October 27, 2009, Wednesday: Exploring a Cave for the First Time

And here I start my adventure.

Climbing up

Bats

My tour guide and me.

Tour guide`s family and me.

Ryugado: The CAVE Adventure

Yesterday I went to Ryugado, a cave in Tosa Yamada, a town near the big city of Kochi. It was definitely the highlight/climax of my trip. I called a few days in advance to make a reservation for the “adventure course.” I signed up for the 2pm tour, but because I was going from a bus, which there were only 5 a day and the latest bus that would get me their in time would arrive at 12:39pm, I decided to reschedule a few hours earlier day of for the 1pm, tour. I am glad I did because I don’t think I would have been granted the adventure otherwise.

Now I have never been in a cave before, much less seen one with my own eyes. I paid $15 (1500 yen) plus an extra $5 (500 yen) for an overall outfit rental. The tour guide book said it would be $30 total (3000 yen) for the adventure course, so I was a bit confused, but why complain.

I found out later that 2 other people signed up for the 2pm tour, so I would have been with a small group, but a group nonetheless. I am glad they allowed me to change last minute. I got a personal one-on-one tour. One of the tour guides heard that a study abroad student was coming and got very excited and insisted that she give me the tour. She was so bubbly and energetic and excited to meet me, and she spoke so very fast in Japanese; but she was truly awesome. She originally was from Osaka, but came to the town when she was a teenager and went to the local High School there. She worked part-time at the cave in HS and has been there ever since. Her name: Mitsuru.

So I found out later that the adventure course was—a climb into the even more inner reaches of the cave. They called it the B course. Apparently I didn’t pay for that. Even though I made the reservation for it. But my tour guide was awesome, remember? She said because I came all the way from NYC, she would show me the B course, on the house! Crawling through small holes that no ordinary fat American could fit through, I baely squeezed my shoulders and hips through at times. Climbing wet and slippery inclines with a rope, walking through water, and literally using my whole body (butt and back on one side/wall of the cave, feet on the other) to get across was thrilling. I climbed up place that my tour guide wouldn’t follow and watched me from a distance yelling, “Be careful!” Occasionally I would climb up but forget how I got up there, and had to carefully but blindly slide my feet across the way down to find some grip. There were places where it just looked like a 30 foot drop into darkness, and my tour guide assured me that it might look like a lengthy drop, but told me there were places for footing and that the floor is actually very close, not a deep drop at all. At first I was a little hesitant, but as I got used to the cave, I was sliding down and jumping into murky puddles that came up to my knees (not a good idea because water went inside my boots and I got really dirty and only brought 3 pairs of socks on this 5 day excursion). I also saw and heard tons of bats. I hoped that they would swoop down by me but they never did. They stuck to the ceiling no matter how much light we shined on them.

My tour guide also never hesitated to take a picture of me, and so I have too many. She took me through the B course as a secret, but her manager with the 2pm tour group found us, and she might have got in trouble for that. He gave her some rocks that he found in high places that might serve as a potential danger and ordered her to toss them in the water somewhere. She tossed the big one, and as a secret gave me the smaller one as a souvenir.

I insisted I was in no rush, and what was supposed to be a 1.5 hour tour turned into a 2.5 hour. Toward the end exhaustion kicked in, and I felt a bit light-headed, but kept this to myself and we kept moving on. At one point Mitsuru came up with the great idea that we should turn off our helmet lights and sit in complete darkness, to experience the darkness of the cave. Through this experience, I finally understand that us humans are not, and definitely never can be nocturnal. We sat there for about 5 minutes talking in Japanese, all the while I tried to get used to the dark surroundings. Sadly, as I put my hands before my eyes and admitted I could never get used to this darkness, I gave up. I couldn’t see anything—not even the trail before me or the trail behind. I have never been immersed in such darkness before and felt swallowed up by complete nothingness.

Although I didn’t panic, I felt stuck, useless, and immobile. I couldn’t go anywhere without light. Mitsuru turned on a very dim light but even then it felt so bright. We were using 2 lights to navigate the cave and even then I thought it was dark, but now I felt it was easily accomplishable with this singular dim light. Oh, and the appreciation for light develops! Thank you Con Edison!

Even though I made a reservation (the day before) at a cheap hotel in the next town, the woman never asked for my name or number and because Mitsuru insisted that I go stay at her place, I thought, why not? I felt dirty from crawling on my hands and knees and so Mitsuru even drove me to the nearby onsen (Ryugado onsen). Although it smelled slightly of chlorine and there was only one onsen, an indoor one, I basically had the place to myself and it did its job—I was relaxed and clean afterwards.

Then I went to Mitsuru’s house. She had 2 huge houses right next to each other. Her parents lived in the older one next door, and she and her family lived in the huge new one. She had 2 boys (ages 5 and 8) and a husband that comes home a bit late from work, as well as a really cute dog. I slept upstairs in a very clean, spacious room. And dinner was amazing. We drank beer, I ate some sashimi (Tuna), and Kochi’s specialty fish (I forgot the name, maybe it was a kind of bonito), kabocha (pumpkin), rice from this year, beef, pork, peppers, mushroom, everything. It was all so delicious. And then we had desert. Mitsuru also tried to help me to tighten my plan for the next day and let me use her computer and internet.
In the morning I was fed breakfast and driven to the station and she bought me lunch, too. I was treated so well by complete strangers that took me into the security of their home. It amazes me that people even with small children could welcome a complete stranger into their house. Japan is amazing.