The caves

We arrived at the cave site, went to the bathroom in a smelly outhouse.  Not because that hanging out in smelly outhouses is our idea of fun, but because this was a three hour cave jaunt and obviously there would not be bathrooms inside. 

There was a thirty minute hike to the cave site, straight up, that felt like around a 12 incline if I was on my treadmill.  Which would have been fine if I had been visiting my lonely treadmill lately . . . but I haven’t.  So, I was really huffing and puffing and wondering how I was going to get through this next week of hiking with my dignity intact?

It was a hot, gritty day.  I was glad I brought water.  So was the rest of my family, as we all shared it. 

When we got to the top of the hill there was a small metal door in the ground.  It looked to be around two feet by two feet.  We’re going in that, I thought.  I’ve been in caves before and I never had to crawl into a little hole in the ground.  The littler caves, I’d just walk in, enjoy the dark and the cool, and the bigger ones I’d visited, had boardwalks, lighting, etc. 

Not so with this cave.  We had to sit on the ledge, feel around with our feet and then once we found the ladder rung, we had to twist our body around, try not to scrape the skin off our sides and the top of our back as we disappeared down the hole. 

It was way more adventurous than any cave I’d ever visited before!

The first thing you notice is the cold air.  The second is that there is no closed in feeling that I thought I might feel when I watched other people disappear down the darkened hole, the air is fresh, invigorating and seems to circulate in it’s own private air conditioning system. It was 8 degrees C and was really, really refreshing. 

Then once in, there was something quite exciting about the pitch black and the bobbing helmet lights. 

The first cave was the most beautiful, it was one that only had guided tours and so many of the formations were untouched and pristine.  When we got deep in the cave, we all turned off our helmet lamps and sat in perfect darkness.  It wasn’t scary at all.  Actually, there was something very peaceful about it.  It’s hard to explain but it was as if, in turning out the light, I dropped deeper inside my true self.  I could feel the space around me, the other people, but mostly myself, my inner self, the inner voice, I don’t quite know.  All I am sure of, is I would have been quite happy to sit in the dark and silence for a lot longer.

After the first cave, we were so caught up in the adventure that we were ready to sign up for the 5 hour extreme caving, where you have to rappel down the equivalent of a seven story building.  Yes.  I was actually wanting to do it.  After the second cave, I was thinking, maybe I’d go, but maybe I’d drive them and they could do it.  By the end of the third cave, everybody had had enough and nobody wanted to do it. 

We had had a great time, but by the end of three hours we were tired. There was a lot of clambering around like Golem, sliding on one’s butt, clinging to rock faces, wedging oneself through narrow cracks and squeezing our way through wormholes.  I was covered in mud because I kept myself a lot closer to the earth than most people.  I must have looked a little odd, but I really had to be careful, because I didn’t want to louse up my friend’s big birthday week with a sprained ankle.  My sister, Becky, emerged from the caves, pristine and clean . . . Other than the stink that clung to her forehead from her rancid, smelly helmet.  That even she couldn’t escape. 

If you decide to go caving, go for the shiny new orange helmets that don’t stink.  The scraped up ones are permeated with other people stale sweat and are not nice.  I also had one of the stinky helmets.  David, Will and Brandon had unsmelly ones.

When I got home, I had to take a bath and wash my hair to get the smell off.  I peeled off my mud-clad clothes and sank into the nice hot water.  It felt good after the cold of the caves.  I was glad I went.  And I was glad that I was home.  Safe and sound, ankles intact, my family out in the living room, eating ice cream and talking louder than normal.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Friday, July 24, 2009 in Chewing the Fat