None.
Mark: " I want to take you guys to a salt mine. It's great you'll love it... but, it's kinda pricey. $20 but it'll be worth it."
Erik looks at me.. I look at him. "Uhhh, ohh, great. Sounds like fun.. $20 is a lot of money though...."
So, Erik and I were a little... pessimistic about a SALT mine tour costing 20 smackers. Who wouldn't be? Like I want to taste table salt and watch it go from solid to liquid to my dinner..
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
This place might as well have been straight out of a Sci-Fi book. It BLEW MY MIND.
We entered this average size building, and paid our dues. We were waiting patiently for our guide. I thought 'I don't even want a guide!'..
HA. 140 (!) MILES of tunnels 350 METERS below the surface. Mines dating back to the THIRTEENTH century. We WALKED down STAIRS.. and in my mind, I was thinking, this HAS to be a joke. We were getting so dizzy. Step, step,step, step.. TURN step, step, step..
When we arrived at the bottom, C.S. Lewis, and J.K. Rowling were waiting. They'd spindled an underground WORLD, just for us. I'm calling it now, a book will be written about this concept.
Before I unload these pictures let me say a few things. There is a HUGE dissonance between reality and this place. It's hard to conceptualize that there could be a WORLD underground. A legitimate, thriving world underneath your feet. But there is. With CHURCHES, RESTAURANTS, LAKES!!!!, DANCE HALLS.. you name it.
We had a bit of a time getting to the top.... We had just finished our amazing UNDERWORLD tour... and were a bit tired. The tour took around two hours, and it was time to go back up. We were able to take an elevator. YAY! About 15 of us.. average to chubby people were PACKED INTO A space that should be reserved for THREE. The elevator was an open air compartment, with grated holes. It was the most claustrophobic I've ever felt. I knew that if the cord snapped, we'd be heading to salt heaven 50 stories below us. So the cage rattled a bit and then we heard footsteps ABOVE us. You're kidding me. They're packing another can of sardines directly above our head?!.. That was a LOOOONG ride up..
Well I guess anything goes in salt land!
I'm SO happy that you got to go here!!!!!!!!! I was talking to a friend about you the other day and told them you were in Poland... He immediately started talking about this underground salt city and how extensive and beautiful it is.... I just kept thinking, those two BETTER GO THERE!! Must have been some special brain waves sent your way, with love from Peru :)
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