Las Lajas Sanctuary, Colombia

This beautiful church, was built between 1916 and 1949, is located in the Guáitara river canyon, in the village of Las Lajas in the municipality of Ipiales, seven kilometers from the municipal seat, in the department of Nariño and 10 km from the border with Ecuador. The current building, built at the beginning of the 20th century, replaced a chapel dating from the 18th century and is a church of gray and white stone of neo-gothic style, in imitation of the Gothic of the fourteenth century, composed of three naves built on a bridge of two arches that crosses over the river and that makes the atrium or square of the basilica joining it with the other side of the canyon. The height of the temple, from its base to the tower is 100 meters, and the bridge measures 50 meters high by 17 meters wide and 20 meters long.

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The main building measures 27.50 m. background by 15 m. Wide. Inside, the three naves are covered with ribbed vaults. It has mosaics in fiberglass and during the day, its illumination is given by the light that filters through the stained glass windows made by Walter Wolf. The bottom or apse of the three naves is the natural stone wall of the canyon and in the central nave stands the image of the Virgin of the Rosary painted by an unknown author on a flagstone. The basement of the temple itself, in addition to the two arches of the bridge, is a Romanesque-style crypt, with three naves covered with barrel vaults of sillar stone structure and dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Franciscan Fray Juan de Santa Gertrudis, in his chronicle of the trip between 1756- 1762 by the south of the Kingdom of New Granada, published in four volumes with the title of "Wonders of nature", mentions the sanctuary of Our Lady of Las Lajas in book III, possibly being the oldest reference of its existence.