Day #4

Today was Trade Day.  Our destination was Islamabad and we were going to trade hosts from the great folks in Lahore to a new set up north.  The drive is about 5 hours and so the plan was to break it into two parts and take a couple hours around lunch to stretch our legs at the Salt Mine in Khewra in the Salt Range.  It is supposedly the second largest mine after the one in Poland, which I have incidentally been to, without knowing it was the largest.  Now, apparently, I need to find the third largest.....

Once we were off the highway, we got to drive through a couple little towns.   The first was on the old sea bed and though the land was pretty desolate and arid, there seemed to be a vibrant business harvesting what little firewood there was.  And the most popular way to do this seemed to be with camels.  

We were traveling in three cars and our lead car almost ran into a wayward bufalo that decided to cross the road.  We successfully wound our way to the mine, past all the humanity, on the terrible roads, dancing among the tractors and trucks and bikes and donkeys and motorbikes and cars. 

The mine was great.  there was a bridge across the river/outflow and then a little electric mine train that took us about a mile into the mountain.  Then we walked around the mine (levels 6 and 7 out of 17 - 5 up and 11 down from us) and saw some of the chambers and some things they built with the translucent salt bricks.  It would be really cool to get some of the bricks, but they turn out to be fairly unstable outside of the mine.  Without constant humidity, they dissolve in the damp and crumple in the dry.  (Spoiler - we did get some crystals to bring home and we were given a gift by the Rotary Club that was sponsoring the visit).  The coolest room was a passage that had grown crystals on all the walls - there were salt crystals in white/clear (NaCl), pink (MgCl) and red (Fe-based salt).  There were also gypsum crystals that were growing, too. 

When we went to one of the little places to buy souvenirs, the most interesting thing was the stalactite-type crystals they were selling that seemed to have started growing auxiliary crystals from the humidity.  

After the souvenirs, we went to the guest house and had a presentation from the sponsoring club and lunch (ah.....lunch...sigh), and then drove back to the highway, past the camels and goats and bufalos and everything else, and met the delegation from Islamabad to exchange vehicles and drive us the rest of the way.  We all went up to Gov. Prevez's house, on his little farm and had a great dinner - then split up again for the night.

Though they had a great generator at the place we stayed - you barely noticed the power going on or off, but the internet was about as weak as could be.  Sigh.  Can't have everything.  The big big plus was fresh oranges from their trees and a rooster for the morning (and peacocks too....lots of peacocks!)