Nemocon Salt Mine

Salt has been worked here since before the Spanish arrived - the Muisca traded it widely - and industrial extraction ran until the twentieth century, leaving galleries about eighty metres below the surface. The mine opened to visitors and its distinguishing feature is water: shallow pools of saturated brine sit perfectly still on the gallery floors, and because there is no disturbance they mirror the ceiling exactly, so photographs of them read as vertical drops and visitors regularly cannot tell where the floor is. Salt crystals grow on the walls and in one chamber a large heart-shaped formation has developed. Parts of the film The 33, about the Chilean mine rescue, were shot here. It is quieter and smaller than nearby Zipaquira.

What you actually see

• Still brine pools mirroring the roof - so exactly that depth reads wrong.
• Galleries about eighty metres down - from industrial working.
• Salt crystals on the walls - growing in the humidity.
• A film location - used for The 33.

When to go

Year round; the mine holds a steady cool temperature. Two hours.

Honest expectations

Entry is by guided tour, largely in Spanish. It is cool and damp underground. The site is smaller than Zipaquira's cathedral and is often visited instead of, not as well as. Floors are wet and slippery.

Nearby

Zipaquira and its salt cathedral are south; Bogota is beyond.