Following all of the excitement and activity of the previous day (Day 2 - A Divine Appointment), we took some down time on Tuesday and just chatted with our host family and rested during the morning. A few rowdy games of Uno and Monopoly were also played by the children.
Then, after lunch, we took a trip to the local bazaar in Kochkor to get Krypto a new pair of sneakers, he had holes in his that I hadn't seen before (it's alright, they're the ones we brought from the US last fall, they were old...and really didn't fit him anymore) and a heavier sweater for Sissi because the weather forecast for the week was cold, and wind, and more cold up in the mountains.
Following our bazaar trip, we went to the local Black Salt Mine! And wow, this is an interesting story as well....
This whole area is full of black salt, it's great for animals, and lots of people use it as well. Krypto is pretending to eat his chunk of salt in this picture.
Holding a piece of black salt from the mine.
Intently listening to Azis, our guide, tell us more about the salt and the area.
The outside of the mine
Azis, holding black salt rocks.
And then, we went inside, and the story got even better...salt covering everything!
And the rooms, that people come and stay in because it is said that this kind of salt helps people that have asthma and other respiratory conditions to breathe better. So, from Russia, Kazakhstan, and other places, people pay to come and sleep in these salt caves.
One of the long tunnels that we walked down.
One of the rooms, with a bed, that people will come and stay in to have salt breathing treatments. They sleep here and since the walls are completely made of salt, they are breathing it in constantly as they sleep. You could smell the salt in the air.
The common room where guests will come to watch television...
and be social. The kids said the couches were great and so we replied that we would just leave them there. For a few minutes they let us jest and joke and start to walk away, but they decided they would rather be with us and so gave up their comfortable resting spots.
This is where things get really exciting. As we continued on our tour, they showed us human made felt stuck in the rocks. Now you have to realize, this is hundreds of meters below ground. This is not animal fur, there are no bones or other "animal" by products left behind in the rocks, but a man made felt product, that they have discovered during their digging.
Another picture of felt embedded in the salt rocks.
And more felt, hanging from the ceiling, hundreds of meters below the surface. As we talked, our minds went to Noah's flood.
Then, we saw this - old plant roots, hanging from the ceiling, when there are no plants for hundreds of meters up to the surface. Is it possible, that when the "fountains of the great deep burst open" (Gen 7:11) and the water came from above and below during the Flood, that human artifacts and plant roots were encased in salt from the water and preserved for years, and then discovered during the past few decades during the drilling and digging of this mine? We were all fascinated!
Following our salt mine tour, Azis said he had a surprise for us, so we drove about 10 minutes back toward the guest house and stopped here, by some houses with a big metal barrel sitting outside. Then, Azis took out a pack of matches and he lit one and put it over the bubbling, natural spring that was coming from out of the ground and up through the barrel and it lit on fire! The kids thought it was so awesome.
There is some kind of gas in the water that is flammable. What was interesting is that it wasn't flammable once it was away from the source...it would not light in your hand if you were holding water, and it would not light further down the barrel, but only at the source, where it is coming out of the ground and bubbling. We could smell nothing, but there is obviously something in that water.
Of course, all of the kids had to have a chance and light the water on fire, what a great time!
We finished off the day with some incredible Manti made by Azis's mom and a good night's rest before heading out for the rest of the week on our horse trek.
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