As Sombras - Lobios - Ourense - PART II

--

It's been a while since I published the first part of this post but good things come to those who await. :-) In my opinion this part is probably more interesting than the first one. Besides, the reason for the delay is not due to appathy on my part but to a really busy schedule...yes, believe me when I tell you that being on holidays can be demanding ;-)

So on the previous post we left it right after having lunch. Now it was time to walk to the mine and explore it! That's why we came all the way here for, isn't it?

It wasn't long before we started to find what you could call "mine litter"

The mine had several entry points but the main one was by the main buildings

And just by one side of the main buildings the main Tip Head Dump for the mine

If you have a good close look to the tip head dump you can always find interesting and unusual minerals
among all the gravel

It almost looked like they abandonned the mine in a rush, there were several artifacts still laying around the area getting rusted...

As I mentioned on the first post, Miguel and I were ill prepared for this kind of adventure but that didn't prevent us from entering the mine and have a look around

As you can see from the photo below, this is not the kind of clothes you want to bring to a mine.

 At the very least we had a helmet! :-)

At the beginning of the trip we saw Tino carrying a fairly big rucksack, really packed and heavy and I wondered what the hell he would be carrying in it...

Well, this is what he was carrying...the Wellingtons, the jumpsuit, the helmet, the plastic gloves, the head light, ropes, etc, etc... if you happen to visit a mine that is what you are supposed to wear and not runners and shorts like Miguel and I did....

Temperature within the mine dropped by more than 10 degrees and a jumper became a necessity, the ground was all flooded and on top of that there were some pot holes filled with water along the way so the Wellis would have come handy. Nonetheless we did the best with what we had.

Regarding the water, we opted for two strategies, Miguel drenched his runners I walked barefeet, probably not the best thing to do in a mine but I like to have my feet dry.

I know, this looks like me on LSD but in this case I was just trying to get a photo from a dark place iluminated with the light from the main entrance...quite a challenging shot. This is the main railway from the entrance.

Another LSD shot...you can't imagine how many photos I had to take to end up with thiese two lousy shots as the best of the lot.

Below you can see one of the pot holes I was talking about earlier

Below is what it looks like yet another pot hole but in the old times it used to be the entrance to another level in this mine, not sure whether it was flooded on purpose or whether it was something that came with time...

Miguel and I

Diego and Berni

Diego taking a Group shot. You can see the amateurs on the left and the pros on the right.

Some parts of the gallery were more difficult to walk through than others

Some parts of the mine where absolutely flooded like below...that's where I applied my barefoot technique. i.e. you put your bare feet in it and you pray there won't be any loose nail right where your feet is about to step on.

Back to the real world! and to the light...

Quite an experience! certainly not for everyone, specially if you are a bit claustrophobic.
We took a little rest put some of our cloths to dry up in the sun. After that we started walking back to the car and Miguel and I decided to have a look at a close by waterfall we saw on the way in, so we took the hikers path leading to the village and walked for a few 10 minutes or so down to the water fall

--