Traipsing Around the World

As a Kentucky native, I’ve always been drawn to caves. The many childhood trips to our beloved Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system in the world, fostered in me early-on a love of these mysterious formations and their other-worldly inhabitants.

No surprise, then, that when such an opportunity presented itself, I spontaneously embarked on a spelunking expedition in the mountains of Aravan, Kyrgyzstan. At the time, I was working in Jalalabad, a post-Soviet town near the Uzbek border. One of many impulsive trips led me to Aravan, where I had a vague notion of seeing the celestial horse petroglyphs carved in the rock face there.

I was not disappointed by these ancient carvings, but I was more intrigued by an elderly, hobbit-like Uzbek man, who seemed to be a tour guide. He was speaking to a group about caving, and noticing my eavesdropping, the cheerful, little man introduced himself as one of Kyrgyzstan’s leading geographers. With the casual hospitality so common in Central Asia, the tiny stranger said the weather was fine, why not join his afternoon trip to the nearby Chil-Ustun Caves? I agreed without hesitation.

After downing the inevitable 100 grams of vodka for fortitude, we passed one of the ubiquitous, beckoning Lenin statues and started up the mountains. To say the climb was gruelling would not be an exaggeration. The gravelly paths were precarious and steep, and the sun beat down in 100-degree heat. But our small guide’s sure-footed assistance allowed us to at last reach the mouth of the caves.

Once past the caves’ maw, we wiggled our way through impossibly small tunnels. At the narrowest point, we had to proceed with one arm stretched forward and the other back to squeeze through. The ethereal sites we witnessed along the way, though, justified the many scrapes and bruises. Beautiful and peculiar rock formations, jagged stalactites, and eerily calm lakes decorated the inner world of these strange caves.

Without warning, we squeezed through yet another claustrophobic tunnel and emerged into the blinding rays of the outside world. Blinking furiously in the sudden light, we looked around at one another, unsure if the surreal journey we had just crawled our way through had actually occurred. Our cuts were proof enough that it had, and with exhausted sighs, we plunked down to watch the sunset.

I was still processing the bizarre turn of events on this unplanned day, but it had certainly proved one thing to me: never turn down a spelunking trip.