Caving under Budapest

I'm Alive!!

When I first got to my hostel in Budapest I saw a flyer for “Caving Under Budapest” and it looked like I had hoped the salt mines in Krakow were going to be. There were pictures of people squeezing through small holes in rocks wearing jumpsuits with headlamps on. The flyer said to ask at reception to find out about prices, times and location. I went to the front desk and found an extremely hung over employee who was in no mood to talk. I struggled to get even single word answers to my questions. My questions had to become more elaborate so that one word answers would suffice. I left him confused and hit up the internet to see what I could find. I couldn’t find an actual website but I was able to piece together information from a couple of websites and headed to a bus station across town. When I got to the bus station it was easy to find the group and the guide. There were a bunch of foreigners standing together in a loose circle speaking English and asking the “travelers questions” (How long have you been traveling? Where have you been? Where are you going next? etc...)

We boarded the bus with the guide and headed out of the city and then got on another bus even further out. Once we were sufficiently out in the middle of nowhere the guide lead us to a lodge where he split us into two groups. If there was any order to the groups I would say he put the skinny, lanky and athletic people in one group and everyone else in the other. I was of course in the first group because of my amazing athletic build.

The guide led us upstairs in the lodge where we were given jumpsuits and headlamps. I was given a very nice yellow jumpsuit and matching helmet. The guide lead us into the woods and not too far from the cabin we came to a steel door locked from the inside that the guide opened by sticking her arm through a hole and then unlocking the door. My guess is that they do it that way so that someone cannot come along with bolt cutters and cut the lock.

We entered the cave and descended down the only ladder and then got started. The caves were made by underground springs a long time ago that are no longer present. The rock was soft and covered with mud, from when the river was present. The air was full of dirt and at first it was very cold inside of the cave. After we had been climbing and crawling for a little while it started to feel really hot inside of the cave in that jumpsuit.

The guide led us through the tiniest of holes under and around rocks from room to room inside the cave. The rooms had names like “The Big Room” and “The Theater”. The guide kept asking us if we wanted the easy or harder route and my group chose the harder route every time. The guide was amazingly good at fitting into the smallest of holes and would seem to almost run and jump into holes and disappear ahead of us only to have her head reappear through the hole moments later to help guide us through. We were climbing up one set of rocks and I got my foot wedged in a hole and it was twisted and I couldn’t get it out. I yelled at the guy behind me to help me and just as he got there I fell back onto him. My feet slipped out of the hold and I slammed down shins first onto the rock.

In one room the guide showed us this really tiny hole and said it was called “Winnie the Poo”. The guide climbed around and stuck her head through the hole that looked barely large enough for her head. I thought she was going to simply pose for a picture but then she climbed through the hole and told us it was now all of our turns. The hole was really small, so small that I was having birthing flashbacks. I was making all kinds of grunts and squeals and my hips were caught so I was doing my best Elvis dance moves to get free.

The caves were amazing and it was a lot of fun. On this trip I able to see all kinds of exotic and exciting places while also getting to do a lot of things that I have never done before and as the McDonalds slogan says “I’m lovin it”.

CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW TO SEE ALL OF TODAY'S PICTURES

10_28_09 Budapest small