Last minute advice – “keep your head low, don’t bump into things though I know all of have thick skulls; talk soft, don’t wake up the dead; it is slippery, watch out for the sharp rocks; if it is too slippery, God gave you a backside for a reason; if it is smelly, hold your breath until you came out the other side; if you are not dirty when you come out, we all know you cheated and double back.”
Sometimes we have to climb down and other times we have to climb up. Luckily, there were ropes strung at strategic points in the cave to help in the climbs.
In the semi-darkness, you could just about see several feet in front of you and the general appearance of the cave wall while further away or deeper caverns are shrouded in complete darkness. I did not know there were bats in this cave even though they are just feet away until I used the camera to illuminate the cave.
Take for example this photo. Even with the flash you could not see beyond the rope.
If you grabbed too far, you may end up with grabbing one of the bats instead which are just inches away. They were around us everywhere except we couldn’t see them – we were like they said “blind as a bat”.
They may just be on top of our head and we would not even realize as this picture showed.
Something spooked the bats, probably our loud voices having woke them up from their slumber and they started flying. They flew in erratically in complete darkness yet managed to avoid slamming into anything. We now have to climb up towards a break in the cave where light and jungle greens were visible.
The path we have to climb is the area through which the bats were flying. We have to just hope that their radar is good enough to avoid crashing into us. “Mayday! Mayday! Bang!!”
Well, there were no flaming hits so we made to the next chamber which is all the way down. The first section was easy enough, just have to make sure we had a secure hold.
The second section proved to be more tricky. It was steep but also very smooth and wet and a bit dangerous to try to stand and walked down unless the shoes have a good traction. It is safer to slide down with the buttocks. Four Englishmen were standing here obstructing the traffic, debating on whether to proceed and go back and wondering aloud where this leads to while others just moved round them and continued below. It is kind of strange they way they carried out their conversation as if none of us understand their language. So I volunteered them some information and told them that there is only one way to go – forward. There are still many people coming from the back as we were almost at the head of our party. One of them said to the other “There – there is your answer” and followed us in.
There are more tight spots ahead. At the end of the long channel, there is a hole through which you have to push yourself upward with the strength of both your arms. It is not a large hole and our guide told us in an earlier trip, one guy was stuck there for three hours before being rescued. Our guide told us that the cave is getting narrower over the years as the earth movement hemmed the cave in.
But once we pushed yourself through it, sunlight again greeted us and we found that we were at the bottom of a deep narrow ravine. Using our arms and steeping on places of the rocks where there are footholds, we pulled ourselves upward.
“I did it! I am out of the cave!” she seemed to say as she flashed both a beaming smile and the V sign.
Those who have got out helped to pull the others up.
“Look! My front is pretty clean.”
“But my back – well, I did use my buttocks!”
As we were about to depart, I saw the four Englishmen coming out from another path. I was puzzled and asked them how come. They told me they were tired of waiting for the queue and double back where they came from. I thought – what a pity! So near yet so far. I would have regretted and always wondered what it was I missed, for want of a little patience.
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