For a few months I have been member of a mountaineering and hiking organisation, the UESMAP, but unfortunately I have had time to take part in only a few events. As I was looking at November’s activities I thought that speleology would be a good experience to complete my list of new sensations! Probably I wasn’t the only one who thought so, as we were 33 crazy people meeting at the small town of Bor in the Cadi mountains near the French border.
The organisers recommended us to wear overalls to protect ourselves from the mud, as it had lately rained much. Jointly with a helmet, headlamp, warm clothes and some food, we were well equipped for the cave. Unluckily I didn’t wear my camera, so I don’t have any picture of the cave. Hopefully I can soon get some pictures of some mate who wasn’t afraid of flooding his camera in the mud! I finally got the pictures from the cove, so I just let you know that all the inside pictures are not mine, but from a bud who nicely shared his pictures.
Just a few meters from the cave’s entrance, we already had to crawl in the mud to keep going on. What a rare sensation to discover large rooms behind small openings in the rock. But the strangest experience was when we started working in chain to empty a waterhole with buckets so that we could reach a siphon. We may have spent between 1h30 and 2h as the hole was quite full. As another group joined us, they suggested to use the pipes that were there to siphon off the water. We lost time, as finally it didn’t work. As people told me that we had to go back by the same way, I was starting to wonder if it was really worth the effort! When finally we had removed all the water we could go through the siphon, hoping that the dim we built with mud wouldn’t break as it would have been more than complicated if the water would have come back when we were on the other side of the siphon.
After some more effort climbing a sliding wall with the sole help of a muddy rope, we finally had the pleasure to discover an impressive gallery with formations of all shapes and colours. It was really worth all the previous efforts! Even if I already had been to some touristic caves, my first experience with speleology was really great and I hope that I would have more opportunity.
When we went out, we seemed like workers going out of the mine after two months without no sunlight! I didn’t expect that we would spend 6 hours in a 3.5km cave, and I was quite starving as we finally went out. Last step consisted of taking off the muddy clothing and getting a warm shower.
