Opal Mines 1/29/2011

Today we took a trip with our Newcomer's group to the Opal Mines. The opals that are available in this area are very unique to the location. Queretaro is the only place where you can find orange colored opals. There are many of the other colors available too.

Our adventure began with a caravan of 13 vehicles attempting to follow each other to the mines. No, we did not have any directions, only the first car knew where we were going. Just think about this for a minute....you know, crazy Mexican drivers, u-turns (like Michigan lefts), 500 feet for merging on or off a 'ramp', stoplights, and just plain driving in Mexico, while attempting to all stay in a lin.e Mark smartly made sure he was never more than third or fourth in line. We stuck like glue to the light blue Odessy van in front of us. It was a hair raising ride and I thought we were going to eat that Odessy's bumper several times. After an hour or so of this we arrived at a dirt road that seemed to get worse and we climbed the hillside. We passed cows just grazing in the open, no fences, and small little homes. We arrived our destination to board int he back of a pick up truck. You see, unless you had a high riding SUV or 4 wheel or all wheel drive, you were not going to make the rest of the climb. The ride in the bed of the small truck was intersting to say the least. It was quite bumpy, narrow, rocky and everythign in between, though we had some wonderful views of the countryside from our perch. We finally arrived at the peak and bailed out of our ride with bruided behinds. The views were breathtaking.

We were given a quick talk about the opals, which rocks might contain some, and basic information as to how to find them. We were then sent on our way to dig through the rubble taken out of the mines. We cracked open rocks and looked carefully at the ground. You would pick up a rock and sometimes see a piece of opal. We then went into the mine, which was not very deep, but the interesting part was taking a picture. When we used a flash our picture had bad spots due to reflections caused by the opals in the rock. '
Mark was walking and talking with the guide outside of the mine and was lead to a good spot to look around. He found some great rocks with Quueretaro orange opals and some others. I then went back to his spot with him and found a large mild opal the size of a walnut!
After our hunt we had to ride back down the crazy trail. It looked even steeper going down than up. We then went out for a Mexican lunch and a neaby Hacienda. A great time was had by all.