Yesterday we got up at the butt crack of dawn for our mandatory field trip to El Teniente, the biggest mine in the world. I went across the street to Marcella's mom and grandma's hotel (they're in town for the week) to pack myself a stolen lunch from their breakfast buffet, and we all set off in the dark to meet our group at Campus Oriente. It took about 2 hours to get to the entrance to the mining area at the base of the Andes, where we traded our shoes for some giant, hideous rainboots, then got into another bus, where the rest of our mining outfits were waiting on our seats. After another hour of driving, we made it to the mine entrance and got to put on our adorable new ensembles, complete with helmets and headlamps, gas masks and an emergency oxygen tank:
Snazzy, right? Our guide drove us pretty far into the mine and told us about the copper mining process and some interesting facts about El Teniente in particular...It's the largest underground mine in the world that was actually established by an American company in the early 1900s and is now owned by the government of Chile. It has something like 8 levels and over 1,500 km of tunnels. We walked through one of the tunnels to a giant elevator that could have comfortably housed a small family of rhinos, and our guide let us ride all the way to the lowest level at the bottom of the mountain...and then right back up.
After that we went into a cave with giant crystals. SO PRETTY! LOOK!
I spy with my little eye...the Virgin Mary?! Look at her hiding in there! Next stop was the grinding room, where rocks and dirt slide down from both sides into a giant grinder at the bottom:
After the mine, we drove outside and up to the town, which is called Sewell and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. No one lives there anymore, but the town is still used every day for mine business. We ate in the miners' cafeteria, took a tour of the town (our guide grew up there!) and went to Sewell's museum. Long day but so fun!
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