claiming this particular year turn out to be suspect on digging more deeply. Barichara, „Catedral“ Capilla de Jesús Resucitado. Like the Capilla de Santa Bárbara, this does apparently date from the 18th c.
