«» Travel Notes 020: Exploring the Largest Cave in the Philippines
3D2N in Langun-Gobingob Cave with Trexplore
HELLO. I’m Atom, and you’ve received my Travel Notes, which I send out once a week, every week:
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My goal here is to bring you with me to all 82 provinces of the Philippines. Solo travel can be thrilling, but I enjoy my travels more when I have someone to share it with.
We're nine in the group.
There's Sir Joni, our organizer and caving expert. He's been caving for the past two decades. With Trexplore, he hosts caving, hiking, and canyoneering adventures throughout Region 8. He's also the point person for all major expeditions within the region. Earlier this year, Sir Joni discovered 18km of new cave systems with the same Italian speleologists who founded Philippine spelinking in 1987.
Sir Joni is joined by three porters: Lando, Lito, and Vergilio. Lando and Lito are cousins, while Vergilio is their nephew. It would be an understatement to say we wouldn't have survived without them. The trio set up our camp, cooked our food, lighted our path, and belayed our descents.
As newbies to caving, there's me, Johann, AJ, Aedric, and Aga, a nineteen-year-old solo traveler from Catbalogan.
While hiking to Gobingob Cave, I asked Aga, Bakit ka sumali? Why would you spend your weekend inside a cave? And why would you do it alone? When I was nineteen, I remember spending my weekends at the mall watching movies or playing video games at my friend's house. You would never find me volunteering to enter a cave for two nights with no one but myself. (I'm not sure my parents would have allowed me either, haha!)
Her answer? Curious lang.
We have the orientation now on caving guidelines, safety, and conservation, Sir Joni begins as we settle down on tarpaulin mats by the entrance of Gobingob Cave. Bakit pa ba tayo nag-oorientation? Safety, of course, pero more important is so we can appreciate . . .
It takes around 45 minutes for Sir Joni to touch on all points, from the history of caving in the Philippines to how caves are formed and how to protect both ourselves and the cave, but let me try to do so in a few bullet points:
Being the third largest island in the Philippines, Samar has the largest deposit of limestone in the country.
Locals were too afraid to enter the darkness of caves, so it wasn't until Italian speleologists came over in 1987 that spelunking and cave mapping began in the country.
Caves are the product of limestone, rain, and a loooot of time. They are naturally found in tropical countries such as Papa New Guinea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Borneo, and the Philippines.
The Langun-Gobingob Cave System is the largest in the Philippines. Its "Mother of All Chambers" can fit three helicopters flying side by side.
Never cave alone. If you get lost, stay put until someone finds you. Cave systems are maze-like in their complexity.
Wear closed shoes. The rocks and limestone formations found in caves can be very sharp. Better to break your shoes than your nails.
Because of how long they take to form, the ecosystems of caves are considered very fragile.
Finally, all bodily excretions must be collected and brought back with us because there is no water or air circulation inside. This means our pee or poo will sit stinking the cave for eternity.
We slowly descend into the cave.
What can I tell you? It's surreal leaving the light behind you to plunge into darkness.
I have my headlight, yes, but I can't help but realize how fragile it is compared to the vast darkness around me. For fun, we turn all our lights off, and immediately, it seems we are thrown to the dark side of the moon.
Even when I put my hand in front of my face, I see nothing. Just pure, unending darkness, where seconds feel like an eternity. There's no movement, no sound but the distant dripping of water, and no life. It's terrifying. We quickly turn our lights back on and continue.
Around 30 minutes in, we reach a round stone, which Lando asks us to kiss. No one enters Langun-Gobingob Cave without kissing this rock. Please lang. Halik kayo lahat. Lando pleads. I don't complain. I kiss the stone. Today is not the day to test Lady Luck, I tell myself.
The rocks we walk on are slippery and sharp. We wear leather workman gloves on our hands to help us balance.
Two hours in, we reach our first major chamber, Gobingob's Football Field (because it is the size of a football field), and our campsite for night one.
By the east-facing wall, we find a natural cave pool, where we swim and wash ourselves up before resting for the afternoon.
Our exploration of Gobingob's upper chamber began after dinner.
At the time, the five hours it took to reach the end and back was the most miserable I've felt. The trail was long, sharp, steep, and slippery, so not only was my body hurting from fatigue and lack of sleep, but I was also scared my shoes would break or I would slip into a hole. And not to mention the humidity! I was sweating like a horse. Unlike a hike where you can get a gentle breeze here and there, caving is all work.
Yet, what an experience.
You're surrounded by a forest of stalagmites and stalactites that reach heights that make it difficult to imagine the years that went into forming them. There are portions in the trail too, where it feels like you are walking on stars as the minerals within the limestone glitter when light is shown upon it.
Then there's the sound. There's no wind, no traffic, no trees rustling, no people talking. All you hear is your footstep and dripping water. Even when you don't see it, there's always water dripping somewhere. I understand how I describe this may sound like torture, but the phenomenon of water dripping onto baby stalagmites is terrific. First of all, these stalagmites appear glittery white (already more fascinating than the dull brown color more mature stalagmites carry). Then, their texture appears different; they seem almost soft as if you could mold the rock and shape it as you wish. Then there's the existential bit wherein watching water drip slowly onto these baby stalagmites made me feel as if I were watching the sands of time pour grain by grain.
I wake up in the middle of the night to pee. Or, at least, it seems like the middle of the night. When I return to my tent to check my phone, I find it's already 7 AM.
We have breakfast, pack up, put on our wet clothes, and head out. It's a two-hour trek to reach Langun Cave, the "Mother of All Caves." It's everything you would expect from a cave commanding such a respected name: It's 300m tall, 270m long, and 160m wide. The best part? Light curtains down into the cave from a window on top, allowing us to appreciate its sheer size and beauty (unlike in other chambers where we are forced to imagine the entirety beyond our circle of light).
Just one last hurdle. 100m from the Langun Cave entrance, we go through Guano Mountain.
Imagine thousands of bats offloading themselves with no proper drainage or sewage system. What you get is mountains of shit. This is Guano Mountain. If you're lucky, you step on tight and solid areas. If not? Well, shit. A screeching sound surrounds us, which I initially believed to come from the bats above us. Except, looking down, it's hard not to notice the ground moving and squirming with beetles and other insects (I would rather not know what exact insects I saw).
There are two strategies for this. You step slowly and carefully so you avoid suddenly dropping into a hole. Or you step quickly and lightly to avoid pressing down too deep into shit. I decide I'm better off minimizing risk by opting for strategy one. But it doesn't end well because I still end knee-deep in shit. Literally. I'm so deep and the weight so heavy that I can't pull my leg out without my other leg sinking in too. The only way out is to shift my center of balance away from my feet. How? Well, with my hands, of course. Breathe, Atom, breathe. I think to myself as I very, very, very reluctantly put my hands down and crawl forward until I can dislodge my foot.
Meanwhile, I hear screams around me as Johann, AJ, Aedric, and Aga don't fair any better. It's a shit show. There's a smell too. It's not the strong, foul smell you imagine from rotten garbage. Maybe musty is the word I would use to describe it? It's very faint, so you only really smell it if you get close. Or perhaps it's just because I've been in the shit for so long that I no longer recognize the smell.
Eventually, we get out. My originally green shoes, which I bought from Merrell last week, are black.
We're finally bathed in sunlight, but it's hard to celebrate.
I change out of my clothes, grateful to be rid of them but already anxious for tonight when I have to put them back on.
At sunset, the bats swarm out. The awful lot of them.
I wear long inner thermal wear before wearing my pants, so at least the bat shit doesn't come into direct contact with my skin. Then I wear long socks to minimize my contact with shoes. There's no going around the tying of my shoelaces, though.
It is what it is.
I spray a generous amount of alcohol on my hands after.
To enter the Langun Cave lower chamber, we harness ourselves and squeeze into a narrow passageway. We unbuckle ourselves and crawl into an even narrower passage—a two-part series of tunnels that makes me feel like I am being born again. On the other side is a river, which we cross into a field of mud. Again, literally. After the mud, we cross some water terraces, rivers, and (more) mud. The end of the chamber is supposed to have a waterfall, but we are forced to turn back when we reach a portion of the river that has risen to a dangerous level.
We swim and wash off instead. I have no problems with this. My shoes are green once again.
We get back to camp, and I am all but grateful to be clean.
We played with our dinosaur the following day and then hiked back to civilization. The first hour is an ascent that would rival G2 in difficulty. But to me, it is heaven. At least the ground is solid.
So why do this? Why put myself in so much discomfort and suffering?
Truthfully, I liked Aga’s answer.
Curiosity.
Is it too much to ask if I want to live in this world with just a little less fear and just a little more appreciation?
Atom
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Guano shit