As the little van valiently climbed up and windy rough road the clouds closed in and the view disappeared entirely. Ben maintained that this was a good thing as we couldn't see just how much of a drop it was off the side of the road . . .
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| More geology at work; the far side of Torotoro valley |
After an hour we had arrived . . . somewhere. Visibility was very poor, but Victor knew exactly where he was going and quickly led us to some rock formations. After scrambling around for a while the clouds started to lift and gradually we could see more of our surroundings in La Cuidad
de Itas.
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| Cathedral like caves, carved out by water dripping down the sides |
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| Waiting for the sun |
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| This cave had bats hiding in the back |
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| Finally the cloud was starting to lift |
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Anna free soloing a tricky pitch.
We were the only two in the group who climbed it. |
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| Waiting for the others to go around |
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| The strange South American viscacha; related to chinchillas |
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| Apparently delicious eating |
Back to the van and lunch, watched from a distance by the skiniest dog we've seen on our travels. Dogs are everywhere in South America, some in poor condition or with obviously old injuries. This one was pathetically skinny, but we did give her all the leftovers - rather a lot from 8 people's lunches.
There was a slight hiccup after lunch - the front tyre was flat. No problem, there's a spare. Tito whipped out the spare but surprise (not) it was also flat. After a debate in Spanish, Victor set off to who knows where.
We were 21km from Torotoro village, there was no other traffic on the road and we were supposed to be visiting a cave in the afternoon.
Over an hour later Victor returned - with a bicycle pump. After an initial problem with the pump falling apart, ably fixed by Ben, the tyre was pumped up and we were on our way again.
Caverna
Umajalanta gaped like an open mouth at the bottom of the valley, disgorging groups of other tourists. One good result of the flat tyre was that we had the place to ourselves.
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| The enormous entry cavern |
The cave system is a loop, the right hand side is dry and the left still has the river running through it. We headed off down the right hand side, scrambling over boulders and into the first proper cave. Sadly, many of the easily reached stalagmites and stalagtites have been snapped off before the area was made into a park. However, the caves are still very beautiful.
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| The higher formations were untouched |
After a few different caverns we came to the toboggan slope. Kristoff and Caroline, the French couple who had joined us that morning, tried it first and it looked fun, though a little slow, so off I went. Victor had sprinkled some fresh dust on it and I don't know if it was that or the soles of my boots but I built up some speed rather quickly. I was just thinking how fun it was when I realised the bottom was rapidly approaching but I couldn't really make it out due to my ridiculously dull headlamp. Splat! Luckily I was fine, though my knees were a bit scraped and bruised. Ah, well.
Further in there was a choice to be made; retrace our steps or do two crawls and then return up the underground river. Ben and I were keen to keep going and the others decided to as well. The crawls were great - not so tight as to be uncomfortable and with a soft, dust covered floor - so much fun. Ben found that pushing the camera gear through was a little tricky and we all ended up with dust in our pants.
The crawls led to an underground pool, complete with blind cave fish. From there it was a scramble back up the river. When we emerged under the sky again it was dark, the stars just beginning to show.
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| The underground river carving out beautiful pools |
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