DIA 22 (07-12-2018): CAVING AT SOPPONG

Y llegó el día esperado de las cuevas, había visto, planeando el viaje, unas imágenes bellísimas de unas cuevas preciosas y lo malo de esto es que sin quererlo te haces expectativas. 

Le comenté a Kim las maravillosas imágenes y decidimos incluir en nuestra ruta una parada en Cave Lodge, ya que su dueño, australiano, llego hace unos 30 años al país y ha descubierto varias de ellas. 

En mente teníamos la visita de otra cueva, pero al resultar que se necesita un mínimo de 5 personas, finalmente no la pudimos hacer y la alternativa que nos ofrecieron es hacer el tour de 3 cuevas…así que allí vamos.

Desayunamos y llega la hora acordada con Vincent, nuestro compañero de aventuras para el día de hoy. 

Nos dan los cascos, con la comida, y nos montamos en el coche que nos va a llevar al punto de salida.

Empieza nuestra caminata 

por lugares bonitos, 

entre cafetales 

y llegamos a la primera cueva “The Fossil Cave”, ya que en ella se encuentran fósiles de unos 200 años.

Ya desde que entramos en la Cueva, la cosa no pinta nada bien, porque de hecho, la entrada parece todo menos una cueva, pero a medida que avanzamos la cosa se complica, tengo que guardar mi cámara en mi minimochila porque llevarla es un riesgo. Kim me carga una de las chaquetas que llevo para hacerle hueco y empezamos a reptar…..

Sí, habéis leído bien…..me dio la sensación de estar en un entrenamiento del ejercito americano….jajaja…

Al principio fue divertido, pero la cuestión es que cada vez se complicaba más, pero bueno, vimos los fósiles, algún murciélago, que parecía nos vigilaba...

Al final de la cueva una mini cascada de agua…y una serpiente …alucinante…una serpiente sí..…casí me cag….toa

En fin, salimos airosos de la misma y lo celebramos…

Continúa nuestra andadura por sitios insospechados de Tailandia (vamos me dejan a mitad camino y ni idea para volver a casa), entre campos de maíz y arrozales.

La siguiente cueva es “Waterfall Cave”, nos explica el guía con su inglés macarrónico que nos vamos a mojar…le pregunto que si mojar un poco porque nos va a caer agua encima, y me dice o yo le entiendo que no….que vamos a meter los pies en agua y que la misma nos llegará hasta la rodilla….

En ese momento decido que va a ser que no….que ésta que está aquí no va a mojar el único calzado cerrado del viaje….todavía queda mucha ruta, para tener que ir con sandalias….así que les digo que me quedo fuera esperándoles…

Cuando les veo entrar, confirmo mi decisión. Mientras ellos disfrutan de su maravillosa aventura, decido atravesar los campos de arrozales y lavarme las manos, que están llenas de barro, desde un salto de agua que vi en nuestra primera pasada.

Me entretengo también haciendo alguna foto a las mariposas, y al rato salen. Al verles salir no puedo estar más contenta de no haber entrado. Vienen mojados hasta el pecho, y me cuenta Kim que ella no ha llegado al final, ya que cuando vi que el agua se le quedaba a Vincent a la altura de la barbilla y enseguida tenía el techo…..decidió no llegar al final.

A su salida, comemos nuestra comida

 Y seguimos a la tercera y última cueva: “The Christmas Cave”. El camino hacia la misma, no deja de ser tortuoso, muy bonito pero de armas tomar.

 Las pendientes son indescriptibles y lo malo que el terreno es superresbaladizo, y yo como no quiero lesionarme (aún me queda viaje por disfrutar) mi velocidad de crucero, era digamos….lenta.

Llegamos a la cueva y nos encontramos con una escalera de Bambú….no se si la cosa pinta bien o mal, pero allá que nos vamos…. 

Seguimos descendiendo por la misma y la cosa no hace sino complicarse. El suelo vuelve a estar resbaladizo y los saltos que tengo que hacer no los puedo plasmar aquí..y lo malo no es bajar, lo malo va a ser subir….así que a un cierto punto que la pendiente me vuelve a poner en tesitura de decidir si “arriesgar” o “ pararme a esperar” y aunque no os lo creáis el sentido común vino a mi..y decidí esperarles una vez más.. y menos mal….porque si en la primera cueva tuve que arrastrarme por los suelos, en ésta tuve que escalar por las alturas….

Salimos todos enteros, lo cual no era fácil y nuevamente lo celebramos. Vincent le pregunta al guía, que no es que sea muy hablador que digamos, cuanto falta para llegar, a lo que el guía contesta que 20 minutos.  

En camino nos enseña a lanzar “flechas” y a los 20 minutos llegamos a una cabañita cerca de la carretera, como nos paramos y nos ofrece una fruta de la pasión, pensamos que estamos haciendo tiempo para el que coche nos venga a recoger, pero no…..

Seguimos caminando por la carretera otros tantos minutos, para luego “callejar” entre poblados y tras 40 minutos más llegamos al alojamiento.

En total, nuevamente 11 km recorridos, pero eso si, con un desnivel que para que os voy a contar.

Cuando llegamos a la habitación, Kim y yo comentamos la jugada…releyendo la descripción de la excursión, en la que se indica que se recomienda estar “reasonabily fit” para hacer la excursión. Por lo que ambas llegamos a la conclusión que niguna está “razonablemente en forma”.

Nos damos una merecidísima ducha, de la no que sale sino agua marrón. Llevamos nuestra ropa a la lavandería y nos damos un homenaje para reponer las energías perdidas.

Day 3: 3 Caves in a Day Adventure

I start this blog with wishes of forgiveness: my new program for editing videos and some photos is not working as I would like it to and for what I am use to managing. Because of this, I will be post-processing my videos at home for the blog. This means that I will not be able to get some of the awesome and incredible videos to Cris to put into the blog at this time (unless I can find time to figure it out and someone to help). So please forgive me of this and hopefully I will either be able to get videos to her soon or we will all have to wait until the new year. Now on with the story!

I awake at 05:00 and listen to the world the wake up. Cris had said that she did not need to have an alarm because she will awake at 05:00. I hear her sleeping in the next bed and wonder if I should wake her up just so she can be awake at 05:00 as she said she would be. I decide not to wake her and continue to listen to the world wake up. The frogs by the river down below are making quite a racket and the birds soon start in too.

Cris awakes close to 06:00. We get up and start our day slowly as the common room with the coffee does not open until 08:00. 

I hear a knock and Cris opens the door to find Matisse there. She has been sick all night and is wondering if we have any water we could give to her as the common area with the water is not yet open and she would like some. We give her the rest of our water as I have a filtration system with me and will have no issues waiting for the opening. 

We go early to the common area to get some power to charge things and to work on the blog a bit. Once they open up the restaurant, we order coffee and breakfast as we are now just an hour from leaving for the day’s adventures.

After breakfast and gathering our gear, we are off to see some caves and to have an adventure!!

Leg 1: We all hop into the back of the truck to get a ride to the starting point for some trekking to the caves. The “We” are: Cris, Vincent (Australian guy we met last night) and myself. Quick ride out of town to a little dirt road.

Leg 2: Walk semi-briskly through the wilderness and by some fields up and down very steep hills and through some plants that hide the trail very, very well.

Leg 3: Fossil Cave!! Beautiful! Wonderful! Some interesting climbing and scooting down on our bottoms. Some crab crawling (as Cris calls it) under some low hanging areas (I have video of Cris demonstrating the correct method). We see some great shell fossils in a vein in the wall and on a slab. Beautiful formations in the cave. They are also doing some research regarding the amount that the cave is growing the formations – basically 1mm per year. 

Leg 4: More difficult trekking up and down very steep hills and through more vegetation that shallows the trail. Vincent and the guide travel quicker than Cris and I so I have to start the American game of Marco Polo (One calls Marco, another responds Polo so the first can find the second). Walk more and more it seems, over one hill and then another. My legs start to burn!! We finally come to a small wooden bench. The guide starts to roll up his pant legs. We ask what is up? He signals (doesn’t speak much English – like 10 words only and 5 are regarding human sexual items). We finally get the meaning that “expect to get wet now” means we will be walking through the water up to our knees and will also have to crawl through some water!!! We have made it to the 2^nd cave – Waterfall Cave.  Cris decides not to go as she is wearing her only shoes. Vincent and I start into the cave. Immediately we are in water that is muddy and cool. It envelops our feet and calves. Quickly, we are squat walking and then we are starting to do some belly crawling and regular crawling!! We see a mass of spiders up on the ceiling….and see more spiders….then I notice that there are spiders in the water!!!! I have the GoPro going non-stop on video so there is proof of this…..you just have to wait! We come to a place where we must belly crawl through water that is maybe 0.5ft from the ceiling of the cave!!! The guide just dives right in….Vincent hesitates and then dives right in……my brain screams “Don’t even think of it!! The current is going down..meaning that to get out you must go upstream with little space for air!!” I decide on the side of safety and caution and tell them to go forward and I will wait there. They continue and I explore the little part of the cave where I have decided to seek refuge. I find a place where I can stand up close to where they disappeared. After about 10 minutes, I hear them coming back out. We slowly make our way back out of the cave – dirty and wet. Cris is waiting for us when we get out. We take a few minutes to dry off and collect ourselves before we move on. Lunch is also had.

Leg 5: Back to trekking through the hills and fields, up and down very steep slopes that are greater than 10%! We take a break at a farmer’s shelter where we see a large swarm of bees. The guide tries to cover the hive hole with a plastic bag (video to come) but to no avail as the bag has a hole in it. Their buzzing cuts the silence like a knife and gives an airy feeling to the moment. We walk on once again with more hills up and down. I start to think that maybe this is where I need to do my training for my trail runs as the hills are amazing and very steep. We have issues walking up them and not sliding down them. 

Leg 6: We finally make it to the 3^rd cave – Christmas Cave. First thing we see is a bamboo ladder heading down into the cave!! We brave the ladder – not attached to the wall and the rungs turn when you put pressure on them. We get down with all our gear to the opening and the guide signals for us to not leave our items – too many people come to the cave. So we start into the cave – very steep down. So steep that we slip many times. Cris decides at one scramble spot to call it good and that she will wait there for us, so I leave most of my gear there with her. Vincent and the guide take off with my following slowly – and sometimes faster as I slip and slide my way down, feeling lucky when I find a finger hold to stop my descent. We come to some beautiful white formations. We walk around, looking at items and some animals. We start to make our way out of the cave, stopping to take a celebratory picture for surviving the day’s adventures.

Leg 7: We start to head back. The guide says it will take only 20 minutes…..which translates to how far??? We start back…..more hills…..more losing the guide and Vincent as we go. I am tired. My legs are tired. We are trekking through this beautiful country and are only watching the 5ft in front of our feet so we take care with our steps as we are just starting our travels (well, I am just starting them). We travel up some roads, down a dry creek bed, through someone’s yard, up some steps made of dirt, to finally a road we recognize and then we continue to walk back to the lodge. The 20 minutes has now taken almost an hour!!

Lessons Learned: 

1. “Reasonably fit” = very fit!!!
2. “20 minutes” = 1-hour trek
3. “Expect to get wet” = belly crawling through tight spaces with little room for your head above the water
4. I am not reasonably fit!!

We take showers and relax a bit. Have a large dinner to make up for all the physical work of the day and off to bed we are to get ready for the next day! Cris tells me the next morning that we trekked 11km – which equals almost 7 miles – but that is as the bird flies. If you take into account the actual slope of the hills we went up and down, we went much further!!