A Watery Grave

August 2, 2004

Today we went to this water cave, with the cave discoverer, and our guide, Chufa. It was Chufa's "new" water cave. Only discovered in the last year and he'd only taken like two other people through...which really should have clued us in. So he drove us to the mountain, where the cave was in a wagon strapped to the back of his motorcycle, handed us hardhats and flashlights and off we went.

To make a long story short, we became cave explorers, essentially journeying to the bowels of the earth, crawling through spaces barely big enough to fit us, with no gear, ropes or any safety mechanisms at all. It was totally one of the most dangerous things we've ever embarked on. But that's just it, they want your money...and don't think about the repercussions should you fall and die.

So let me pain a picture of how crazy this was. We had to like scale slippery cave walls most of the time, always in danger of falling into the precipice below and cross massive drops into a rocky abyss on rickety wooden ladders.

It gets worse....

There was one crazy wall, where at the bottom, there was about 8 feet of downward ledge and then a huge drop...I scaled the wall up..Chufa perched precariously on the slope of the wall to help Pauline up after. I turn around and he's got her by the hand and she's coming up the wall just fine..but it's slippery and she's got mud on her shoes and she loses her footing. She slips, with only him holding on to her and he starts to go with her too. So I rush back down, brace my foot against this tiny stallactite to try and get her other hand but can't reach. So she's like, this isn't working, I'll just pull you down with me, and tells Chufa to let her go and she'll try again.

So he does, and she slides down the wall...except she doesn't stop. She keeps sliding down towards the ledge while we watch helplessly, me thinking, holy fuck!!!!!!!!

She manages to stop herself maybe two feet from the edge of the precipice.

Anyways, we managed to finally just drag her up the wall. And then had to pick our way through the rest of the cave, across ledges coated with mud, a foot wide, looking into a rock gorge. Where our guide is going...this is very very dangerous here. Thanks.

So basically he took us into a cave which was still in the preparation stages for tourist climbers, with no safety ropes at ledges or rails, just you and spiky rocks. We were total guinea pigs. As the cave is now, no one over a size 6, clumsy or with any fear of heights whatsoever could do it. We still had a good time, wade through underground rivers, mud baths etc...and we laugh our asses off about it because the pictures are hysterical, we're covered in mud and bruises...but it was fucking nutty. We could have fallen and died and Pauline came a hair's breath to doing just that. Her legs are torn and bruised up, my knees are riddled with tiny cuts.

And that's that...I think we're down to like 6 of our 9 lives.