Slovenia is cave country

Posted by Annette Jahnel on 17 January 2011

By crossing the border into Slovenia I am entering a territory about whose history and culture I know nothing. My first discovery is that this is cave country.

There are approximately 7000 caves of note in the classical Karst region of Slovenia. My introduction to these is the UNESCO world heritage site Skocjanske jame, in this cave is the largest known underground canyon in the world. The walk to the cave is through waving grassland that stands tall and fearless of the farmers plough. Butterflies flirt from our advancing legs. After the intensive farming of Italy this is a happy change.

The guide is very matter of fact, leading us into the cave at a clipping pace. We have three kilometers to cover in 1 ½ hours. So we whip through the Labyrinth passing stalactites and mites – all worth a second look – but we have no time to tarry, we have a cave to get through. We speed stare and marvel at the sheer scale of the Orjaki, giant stalagmites that rise up to 15 metres, before they vanish behind us in the darkness. Does our guide have a pressing date?

But then we step into Tiha jama, a great hall with a vast domed ceiling festooned with thousands of white stalactites that reach down to their partner-mites, which soar high into the great space, but they don’t touch – yet – perhaps next millennia. The silence in the cave is warm and total; the guides’ explanations form small talk bubbles above her head, before *pop* they vanish. She stops talking and the silence grows until it reaches deep into my mind, pushing all thoughts away. Wrapped in private cloaks of awe we move deeper into the cave; a faint rumble makes a small hole in the silence. The guide slows as she picks her way down a slippery stair hacked out of the rock, the ceiling of the cave slowly vanishes into a grey yellow gloom. She flicks a hidden switch and in the distant dark tiny lights now string along the canyon wall, showing us our path forward. Slowly the rumble grows and we see the river; far below it roars white and green through the abyss. Our path leads over a twenty-meter gorge by narrow swing bridge. This is an involuntary grin moment when I expect to see Gandalf fight off the Borlock before they plummet into the depths. As we pass, the guide turns off the lights behind us; the nightmare black that engulfs the huge chamber makes me wonder again at the sanity of cave explorers.

Emerging into the light 143 m below our starting point where the disappearing river, the Reka, reappears as a fierce water chute that shapes the rocks around it into smooth bowls, all my plans of visiting Ljubljana get washed out. I want more caves, I think I have seen enough old buildings for a while.

At Postojnsk Jame dozens of tour busses stand in convoy and my enthusiasm wanes, but there are no queues, where are all the people vanishing to? At the subterranean station the answer soon appears in the form of a yellow tunnel train that arrives with the precision of an early morning commuter train. We are carried into the cave at bone chillingly speed, the thin wind makes my eyes stream. In the gloom we duck as we plunge into narrow tunnels where the speeding train twists and turns, dodging stalactites and mites large enough to support the Colosseum. When we reach the inner cave station we get sorted into languages. Slovenian, English, German and French are all well supported. Italians nil, this has me wishing I can speak Italian; it would make this an exclusive tour. Officials keep a close watch that no photographs are taken but the Germans snap away regardless, their logic seems to be; it’s not a rule we made so it cannot possibly be important.

In a cavern – that could house many of the cathedrals I have seen in the last months – the hundreds of visitors are slowly swallowed by the vast space. By devious and strategic maneuvering I install myself between the German group ahead and the French group behind and so manage to hear, on occasion, the caves growing drip by drip.

My wish for the world; shut up already. How is it possible for two old bats to carry on a conversation about Fifi back home throughout a tour of the most incredible cave they are likely to see in their lives? If they are not interested, why did they not just stay at home? Both the German and the French groups are in a roaring hurry to get back into the sunlight. The Germans’ speed is great, at least they have left me behind, it’s the French I wish to ask whether they don’t like what they are seeing, and can they not find one marvelous thing to stop them in their tracks. And shut up already!

Then the Germans vanish around a distance corner and the French have finally found something worth their attention. For a few minutes I walk alone, aware that 90 meters above me the grasses wave in the sunshine and butterflies flit from flower to flower as people walk to the cave entrance; our world is floating on a very thin crust. The path winds through a forest of dripstone pillars that are softy rounded like massive wax drippings, they glow soft blush, pale gold or most treasured, pure white limestone. By some fluke of acoustics, the silence in this part of the cave is broken only by the drip of time as Mother Nature sculpts whimsical forms through the ages. A drop falls, plop, onto the crown of my head. All my attention focuses on the cold drop of limestone. Am I now a fraction of a mm taller? If a stalagmite grows only 1mm in 10 years, how many drips does it take to make it grow 15 meters tall? Or how many drips fall in 500 000 years. I start calculating but my math does not stretch that far, it amounts to lots of drops of time and everyone counts.

The path leads out of the limestone forest past a field of massive stalactites that lie shattered on the cave floor, new forms growing slowly around them. Touching the fallen stalactites I reach through time and touch the age of the dinosaurs. For millennia this beautiful space was sculpted in a dark timeless silence broken only by echoing drops. I realize with some sadness that my curiosity is aiding in the inevitable destruction of this beauty. With my need for light, fresh air and with every breath I expel I subtly alter this fragile environment. My unthinking touch has left an acid imprint on the porous stone. Every footstep and every shout sends tiny vibrations into a space that has for an eon been absolutely still… do we really have the right to see it all? But the chattering French are approaching and in the distance the Germans start whistling and the moment goes the way of the dinosaurs.

An extract from My Year of Beds. Book one. Germany to China.

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