Las Lajas Sanctuary (Spanish: Santuario de Las Lajas) is a basilica church located in the southern Colombian Department of Nariño, in the municipality of Ipiales, and built inside the canyon of the Guáitara River.The present church was built in Gothic Revival style between 1916 and 1949. The name Laja comes from the name of a type of flat sedimentary rock similar to shale.The inspiration for the church’s creation was a miraculous event in 1754, when Amerindian Maria Mueces and her deaf-mute daughter Rosa were caught in a very strong storm. The two sought refuge between the gigantic Lajas, when, to Mueces’s surprise, her daughter Rosa exclaimed "the Mestiza is calling me" and pointed to the lightning-illuminated silhouette over the laja.The image on the stone is still visible today.
