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I\u2019ve been in the air, I\u2019ve been on the sea \u2013 but very very seldom have I really been underground.<\/p>\n
This morning saw me getting up very early to board a bus to the Hato Caves here in Curacao. To be honest, I didn\u2019t even know that the caves existed<\/i> until I saw them on the tour descriptions; and it has been quite some time since I even signed up for a tour.<\/p>\n
49 stone steps took us up to the entrance (with care to avoid the apparently poisonous trees and the very very<\/i> large cacti), and from there we stepped into the humid semi-darkness of the vast underground expanse.<\/p>\n
The first few caverns of the cave network have ceilings that are stained black with smoke; the remains of fires lit by runaway slaves who hid in these caves. But when you get further in, those unnatural marks disappear, and you can see only the limestone\u2026<\/p>\n
Caves are nature\u2019s cathedrals. The columns and twisted fantasy forms that surrounded us took thousands upon thousands of slow years to form \u2013 drip by tiny tiny drip. Each drip carrying just the tiniest bit of lime. The caves are now well, well above sea level \u2013 not even anywhere near the coast \u2013 but you can still almost hear the water rushing in and out somehow, the ghost of waves long long gone. What water there is is rainwater, and it is so perfectly clear and still that it feels like you could step into the reflection and fall through to a different world, like Alice falling into the looking glass.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no photography in most of the caves, but a photograph wouldn\u2019t do a very good job of capturing what it felt<\/i> like. I expected to be a little bit nervous \u2013 I don\u2019t do that well with small spaces and I was a little leery of all that earth surrounding me (I am, after all, very much a water girl); but I wasn\u2019t. There was just an odd kind of tranquility. A sense of smallness in the universe that has the odd affect of being calming rather than frightening.<\/p>\n
I was escorting a tour of a full bus of guests, so there wasn\u2019t a great deal of time to myself, except near the end; nearly the whole group when down in to the \u201cfantasy room\u201d(which is a dead end near the end of the cave network), leaving me alone (except for AJ), in the only cavern in the network that allows in natural light. For just a few minutes, I was able to sit down on the ground and just take in the silence. What this place must be like when there aren\u2019t people traipsing around in it, what it must have been like for centuries before any human even set foot inside.<\/p>\n
Walls can\u2019t talk, but I wish they could. Or that people could become a little bit better at hearing what whispers through the silence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been in the air, I\u2019ve been on the sea \u2013 but very very seldom have I really been underground. This morning saw me getting up very early to board a bus to the Hato Caves here in Curacao. To … Continue reading