Sunday August 19^th 21:28

We went to Hallstaat today to visit the oldest salt mine on earth. It has been a mine for 7000 years, which is not a typo, seven thousand. We took a bus there; it was about an hour from Altmünster. We followed the Traunsee until the end, and then got to see some more countryside before we entered Hallstaat. Once we arrived we took a cable car up to the top of the mountain. Then we walked along the mountain about a mile and looked at some other museum exibits shortly. We saw a traditional forgery and kitchen, which was also pretty cool. We finally arrived at the entrance then changed into jumpsuits to keep clean. We wlaked through a little tunnel and the temperature dropped about 20 degrees Celsius. It was crazy to see once inside, and the tour was awesome. All the walls were lined with salt, and there were some displays of large chunks of old solidified salt. 2We got to go down little wooden slides a couple times, and the whole way little screens would pop out to give information about the mine. At the main lake inside (about 6m deep) there was a light show/informational presentation, and I scored some pretty sick pictures. Apparently the lake has 27% salinity. The lake reflected the light show and rocks, and the whole thing was unreal. We saw the process through which the salt is harvested, and a few stories about miners. One-time miners recovered a dead body preserved in the salt for centuries, which is kind of crazy. We took a little mining cart out then went through the mine’s gift shop. Then, after the mine, we walked down into Hallstaat and looked at a cemetery. Then we roamed the streets for a few hours, and we got to see how cool the town was. The majority of the town was on the lake, and though it was a little touristy it was a really cool. We took a bus back to the camp and we had dinner. Then a group of us went down to the lake again and swam for a while. Now I am really tired and just chilling with Kid Cudi, Lucas and Crash.