Caving in San Gil
Hey, I know this is a bit late (I was in San Gil about 2 weeks ago), but I've been busy, so this is the first chance I've had to put this entry up...
This follows on from the rafting entry (we went rafting in the morning, then caving in the afternoon) ...
Caving: After a bit of lunch and rest we headed back up into the mountains for the caving expedition. I had managed to pop my ear when we capsized the raft earlier in the day, but a few painkillers from the chemist helped, and we went into the operator's office to register. When I was told earlier in the day that we were going 'to visit a cave' I had imagined something like Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains (if you don't know where these caves are and you give enough of toss to look it up, just go to Google - if you're Australian and you don't know where they are then I suggest you forget Google and simply go back to school). Anyway, I thought these caves would be big, well-lit, dry, and relatively elderly couple/expecting mother/life-long claustrophobic (a.k.a. me)-friendly. My first clue that the caves might be a bit more full-on than this was the arrangement of miner's helmets and protective jackets that were laid out in front of the operator's office; the second clue was the consent form we had to sign, which asked for our blood type, and specifically stated that claustrophobics, people who couldn't swim, people with pretty much any semi-serious medical condition, and expecting mothers weren't allowed to enter the cave. The final clue (and the giveaway) was a photo board in the office that displayed a range of photos of people in the cave. These people weren't walking around well-lit caverns with their children and their elderly relatives - they were crawling on their stomachs through tiny gaps, and up to their waists in muddy water. By this point I was pretty sure I wasn't going to enjoy this, but I though, "Fuck that, I've already paid, and I'm buggered if I know when I'll be back here, so why the hell not?” Maybe it was the pain killers that I took for my ear that were talking, or maybe I was still drunk from the night before and delirious from a lack of sleep - either way, I decide to go into the cave...
So, we got fitted out with our helmets, our protective jackets, and our harnesses (why did we need to wear a harness...?), and followed our guide down to the cave's entrance. Surprise Number 1: The only way into the cave was by flying fox (thus explaining the harness. In turn, we all leaped off the rock platform where the flying fox started, and made it safely to the entrance of the cave. It was here that the instructors gave us the run down of what we'd be doing: he also delivered Surprise Number 2. Surprise Number 2: The way out would have a lot in common with the way in, but with water, and without a harness. With the major surprises out of the way, and everyone happy to proceed, we said goodbye to the daylight and went into the cave.
The first part was fairly basic: just keep your head low and your eyes forward, and you’ll be fine. We went through a big part of the cave that was full of bats; we sat for a while with our helmet torches off to experience total darkness; and we got wet up to our waists where there was no other option. This was all fairly normal and what I had expected (at least after I had revised my original expectations), but what came next was a bit more of a challenge. The instructors decided it would be fun if we moved through the cave in total darkness, so we all turned our headlamps off and put a hand on the back of the person in front of us. Step by step we moved forward into nothing, feeling around above our heads for variations in the height of the roof, and completely dependent on the person in front of us for a description of the lay of the muddy, uneven floor; we continued like this for what seemed like a long time, but it was probably no more than 10 minutes. The instructors eventually said that we could turn our lamps back on, and they invited us to look back at where we’d been walking. What I’d thought was a tiny, narrow passage was actually a reasonably large space, and with even a small amount of light it would have been easy to navigate. It was frightening to realise just how much your perception of an environment can change with the loss of just one sense – unable to see, everything had seemed far more enclosed and uncertain, and the level of reliance each of us had on the person in front of us was both unnerving and empowering.
The next challenge was a part of the cave that was only a metre (or less) high, which meant that we had to push ourselves through on our stomachs; I was only on my stomach for a minute or so, but during those 60 seconds I was highly conscious of the fact that I was close to 800 metres below the earth’s surface…
The final part of the cave was the best. To get out, we had to swim about 30 metres through a tunnel, and then jump off a four metre platform into an underground rock pool. It was just like something out of an Indiana Jones movie (only we weren’t searching for lost artefacts, no one was chasing us with rifles, and Carlos was the only one of us with a pretty girl in tow), and I reckon it’ll take something pretty spectacular to beat swimming through an underground tunnel as the most fun thing I do during my time here in Colombia…
That night we celebrated Carlos’s birthday by drinking a bottle of vodka in the park… Colombian vodka’s not the best, but it’s no worse than the crap that we hand over the bar in the nightclub that I work in (Hi Troppo) … After we finished the bottle it was time to catch up on the sleep that none of us had had the night before, so most of us went to bed (I think Ranko, Jean and Amit took a bit of time to finish off the bottle of rum that Amit had brought with him…) … Oh, and an earlier highlight of that night was the amazingly slow meal we had (customer service obviously wasn’t this place’s priority, and the food was crap, so I’m buggered if I know how they’re still open… My guess is that the place is a front…) … The only thing that made the meal memorable was that we got to share it with a crazy old guy that spent the best part of half an hour staring blankly at us through the window…
This follows on from the rafting entry (we went rafting in the morning, then caving in the afternoon) ...
Caving: After a bit of lunch and rest we headed back up into the mountains for the caving expedition. I had managed to pop my ear when we capsized the raft earlier in the day, but a few painkillers from the chemist helped, and we went into the operator's office to register. When I was told earlier in the day that we were going 'to visit a cave' I had imagined something like Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains (if you don't know where these caves are and you give enough of toss to look it up, just go to Google - if you're Australian and you don't know where they are then I suggest you forget Google and simply go back to school). Anyway, I thought these caves would be big, well-lit, dry, and relatively elderly couple/expecting mother/life-long claustrophobic (a.k.a. me)-friendly. My first clue that the caves might be a bit more full-on than this was the arrangement of miner's helmets and protective jackets that were laid out in front of the operator's office; the second clue was the consent form we had to sign, which asked for our blood type, and specifically stated that claustrophobics, people who couldn't swim, people with pretty much any semi-serious medical condition, and expecting mothers weren't allowed to enter the cave. The final clue (and the giveaway) was a photo board in the office that displayed a range of photos of people in the cave. These people weren't walking around well-lit caverns with their children and their elderly relatives - they were crawling on their stomachs through tiny gaps, and up to their waists in muddy water. By this point I was pretty sure I wasn't going to enjoy this, but I though, "Fuck that, I've already paid, and I'm buggered if I know when I'll be back here, so why the hell not?” Maybe it was the pain killers that I took for my ear that were talking, or maybe I was still drunk from the night before and delirious from a lack of sleep - either way, I decide to go into the cave...
So, we got fitted out with our helmets, our protective jackets, and our harnesses (why did we need to wear a harness...?), and followed our guide down to the cave's entrance. Surprise Number 1: The only way into the cave was by flying fox (thus explaining the harness. In turn, we all leaped off the rock platform where the flying fox started, and made it safely to the entrance of the cave. It was here that the instructors gave us the run down of what we'd be doing: he also delivered Surprise Number 2. Surprise Number 2: The way out would have a lot in common with the way in, but with water, and without a harness. With the major surprises out of the way, and everyone happy to proceed, we said goodbye to the daylight and went into the cave.
The first part was fairly basic: just keep your head low and your eyes forward, and you’ll be fine. We went through a big part of the cave that was full of bats; we sat for a while with our helmet torches off to experience total darkness; and we got wet up to our waists where there was no other option. This was all fairly normal and what I had expected (at least after I had revised my original expectations), but what came next was a bit more of a challenge. The instructors decided it would be fun if we moved through the cave in total darkness, so we all turned our headlamps off and put a hand on the back of the person in front of us. Step by step we moved forward into nothing, feeling around above our heads for variations in the height of the roof, and completely dependent on the person in front of us for a description of the lay of the muddy, uneven floor; we continued like this for what seemed like a long time, but it was probably no more than 10 minutes. The instructors eventually said that we could turn our lamps back on, and they invited us to look back at where we’d been walking. What I’d thought was a tiny, narrow passage was actually a reasonably large space, and with even a small amount of light it would have been easy to navigate. It was frightening to realise just how much your perception of an environment can change with the loss of just one sense – unable to see, everything had seemed far more enclosed and uncertain, and the level of reliance each of us had on the person in front of us was both unnerving and empowering.
The next challenge was a part of the cave that was only a metre (or less) high, which meant that we had to push ourselves through on our stomachs; I was only on my stomach for a minute or so, but during those 60 seconds I was highly conscious of the fact that I was close to 800 metres below the earth’s surface…
The final part of the cave was the best. To get out, we had to swim about 30 metres through a tunnel, and then jump off a four metre platform into an underground rock pool. It was just like something out of an Indiana Jones movie (only we weren’t searching for lost artefacts, no one was chasing us with rifles, and Carlos was the only one of us with a pretty girl in tow), and I reckon it’ll take something pretty spectacular to beat swimming through an underground tunnel as the most fun thing I do during my time here in Colombia…
That night we celebrated Carlos’s birthday by drinking a bottle of vodka in the park… Colombian vodka’s not the best, but it’s no worse than the crap that we hand over the bar in the nightclub that I work in (Hi Troppo) … After we finished the bottle it was time to catch up on the sleep that none of us had had the night before, so most of us went to bed (I think Ranko, Jean and Amit took a bit of time to finish off the bottle of rum that Amit had brought with him…) … Oh, and an earlier highlight of that night was the amazingly slow meal we had (customer service obviously wasn’t this place’s priority, and the food was crap, so I’m buggered if I know how they’re still open… My guess is that the place is a front…) … The only thing that made the meal memorable was that we got to share it with a crazy old guy that spent the best part of half an hour staring blankly at us through the window…
posted by Steve Phillips at 1:09 pm
1 Comments:
I said "blow me, minch" ... How's Troppo?
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