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Drotsky's Caves in northwest Botswana

We had read that this little visited cavern structure was pretty far off the beaten track, a couple of hundred kilometers from the main road north, but worth visiting.
The track to Drotsky's Caves was heavy sand as it usually is in Botswana, and we reached the caves around lunchtime after a very early start from Maun. There are 2 enterances to the cave a few hundred meters apart above ground. Below ground it's almost a kilometer long, and without any light whatsoever.
We were met at the "top" enterance by a platoon of BDF (Botswana Defence Force) soldiers who were excavating a new shaft at the enterance. They were a little suprised to see us and a bit stand-offish. As if we weren't supposed to be there. The BDF is known to take their job seriously and we politely asked if they would mind us exploring the cave from that end, even though they were working at the enterance. This was of course no problem and they lightend up a bit.
They climb down into the cave was down a steep slope made of broken rock. At the bottom this gave way to a cavern where the floor was covered in powdery sand, and as we got farther inside, we were eventually swallowed by complete darkness. If it hadn't been for our flashlights, it wouldn't be possible to find our way. Using a head torch is needed since we sometimes had to use both hands to climb in the darkness, and having spare batteries could be a life saver if something happend... The government has done one thing to make it easier to explore the cave; there's a fishing line that goes through the caverns, and as long as you don't loose sight of it, you can always find the way out! There are a lot of caverns that go off to either side, so when exploring down side tunnels it's a good idea to make a mark in the sand floor at the turn off point so you know were you came from. Sometimes we had to pick up the string to follow it since it was often buried in the sand. And in the dried guano! We at fist thought to ourselves that the cavern floor was just very fine powdered sand, but we quickly realized that a lot of it was actually dried bat guano. There had to be thousands of bats in the cave! We could see them hanging upside down under the ceiling and every now and then, a few would swoop down past us if we pointed our flashlight towards them. The air in the cave isn't exactly what I'd call the freshest! The stale smell of several centuries of bat shit, and undoubtably, dead animals lost in the caves to be subsquently like everything else buried in guano, made it an experiance on more than just a visual level! The cave was also unusually warm, and we start to sweat after a short while. The only sense that wasn't tested was our hearing. A short distance from the enterance, all sounds from the outside subsided until there was just a deathly silence.The huge stalactites hanging down from the ceiling were amazing. Some were so huge that you'd think they would drop down and crush you if you breathed too loud. The cave twisted up and down through the earth, sometimes with narrow passages and other times opening up into huge caverns as big as houses. As we were crossing down through the largest cavern we saw that there were some dim lights in the distance and I said to AC; "ahh, there are some other people down here exploring". In the back of my mind I remembered that the soldiers had said the caves were empty, and there were no other vehicles outside. We then came upon a very strange sight. A group of 8 black men were lying in the dust, barely lit by a few candles around them. They were lying in a star shaped circle with their feet in towards each other and holding hands, creating sort of a wagon wheel! Our first thought was that we had stumbled upon some spooky vampire cult scene from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" or some other Tv series with ghouls and demons! With all the bats around, it wasn't too strange a thought! As we came upon them, I cleared my throat, and said "hello". There wasn't really anything else I could do. No reply came back. They just stared up into the darkness without moving a muscle! At first I was thinking of asking if they needed any help, but quickly dismissed the thought from my mind. The whole situation was too surreal. After sending eachother a quick look, we picked up the pace and continued on into the unknown. After about a minute, strange chanting started to vibrate through the cavern from the "cults" direction and our legs moved unconsciously a little bit faster... Deep in the pitch black cave, we almost expected them to come sweeping down on us, armed with fangs or ritual daggers! Of course, this didn't happen, and after a few more minutes of twists and turns their chanting waned and the silence again took over. We had a whispered conversation about the encounter and didn't know what to make of the strange group, so we continued. After about an hour of of exploring we came to a very narrow opening we had it crawl through. It was a tight squeeze, and AC wasn't particularly happy with all the big spiders scittering between her hands and knees.
As we exited this passage on all fours, we came straight to a drop off down into a pit. We couldn't see any way around it and after putting on our work gloves I started the climb down. Since this was in total darkness, it wasn't very easy to find hand holds and see where to put my feet. Our head torches were invaluable for this, since obviously both hands were occupied to keep&nbsp;us from falling down! When I reached the bottom after 6-7 meters, AC started down with me telling her where to pu her feet. In retrospect it would have been easier to have started the other way around and climbed up the wall, but it was fun and a little exiting going the hard way so we glad we came the direction we did. After a short rest at the bottom of the pit, we climbed up the other easier side and continued through an area with fantastic stalactites overhead. This ended in a sort of curtain hanging down with little room to pass beneath which gave way to the final cavern at the lower exit. Light slowly appeared in the gloom and in the end we could finally turn off the torches. It had been an amazing hike and together with the "vampire" encounter, something we will never forget!

Erik D.

Edited by ErikD (07/09/04 01:19 AM)