A visit to the breathtaking Las Lajas Sanctuary!

Located in 'Ipiales' a southern city in Colombia, near the borderline with Ecuador. Las Lajas Sanctuary is a basilica church built across a bridge on a canyon over the 'Guaitara' River in southern Nariño. Colombia.

I'm pretty sure many of us have watched or know about the movie series ‘’Lord of The Rings’’ My fav movie was, of course, the Return Of The Ling, watching ‘’Battle of the Pelennor Fields’’ was without any doubt one of the most glorious scenes in any movie ever made. So talking the architectural masterpieces subject I can recall a scene in ‘’Minas Tirith’’ and some other was so incredibly beautiful.

So this post is merely dedicated to guide you over the Las #LajasSanctuary adventure, Las Lajas is a temple and basilica for Catholic Christian worship. This place is like taken from a movie and when you’re there you feel like you’re not in this world!

Popularly known as the 'Milagro de Dios En El Abismo', which basically means a miracle of God in the abyss, Las Lajas is an engineering jewel built on the 'Guaitara' River canyon, near Ipiales, in the place where, according to a legend the indigenous 'María Mueses' and her daughter 'Rosa' saw the image of the virgin appear in 1754.

The fascinating thing about this place is that it was built inside the canyon where the Guitara River flows. Is at 100 meters high from the bottom of the canyon, being connected with a 50 meters tall bridge to the other side of the ravine.

How to get there

If you are heading to Ecuador I would definitely recommend doing it this way rather then heading back to Pasto.

From Pasto, Las Lajas is approximately 2 hours south of Pasto. So I was going to go to Las Lajas and then go back to Pasto. But a guy in my hostel explained how I could do it on the way to Ecuador. So I thought I would share this with you all.

Catch a bus to Ipiales, the buses leave every 20mins. You arrive at Ipiales bus terminal where you can leave your big rucksack with left luggage. From there you can catch a taxi to Las Lajas. (you can stop midway to take a photo from the road looking down onto the church).

Once you get there with the taxi, all you need to do is walk down and you will then see the amazing church. It really is breathing taking.

In order to go back to Pasto and continue your trip to the South. There are taxis waiting there to take you back to the bus terminal. Where you can collect your rucksack and exchange your pesos into American dollars ready for Ecuador.

Hope you enjoyed this article. More post about this city on my personal Instagram

Best Regards,

Jaime S