A PNG cave adventure

It's hard to know exactly how to begin this epic tale and just how detailed to be in my description of it. I could honestly write for hours about everything that happened, but I will spare you most of it. For those who want a more in depth version, we can sit and chat about it over a cold root-beer and some beef jerky some evening when I get back to the States.

Speaking of, I now have only 3 full days left here before we start our long trip home. The time has gone by so fast, but in this short time I have learned a great deal about a lot of things, not just medicine. I will really miss being here, but that is another topic for another blog. Back to the story.

There is a cave in the mountains near Kudjip that Scott Dooley has been wanting to explore for some time. He has previously been lowered inside the rim, far enough to see the bottom and to realize his rope was not long enough to reach it. This last furlough, though, he bought a new, longer rope and the gear necessary to ascend on the rope out of the cave. In Sam and I he found willing accomplices, and the adventure was on. Now, the nationals here have no interest in descending into caves. In fact, they believe that spirits inhabit caves, especially this one, and they are easily angered. Even some of the Christians here can't shake some of the old tribal beliefs. More than once we were warned or cautioned by nurses at the hospital to be careful about such things.

A legend regarding this particular cave goes something like this: A long time ago there was a man who was trying to catch a pig. In the process, he fell over the edge of the cave to his death. Some villagers wanted to retrieve the body for a proper burial, so they connected lots and lots of bush rope and lowered one man down into the cave. When he neared the bottom, he saw an old man sitting and making a belt and an old woman sitting and making a bilam. Between them laid the dead man. The man on the rope was so frightened by this he yelled loudly and was quickly pulled out of the cave. Our guide said this was only a tale, and nobody really thought it was true. Evidently it is just one of those stories to keep people away. He also said that no one had ever been into the cave in his time or his father's time or his grandfather's time. Basically, whether for fear of their safety, of spirits, or of old folks weaving clothing accessories, people steered clear of this place.

We, however, are crazy white-skins, so we were all about it. I have very little experience with repelling and ropes in general, and Sam has none, so we practices a couple times in Scott's tree. This went pretty well, and we were all planning on a smooth operation. Saturday came, and we all met in front of the hospital to set off on our journey. After a quick prayer at the gate, as is customary for all treks off the station, we drove about a half hour on very uneven roads to a town called Konduk about 30 minutes away. We got the truck stuck, unstuck, then parked, and made the rest of the way on foot. What a hike it was! The terrain was a bit difficult at times, but the view from the top of the mountain was amazing. There's definitely not anything like it in Nebraska! Along the way we picked up our guide, John. We got to talk quite a bit on the trail, where he informed me that lots of folks call him Papa John. This of course led to me trying to explain pizza and restaurant chains to him, probably in vain.

We made really good time and reached the cave after about 2 hours of hiking. The cave is actually a large 150 ft deep hole in the ground, roughly 10 x 20 feet wide at the mouth. There is a small shelf maybe 6 or 8 ft back and 10 ft wide right at the mouth, and another 8 or 10 feet above that is the rest of the mountain. After we got down on to the shelf, Scott set up all our safety ropes, we got all our gear on, and we were all pumped and ready to rock. Okay, I was a bit nervous, being as I'm afraid of heights and was standing in front of a 150 ft drop, but that's besides the point. Scott repelled down first, followed by Sam, then me. It was a pretty sweet ride down! There were bats everywhere, huge fruit bats that people here call "flying foxes." None of them got too close, but hearing their shrieks and seeing their huge wing span was pretty impressive. The cave opened up pretty quickly into a large cavern with a few large cracks in the walls where the majority of the bats were. We had to repel right past one such crack/crevasse, which was a little nerve wracking! Everyone made it safely to the bottom, and what we found there was about as expected: a huge mound of debris and tons of bat crap. What we didn't expect was just how many bats were in this cave. When all of us shined our lights at the far wall, all the bats' eyes made it look as if the wall was on fire! It was incredible. After looking around for a bit, we all decided it was time to head back up.

I was to go first, and so I got all settled in and started up the rope. We were using what's called an ascender and a shunt, basically two one way rope valves that would allow us to make slow and steady progress up the rope safely. I was about 100 ft up when for a brief time I was in pretty significant danger of falling due to an equipment malfunction. For the next hour, I hung there praying intensely and trying to rectify the problem, only to eventually (and with much difficulty) return to the less than ideal situation I found myself in an hour earlier. I must give the Lord credit for answering my prayers for calmness and strength. There were a couple occasions I didn't think I would be able to get myself out, but God was with me in that cave. Oh, how glorious it was to finally make it out! I was exhausted, but there was a definite feeling of relief and accomplishment.

I sent the gear down to Sam, who was up next. He never really felt comfortable with the shunt and ascender even in the tree, and the cave proved to be to difficult for him. The ascender was also not sliding up the rope quite like it should have, which made things even tougher. After a lot of effort and not much to show for it, the decision was made to get him back down, have Scott ascend, then have Scott, John, and I pull Sam out.

Scott made it out without too much difficulty, then we set about trying to get Sam up. Turns out it was a heck of a lot harder than we thought it would be. After trying several different set ups for close to an hour, we decided to call back to the station for help. We also sent the ascending gear back down to Sam, hoping he could make it out on the second try and we could call off the cavalry when they reached Konduk. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. To make things worse, evening came, the walkie-talkie batteries went dead, Sam's headlight went out, and the bats were waking up and making a horrible racket. Praise the Lord it didn't rain!! Poor Sam was stuck hanging there for around 2 hours, but help came in the form of Jeff , several native nursing students, and a couple of Konduk men to help pull Sam out. With all the manpower, we got him out pretty quickly.

It was pitch black by this point and we had quite a hike in the dark ahead of us, but the worst was over. Word spread pretty quickly about everything, and there were lots of people waiting for us both at Konduk and back at Kudjip. Sam has done a really good job of assimilating here and the natives all love him for it. When we dropped him off at his house on the station, there were at least 30 people there waiting for him.

I got home, took a long hot shower, cleaned out all my cuts and scrapes, and ate my first real meal of the day. It sure was nice to see Stephanie and Caleb! Needless to say, I don't think Stephanie will be approving of any more spelunking trips, but I definitely got the taste of some true PNG adventure.

Pictures to come!