I’d like to imagine everyone knows what the term “back to the salt mine” refers to, and for me the joyfully retired, the idea of ever going back to the salt mine is utterly repugnant. Saturday however did see me enter an actual salt mine, and I had to thank my ever efficient tour director for the experience. Layne found out about the mine in the town of Nemocón and down we went.
Startling, isn’t it? The mine tour itself was a mixed bag for me. Part of the problem I dare say is the absence by now of any living miner left to tell the story of mining for salt. The century old mine closed in 1992, was abandoned until the town decided tourism might revive their fortunes so they reopened it as an attraction.
And that is the problem at least for us. We took a tour of the mines in Mexico’s Real Del Monte where our guide told us about the working life of the miner and we met former miners on the streets of the town.
Our young guide was knowledgeable and though she spoke rapid fire Spanish she was easy to follow and our group was just half a dozen other people. One of them was an American who spoke no Spanish, apparently married to a Colombian woman who was taking her mother on the tour. I tried to say hello but he recoiled in horror at my approach and that was that. After a while Layne had to return to the toilets outside and I listened to the talk and took pictures for both of us.
It was Alexander Humboldt the explorer and scientist from Germany who encouraged the locals he found here scraping soil off the surface, to mine the mineral.
He’d seen European salt mines and they dug much outer salt out from underground and after he explained this to the Colombians they too discovered the huge reserves below the surface.
The pre-Spaniard inhabitants called the Muisca had found the surface salt deposited after the prehistoric sea located here had evaporated. They scraped the stuff up and started salting their food and selling the surplus which was an extremely valuable trade even though their salt was full of impurities.
Opening up the move created a much more industrialized trades for the Colombians though not without problems.
Water dripping through the rock produces the cleanest salt but then you end up with water all over the place, which is great for tourists who get stalactites of salt hanging from the ceiling and reflecting pools of water for their amusement.
Some of those on the tour tasted the salt and scrunched up their faces in surprise at how sharp the taste of pure salt is when tasted off the walls of the mine! I know what salt tastes like so I wisely refrained.
There was a wishing well, which I doubt the miners had much time for while underground so in addition to these sorts of things there was religious iconography everywhere.
The petrified log at the wishing well was interesting to me. Apparently salt water absorbed into the wood hardened and petrified it, turned it into rock. To look at it appeared to be a normal wood post but when I touched it, the wood felt cold and unyielding like a stone:
The multi colored wishing well:
There is movie memorabilia on display…
When the cleaned up and reopened the mind to the public they used eucalyptus trees which are as invasive here as they are in North America. In addition to having a reason to cut them down using them for bracing apparently has another beneficial effect as the wood readily absorbs water.
Oxygen levels in the mine are monitored daily. There are no fans in the mine as air comes down readily and naturally through shafts built to the surface. We breathed easy.
I was in a t-shirt and shorts and I found the temperature to be quite comfortable with low humidity.
You can arrange to get married down here if you like. I sort of assumed it would be a Catholic ceremony but I didn’t ask: that ship sailed thirty years ago for me.
A 350 pound block of salt carved into the shake of a heart for your joy.
A nativity scene also made of…salt:
The Colombian family posed for a photo by the mine photographer.
And then there was the story made into a movie of 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days in 2010 under the Atacama Desert. They all survived but their rescue was the big ordeal.
The rescuers dug a shaft to the trapped miners and sent them air and supplies. That took 17 days to accomplish.
The miners were pulled up one by one in this ghastly claustrophobic tube on display in the salt mine and the journey, wearing oxygen took between twenty minutes and an hour depending how smoothly it went.
They made a movie about the rescue and the tenuous connection to the salt mine is that it was shot here!
There is movie memorabilia on display…
…and you can walk around the set build in the salt mine.
Back to fresh air after two hours underground.
It’s a pretty little town rather too full of narrow one streets for my taste but it was a fun visit.
Another hero on display once again in honor of Colombia’s war for independence from Spain. This general was also a friar so there is that to set him apart.
Rusty got a solid nap while we were gone. I have no idea if they would have let him down the mine though it is possible. One young woman on our tour was carrying a tiny puppy in her arms. We just figured he’d be happier aboard GANNET2 and it was a pleasantly cool day so he did well.
The road to Nemocón is notorious for being absolute crap. And so it was, but the worst bits of dirt and potholes and trenches and mounds of rocks required both hands on the wheel so imagine something awful and this was it.
Google maps sent us out on a different road towards our campground outside Bogotá but their first choice, a goarctrack we rejected and drove past. The rerouted second choice was better but hardly perfect.
Night was falling and as much as we tried not to get stressed we knew we would end up in the dark on the road.
These roads limit you to ten miles per hour on the good bits…and we just couldn’t speed up.
By the time it got dark rain had started to fall but we were back on a decent paved highway and we finished the drive with just one almighty lurch over a speed bump we failed to spot in the dark. We spilled some water which Layne heroically mopped up and we kept going. I try to follow other vehicles in these conditions but I couldn’t keep up so I had no warning of obstacles ahead.
Eventually we found the locked gate, the manager came to open up and in the rain we parked somewhere fairly level and had potato sausage hash, red wine and a chocolate chip cookie and passed out.
We might stay here a few days. Rusty loves it and that’s good enough for us…
