A visit to Nemocón salt mine

Nemocón, as seen from above the mine entrance

Once again our main mode of transportation is the bus – by far the most economical and interesting one. Yesterday we used the high-speed Bogotá city bus – the TransMilenio – to reach Puerto del Norte, one of the bigger bus terminals connecting to other cities, and from there took the bus to Zipaquirá where we are at the moment. During the ride, which took about an hour, four different men tried to get the passengers to part with a bit of money: the first ones were vendors selling sweets or other snacks and ice cream; the third one, maybe in his early twenties, told a story of extreme misfortune: he had come from Ecuador eight months ago, didn't have a job, had no money for food, very few clothes and missed his family – or something to that effect. It's hard to tell how much of these stories is true; he didn't look really hard off at first sight, but who knows? He got a few coins, from women mostly, just like the next guy who came in with a microphone and a loudspeaker and entertained us with some rap, obviously a political rant of some sort. I still don't understand a lot of it, though it is getting better from one trip to the next, and at least I mostly get the gist of what is being talked about. These guys (I've never seen a woman earning money this way) jump on at one stop and off at the next. Sometimes what you see inside the bus is as interesting as what you watch through the window.

When we left the bus terminal we were the only passengers, but we picked up more and more on the way out of town: all one needs to do is stand by the curb along a bus route and flag the bus down. The bus driver doesn't seem to mind to stop twice within twenty metres; it seems that's easier for him to do than for the passengers-to-be to walk twenty steps. By the time we reached Nemocón the bus was full. We knew Nemocón was a much smaller place than Zipaquirá (or Zipa, as the sign on the bus said and as people here often call it) and weren't worried that we might not get out at the right stop: at worst we might have to walk a bit further, which is our usual approach to this question. Since we were very obviously the only foreigners on the bus and the salt mine was the logical destination for us, we were gently nudged in the right direction by fellow passengers. In leaving we handed our fare – 3,400 COP ($1.40) per person – to the bus driver like we had seen people do who got off before us. It's as easy as that.

Mine entrance

It took only a few minutes to walk to the entrance of the salt mine where we found out that we could have an English guide – great: we'd get a lot more out of it that way. Two English speaking young men soon joined us, and then about ten Spanish speakers, so Juan Carlos, our guide, did a bilingual tour, adding a few words in German here and there when he found out that we spoke that language. He has been taking lessons at the Goethe institute, he told us, and asked if Hannover would be a good city to spend a few months to improve his German even more. We were a bit puzzled about his choice, but he explained that he had heard that this was where the purest German was spoken. Of course! 

 

The mine is no longer active, but there is still salt being mined in the area, and there is evidence that the salt was extracted here as early as the end of the first millenium BC.

When the Spanish had established themselves in the area they immediately started to exploit the mines, using the indigenous population for slave labour. This is depicted in several salt sculptures by Colombian sculptor Ronnie M. Edgar Martinez Parra. 

We started the tour in the small archaeological museum housing fossils found in the area: mastodons, a huge sloth-like animal that weighed three tons and stood on its hind legs to reach leaves, ammonites and many others: this whole area was covered by an ancient sea, which left behind salt deposits as well as rich fossil beds.

Puerta Áleman

The salt mined here has mostly a dark appearance, due to coal and other minerals, like sulphur for instance, which are mixed in. When we entered the mine the entrance was supported with a wooden construction called 'puerta Áleman' – German door -: a German invention. Alexander von Humboldt, who visited the mines in this area in 1801, brought several innovations to the mining industry here. He determined, among other things, that salt mines didn't need these support systems because salt is somehow flexible and shock absorbent (if I understood this correctly); for that same reason they are safe during earthquakes as well.

At one point our guide told us we'd experience some magic, but we would have to put our hands on the shoulder of the person ahead of us and close our eyes until he told us to open them again. When he did, we stood beside a deep gorge, as other parts of the shaft illumined by coloured lights. He asked for volunteers to join him on a small ledge, then asked what we estimated the depth of the gorge to be. Answers ranged from one metre to several metres, but it really was no deeper than a foot: a long rectangular basin (reservoir?) was filled with water, and as long as this was undisturbed and very still it mirrored the ceiling, which made it appear to be a deep underground cave. The illusion was complete, and the resulting mirroring beautiful.

Other stops were at a slanted wall called 'salt cascade', which looked exactly like that, a grotto that resembled a nativity, and a large cave where stalagmites and stalagtites had grown to fantastic shapes, resembling spiders, tree roots and animals. 

Juan Carlos told us about mine safety and then got to the topic of the 33 miners that had been trapped for 69 days in a copper mine in the Atacama in Chile and all been safely brought back up in 2010. He showed us the Fénix rescue capsule with which they were taken up (developed in Canada, he said), and finally told us why the story of this rescue had significance for the Nemocón mine: it was here that the movie 'The 33', with Antonio Banderas in one of the main roles, was filmed. We saw the room that replicated the refuge room in the mine, and memorabilia from the filming of the movie.

After a couple of hours we had completed our one kilometre walk through the mine. We were glad that we had chosen this mine instead of the much more touristy salt cathedral here in Zipaquirá. It was a very interesting tour without being so overwhelmingly commercialized.

 

Huge salt block

We had been thinking about having something to eat in Nemocón but had pretty much decided to wait till we were back in Zipa when an older woman hailed us from the door of a house along the way: 'Restaurante?' Well, why not. We walked over to her, and I asked her what she had on the menu. I received a long answer from which I was able to extract sopa (soup), arroz (rice), pollo (chicken), papa (potatoes) and ensalada (salad). Johann asked about cerveza, beer, and received an affirmative answer, so we decided to stop. In no time at all we had not only the beer, but a tasty potato soup with vegetables, followed by a big plate of rice, lentils, a baked potatoe, a chicken thigh, and tomatoes and avocado, all for COP 30,000 ($12). The place looked like a German 'Gastwirtschaft' and was immaculately clean, the woman friendly and talkative. Johann's worry about getting sick proved to be unfounded. I am not usually worried, but I'm not usually the one getting sick either. 

The way back again led us through pretty rural Colombia, with many cows (mostly dairy) along the way, egrets stalking through small ponds and among the cows, horses and single cows tethered along the roadsides, all looking sleek and well fed. Flowers grace every house, and for the first time ever I saw huge amaryllis grow in a garden. A llanero (Colombian cowboy) was exercising a horse with a very high, distinct gait, likely a Colombian Paso Fino. Colombia is a beautiful, fertile country, and I can but agree to the passionate exclamation of a man we met on the way to Monserrate: Colombia es paraíso - Colombia is paradise,