Guasucaran and the 16th century mine

We did our brigade work in a small rural village called El Plomo, which is near the community (also small, also rural) we have done work in the past called Guasucaran.

We finished early...seeing quite a bit more disease, less adults that can read, and a few obvious cases of parents doing the best they can to just survive day to day.

Of course...we saw plenty cute kids as well.  

Since we finished early, the professor at the school finally got us to visit a local "attraction" that he had been wanting us to see for years....the abandoned mine.  It is hard via pictures to capture the magnitude of the place....the sheer rock cliff that rose above us more than 100 feet, the hole for the entrance to the first of the three mines we visited (which rose above us at least fifty feet) and just the debris field from all the work there.  It was overwhelming...and this picture is neat, but definitely does not capture what it was really like.    

This mine, according to local sources (that being...older men in the community) started back in the 16th or 17th century, and ended perhaps 60 years ago?  Pinning down specifics was....difficult.

This marker, date established unknown...says that the testing done to see how far the cave/mine reaches was left at 16,000 meters.

There were also tales that the mine was somehow connected to the El Rosario mine which is in San Juancito...past Tegucigalpa, which is hard to fathom.

The other two mines which were also nearby (the total walk time was under 10 minutes from the road) were much smaller in their openings...but both had not been fully explored.  No one has reached "the end" and the cool nature (you could feel the temperature drop at least 10, maybe 20 degrees) of the second mine was felt 30 feet before even entering.  It was very impressive.

So much so I could really see a park being established there, even something for tourists, even with it being so far from Ojojona.

I have a feeling this is not our last visit, it was that impressive in magnitude and just the visual nature of everything we were able to see.  Maybe we will start our own tour company!

May God have blessed the impact of the brigade in a similar fashion in His name to those we were able to see today as well!