When I was asked to visit a mine abandoned more than a century ago a few kilometers from the city, I thought twice, but well this summer I was in need of a good adventure and we went for it.
After an hour of driving on the road we arrived at the small town that was built around the mine. When we had rested for a few minutes we started on the road again. The old copper mine had begun its exploitation in colonial times more than 500 years ago, which had changed both the landscape and the nature of the region, something that we were about to discover.
The first visual impact was seeing the bare earth. The copper mineral in the open dyed everything a reddish color that contrasted in an unusual way with the green mountains and the blue of the sky. It was a place straight out of a science fiction book, the photos don't do it justice, you have to be there to really feel that place.
Continuing our way we crossed a cave, but not carved by nature but surely made by slave hands in the times when mining exploitation and human exploitation were the same thing. The energy that that place emanated was something latent, without a doubt all of us in the group were overwhelmed.
After climbing to the highest part of the mountain we saw it. The blue lake treated that color by the sulfur in its waters. Beautiful but very toxic. According to what they told us in the town, that was also part of the mine but due to poor management of the tunnels.
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The hand of man undoubtedly marked that place with an unusual beauty but at the same time a nature that suffered and even after centuries of not being exploited it could not be fully recovered. We managed to leave when the sun was already leaving, when some incredible memories and thoughts that, at least in my case, make me think about the long-term impact of our actions.