Tempting Fate in Transylvania

None of my organs were where they should have been; my heart was in my mouth, my testicles had retreated into my abdomen, and my stomach was threatening to abandon my body altogether – if only it had somewhere to go.

It was 2006, and as my peers back home prepared for prom I was anticipating my own date with destiny. I was in Western Romania with four friends on an end-of-school sabbatical, a ten-day minibus tour of Transylvania arranged by my housemaster and an alumnus working out of Timi?oara, and for all I knew I was very probably about to die.

We were half-way up a mountain on a dirt track that didn’t seem fit for purpose. As we tried desperately to spread our weight evenly across both sides of the minibus we watched in horror as the mountainside encroached to the left and simultaneously disappeared to the right. We should have stayed in Oradea, with its thermal spas, or Beiu?, with its cattle market; instead we were bound for Scari?oara Cave on the scariest Geography field trip of my life. Live or die, it would surely be my last.

Mercifully, it was more than worth the mortal panic. Home to one of the largest underground glaciers in the world, Scari?oara Cave is located deep within the Apuseni Mountains of the Carpathian chain, accessible through a steep shaft in the rock. Weirdly, rather than remind me of Dracula (we were set to visit Bran Castle the following day, after all) I couldn’t stop thinking about another '90s monster movie: Jurassic Park.

There was something about the perimeter fence, the prevalence of ferns and the precarious metal staircase that recalled the fictional island of Isla Nublar. Or perhaps it was simply the prevailing sense of prehistory. Either way, it was exciting; as I descended the slippery steps, negotiated the obstructive outcrops and crossed an invisible thermal threshold that turned summer into winter I couldn’t help but feel like an explorer – even as we tailed tourists on a routine guided tour.

Although vast, only two chambers are open to the public. Underground and under-dressed, we entered the Great Hall, where the track divided into two wooden walkways leading around either side of the cave’s perimeter. At the opposite end we found The Church, a section of cave containing more than 100 stalagmites – some slender and misshapen, not unlike alter candles. The glacier didn’t just feel old, it felt primordial. Even at the relatively sprightly age of 3500.

It was jaw-dropping. My heart was now on my sleeve.