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Do you know that feeling of walking around and doubting whether you should be there? It's so quiet, so morbid, so deserted. Did I omit to see the No Entry sign? And then those colors. They can't be real, can they? Water in a shade of red that denies all reality. Rocks in a color palette so bizarre that even a messy toddler with crayons would know that something is wrong with his work. Rusty remnants of an undoubtedly proud industrial past. Dilapidated buildings, carelessly left to fall prey to the elements. What is this? Is there something wrong with my eyes?
You look around, hoping to see the film director somewhere, who resolutely brings the megaphone to his mouth and says: and ... action. But no, this is not a film set for a new Mad Max movie. This is not a future world where few have escaped the near-total extinction of humanity. A macabre world in which those few survivors must now try to make sense of the twisted remains that Armageddon has left behind.
No, these are the abandoned mines of Mazarron. But that doesn't make it any less surreal. The sign 'No Access' is nowhere. Everyone can walk around here undisturbed amid the remnants of a once flourishing industry. Caving equipment, half-collapsed buildings and still visible mine entrances together form a kind of open air museum dedicated to an important industrial heritage.
In the past, until the end of the sixties, it must have been very busy here. In Mazarron, iron, alum and silver were extracted to a depth of 500 meters. The range of minerals in the ground and the strategic location close to the sea justified the mining industry. However, when working conditions in the mines were no longer considered acceptable and market prices tumbled, the curtain fell on the local mining industry.
But what makes everything here so bizarre and different are the colors that have been created by the oxidation of the mine waste. Various shades of red and yellow have been created almost everywhere on the ground and the rocks. The effect of this is enhanced even more after a heavy rain shower, when puddles of water make the strange color palette truly unreal.
