My bright idea, "Hey, how about going for a cave tour? Apparently, there are many caves in Budapest."
Friend: "Sure! Sounds interesting!"
Claustrophobic Me: "Hmm...Um...I think it could get very claustrophobic"
Friend: "No, no, let's do it. It sounds interesting."
Reluctant Me: "Okay..."
Pep-talking me to myself: "Okay, let's just do it. You'll be fine."
What followed was not fine. It was a four hour ordeal.
Friend: "Sure! Sounds interesting!"
Claustrophobic Me: "Hmm...Um...I think it could get very claustrophobic"
Friend: "No, no, let's do it. It sounds interesting."
Reluctant Me: "Okay..."
Pep-talking me to myself: "Okay, let's just do it. You'll be fine."
What followed was not fine. It was a four hour ordeal.
Pál-völgyi is a 30.1 km long cave, the longest in Hungary. One doesn’t need to have any previous experience in caving but you take part in the tour at your own risk. Of course, you must be in good physical health to participate because often during the tour you will have to climb on walls and crawl through narrow passages. And during the entire four hours, there will probably be only a minute or two that you will get when you can stand upright. The rest of the time you would be crawling, squatting and walking and climbing on walls.
As soon as I entered the cave for the tour, claustrophobia struck. And I ran back. But my friend who was right behind me stopped me from running away and convinced me to go ahead with the tour. In hindsight, it was a good decision to carry on. But at that moment, I was petrified.
We were a smaller group, unlike the group before us. Just six of us. We had a wonderful guide called Lati. He told us his name sounded like the sound of someone sneezing -- "Laaahh-teeeeh!!" He would crack a joke every now and then, trying to make us all feel less nervous about the ordeal that we were going to encounter. He probably sensed that I was especially nervous, and I was being the slowest in the group. So he asked me to come forward to the front of the group, right behind him, lest I get left behind.
Three times during the tour, I just wanted to throw my hands up in the air and cry. Halfway through the tour, I told Lati that I wanted to go back. To which he said, "Going back is just as bad, because you'll have to go through the narrow tunnels again!" So might as well go forward. He egged me to go on. He pulled me up when I got stuck, and encouraged me to keep going, and told me that I wouldn't die and will be just fine! I took his word for it, and continued on. I mean, what choice did I have!
There was a spot that our guide told us was called the 'Sandwich'. To cross this Sandwich tunnel, one had to crawl through it. Where your stomach touched the floor, and your back touched the roof of the tunnel. But wait, it doesn't end there. It is too narrow for you to crawl even in that position. So you have to lie down on your left side with your left arm stretched out and head resting on your arm, and with the strength of your right leg, you have to push yourself through the tunnel, lie back down on your stomach, followed by a free fall, head first, into a much larger space. Imagine doing that inside a cave, with the only lights being from your headlamps. Still gives me the shivers.
These tunnels were so narrow that if you were to see them, you wouldn't believe that a person would fit. But miraculously, they did.
There were times during the tour, just two to be precise, when I would be delirious with happiness when the space would be big enough for me to just squat and walk. After a point, I stopped being scared of the narrow tunnels too, because the pain from my bruised elbows and knees from all the crawling and climbing, overshadowed my fear. And in Lati's words, "You'll have different colored knees and elbows for the next few days, but that is natural. So enjoy the moment, live the adventure!"
At one of those places where we could squat and catch a break for five minutes, Lati made us switch our headlamps off. It was pitch darkness, like you've never known before. And silence that can be eerie at first, but slowly starts to have a calming effect on you. Okay, no! No calming effect! Continues to be eerie till you switch the lamp back on. But it could probably, potentially have a calming effect on you, when you stop being so freaked out.
In the end, I was so happy that I did the cave tour. As freaked out as I may have been, I had never been so proud of myself as I was that day. It made me realize 2 things:
1. That when you're in a dangerous / difficult situation, the survival instinct kicks in. The human spirit does every possible thing, that you wouldn't have imagined of otherwise, to survive. No matter how much you tell yourself that you can't or are incapable of doing something, when faced with a situation, a side of you that you never realized existed, surfaces.
2. Team spirit is an amazing thing. Everybody in our group looked out for each other. At each stop, they, along with Lati, made sure everyone had made it till that stop. Each person would relay the information back to the group if they came across an obstacle (which was most of the time), and it would get passed on right till the end, with every person.
My verdict: The cave tour in Budapest, Go For It! It's such a high when you complete it. And go for the one that we went for, it was the hardest.
For a first time 'cave tour-er', this was baptism by fire, and so, SO worth it!
1. That when you're in a dangerous / difficult situation, the survival instinct kicks in. The human spirit does every possible thing, that you wouldn't have imagined of otherwise, to survive. No matter how much you tell yourself that you can't or are incapable of doing something, when faced with a situation, a side of you that you never realized existed, surfaces.
2. Team spirit is an amazing thing. Everybody in our group looked out for each other. At each stop, they, along with Lati, made sure everyone had made it till that stop. Each person would relay the information back to the group if they came across an obstacle (which was most of the time), and it would get passed on right till the end, with every person.
My verdict: The cave tour in Budapest, Go For It! It's such a high when you complete it. And go for the one that we went for, it was the hardest.
For a first time 'cave tour-er', this was baptism by fire, and so, SO worth it!
