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Beneath the Earth

Exploring the exquisite caves of Slovenia

By Tineke Ziemer

January 30^th, 2016

A walk through the unimaginable

Until then, I had never realized the limitations of the imagination. But there I was, smack dab in the middle of what appeared to be a set from a Lord of the Rings movie, my jaw hanging open, my mind spinning and the booming question of the moment: how could I not have known that places like this really existed?!? When my friends said they were taking us to see a cave, I imagined a big, dark hole in the side of a mountain with bats flying around. I had absolutely no idea that the landscapes under the earth would far supersede anything I had ever seen above it.

The first caves we visited are called Postojnska jama, a very famous cave system that has been visited by over 32 million people since 1819 when they were opened to the public. Carved by the underground Pivka river, the caves stretch for 20.5 km. We were taken deep into the caves on a little train and then traversed the rest of the well maintained paths on foot. (Below are pictured my friends on the train and a shot of our tour group on the path, demonstrating the sheer magnitude of these caves.)

Postojna Caves were one of the first in the world to be supplied with electrical lighting. Despite this, the light was still very low and required a ridiculously high ISO for me to get these shots handheld while we were walking the path. On an impulse, I started bracketing my exposures so I could process them as HDR images later. As a result, I was able to capture a lot more detail and colour in the images than I could have with a single exposure.

What legends are made of

Our next stop was the fascinating Predjama Castle, which was built into a cave mouth on the side of a mountain, during the renaissance, allowing the occupants access to secret underground tunnels. The castle carries a unique storybook legend of the knight, Erazem, who was besieged in the castle for a year and a day during the 15th century. He taunted the surrounding soldiers by pelting them with cherries that he would procure from a nearby village, using a secret underground tunnel to reach it. He had them quite outwitted because of the virtually impenetrable fortress. Alas, one of his servants was bribed and, using a single candle on the windowsill, notified the army of the exact time that Erazem was using the privy, it being the one part of the castle that was not completely fortified. With a single cannonball, he was finally killed, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick III, was appeased.

We were able to walk through the castle, seeing the extraordinary way the castle merged into the cave walls, climb the staircases and look back on the village through an opening in the mountain. This is the stuff you’d expect to find in fairytales!

Underground canyons and waterfalls

Skocjanske jame, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was our third stop of the day, most revered for its 150 metre high underground canyon. Unfortunately, photographs were only allowed in very select places, and so most of our incredible journey through the 2300 metres along the Reka River is undocumented. Here is a little taste of what we saw as the path wound in and out of the caves.

true cave explorers

We were up bright and early the next morning for a truly unforgettable four hour exploration of what’s described as “the most beautiful waver cave in the world.” Krizna jama, with its 22 tiny emerald-green lakes, was unlike the other cave experiences in that we were suited up with boots, hideously unflattering jumpsuits, headlamps, helmets and battery packs before entering a well-protected network of water caves. There are a very limited number of people allowed to enter the caves each year in an effort by conservationists to preserve the natural state of the caves and calcite formations. Every place we stepped had to be intentional and careful through the entire journey, to minimize the impact of our presence.

There was no light inside the caves, except what was provided by our headlamps. We were entering a truly natural habitat, one that I soon discovered had been home to the largest cave bears ever found. In 1878, over 2000 cave bear bones were identified, including the largest bear skull in the world (estimated to weigh about 1,500 kg.) Anyone who knows me and my incredibly illogical, but none-the-less extremely real, fear of bears, can only imagine how relieved I was when the guide explained that they were extinct. We did, however, finally see a bat!

The tour of these magnificent caves, with their world renowned stalactites and stalagmites, was only possible through a combination of carefully traversing by foot and alternately travelling by boat through narrow passageways and over beautiful underground lakes.

After three hours, we came upon a stunning display of natural columns with spectacular rapids flowing over the formations. Here we were able to get out and view it up close. A couple of us had to use the bathroom (can you blame us after three hours of being subjected to the tinkling sounds of water splashing!?) and we were instructed to pee right into the water as to minimize damage to the fragile formations. The guide led us to a place down further from the others and left us there to finagle our way out of the complicated getup we were wearing. With our headlamp set strategically in place on a rock, we prepared to pee as carefully as we’d ever done before. But then - SPLASH! Somehow our headlamp got knocked off its perch and into the water, where it promptly went out and left us in complete darkness. At this point, tiptoeing across delicate calcium creations, that have taken thousands of years to reach this point alone, left us in fear of forever being responsible for the closing of the Krizna caves to all future tourists! Thankfully, our cries of help brought light in our direction. It was quite a comedic moment in the heart of one of the most magnificent natural displays I’d ever laid eyes on.

I owe an unpayable debt to my friends for giving me these unforgettable adventures in their home country, Slovenia. Every moment was beyond my wildest imagination and will be forever ingrained in my heart as one of the most amazing experiences of my life! xoxoxox