Down The Rabbit Hole Ch 04 4

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

A Sexual Adventure in a Fantasy World

Chapter IV -- The Rabbit Hole

Everything Alan arranged came together with only a few easily resolved issues. This was good as some troublesome snafus were common on these trips--delayed flights, lost bags, and a multitude of logistical missteps that happened unexpectedly. His trips often did not suffer such misfortunes, but others did. His luck seemed to cover many things.

He and the students arrived after midnight, slept much of the morning, and then spent the afternoon in the hotel parking lot organizing and repacking their personal equipment and supplies. The three experienced semi-professional cavers had been in Peru for a week, gathering and organizing all the group's technical gear, vehicles, food, and other supplies. The last puzzle piece came together when Scarlet joined them in the Lima hotel at 4 AM after an overnight flight. Alan envied how she could sleep on a plane, cross multiple time zones, and be refreshed and ready to go. It was one of her superpowers. Fucking was another.

The experienced cavers all knew Scarlet and were pleased to have her join. Whereas there were mixed feelings about the students, but cavers were a small community, and they generally welcomed opportunities to bring along fresh blood. What objections the group had were because of their objective: an unexplored and possibly technically challenging cave.

At 7 AM, Alan brought them together to review the travel plan. Everything up to that point had been messages and calls. After a quick buffet breakfast, they loaded into the vehicles and were off to the mountains.

It took the rest of the morning to drive through Lima with its endless cinder block homes. When Nicolet commented on the many unfinished second floors, one of the cavers--who seemed like he might have been Peruvian--said it was because there was a tax advantage or some shit like that if the home was under construction, so people never finished. Nicolet accepted the explanation. It was not the first time Alan had heard that explanation for the unfinished second floors, but he found it hard to believe. Why would the government allow such a loophole to exist?

The end of the city and the beginning of the mountains came abruptly except for a finger of development they followed up a narrow canyon. Dominic--who had explained about the upper floors became their self-appointed tour guide, although his facts seemed trivial and, in some cases, dubious. He amused Nicolet when he took delight in explaining that tunas were the main agricultural product in the canyon, pausing before explaining--not the fish but large prickly pear cactus pads and their fruits. Without much warning, they were around two quick switchbacks, climbed above the populated portion of the canyon, and headed up a mountain on a snake of a road.

Once in the mountains proper and the slope increased, the two-lane highway east, which ran up and over the Andes, became a twisty, never-ending climb. As a flatlander, Nicolet often felt that their white, over-full van was too large for the road and the edge too close, but then there were the trucks and large buses that seemed to be doing just fine and were unbothered by the close brushes on the corners. Each time they encountered a truck or bus on a corner, she was sure they were going off into a chasm or would scrape along the roadcut.

There were frequent stops on the road for broken-down vehicles and road work. She marveled at the enterprising locals. At each construction stop, a troop of people walked along the line of vehicles and sold snacks, cans of soda, and trinkets. It was quite the business. They finally reached the barren, sun-crusted pass in the early evening at almost 16,000 feet and started down along the east side of the continental divide, heading southward.

It was a quite different continental divide from the one in Colorado she once backpacked across. Here in the Andes the landscape was so dry it was not the alpine-like in her estimation, even though she could see occasional snowfields in the distance. And if the pass they just crossed was 16,000 feet high, some of the nearby peaks were surely 18,000 to 19,000 feet high. Dominic confirmed that her estimations were indeed correct. These sights alone, made the long flight worthwhile. These were likely the tallest mountains she would ever see. Sean seemed to be trying hard not to be impressed.

<<<< -- >>>>

Alan again thanked Scarlet for making the last-minute arrangements for their stay at a mining and exploration camp. The camp was run by Juan Sebastian, whom she had worked for on one of her company's projects. The camp was more town-like than mining camp-like, being located in an existing village and set up and run by Juan. Juan employed people who wanted to work for him, not just for the money, but because he took care of them. Along with that, he liked impressing his guests. His lodgings and board were far superior to the cramped hotel that was part of the original plan. Juan was excited to host a group of renowned underground explorers for a couple of nights. Alan instantly liked Juan, especially because Scarlet had tainted his opinion by saying that Juan liked sharing good drink and food, and his cooks served up excellent Peruvian meals. The downside was that he housed the men and women separately, so a rendezvous with Scarlet would not be easy.

Juan's hospitality helped soothe Alan's and the team's anxiety about the two-night layover, which had been recommended because of the altitude. Most of the group had come from near sea level, and the cave entrance was at just about 10,100 feet. The mining camp was just over 11,000. Their method of acclimatizing was not recommended, but they were in a controlled environment, not exerting themselves, and the camp had a doctor to keep an eye on them. Everyone was affected by the abrupt change to some extent, and few of them had an appetite for the hearty camp meals served in the comfortable but spartan dining hall. Alan had a pounding headache that had hampered his sleep the first night, and several others on the team had similar issues. Perhaps gratefully, it tapped down both his and Scarlet's sex drive. Norman fared the worst and spent the first night with an oxygen mask strapped to his face. Fortunately, the cave entrance was almost 1,500 feet lower, and they would descend another 1,300 feet or more in the underground.

The effects of the altitude began to wane after 24 hours, and Juan had the camp doctor give everyone the once-over in the morning before they left. Alan wished the altitude could have been handled with a better acclimatization program, but everyone seemed to be over the hump and would continue to adjust. If there were any signs of persistent altitude sickness or pulmonary edema, that person would be sent back to Lima at once. Illness deep in a cave could be a deadly problem.

After leaving the mining camp just as the sun crested the line of mountains to their east, they drove southward down an arid valley dotted with small towns, stopping in one for breakfast and coca tea--to help with the altitude. By ten o'clock, they reached their staging area and were at the cave entrance just before noon. Alan had not seen anything like the Escondido Cave entrance before. There was nothing natural about it, and it could easily be mistaken for a concrete mine portal amongst a pile of talus. The thing that was missing was a large waste rock pile, which would have come from the excavation of an underground mine.

A stocky, dark-complexed man in a yellow vest and hard hat approached Alan and said, "You must be Señor Janssen."

"Sí."

"I'm Lorenzo Jiménez. Welcome to Escondido. I am the engineering manager for Trans-Peruvian Minerals and Mining. I wanted to see you off."

"Thank you. When we spoke on the phone, you said that the cave opening had to be stabilized. That was a bit understated; you've built an impressive portal structure."

"We are standing on an old landslide with a lot of rock. From what we can tell, it's been stable for thousands of years, but we have disturbed it. We are not worried about the whole thing letting loose, but small rock avalanches have occurred. With people exploring the cave, it's better safe than sorry."

"Where are you from, Lorenzo?"

"El Paso, Texas. I went to school at the Colorado School of Mines. I know--I can pass for a Peruvian, but I still speak Spanish with a Mexican-American accent."

"Can you tell my team how this cave was found?"

"Sure. As I said, we are standing on a paleo-landslide. The entrance to the cave has been buried, probably since the Pleistocene, and finding an entrance was pure chance. We had constructed the road you came up and a platform for condemnation drilling. Sorry, the road is a bit precarious. If this is the major find we think it is, we'll find more money to improve it. Hopefully, the government or some institution, maybe Yale, will chip in."

"Condemnation drilling?" asked Sean.

"To make sure there isn't mineralization in the valley. We were doing a geologic study to determine if the valley was suitable for mill tailings disposal. You don't want to discover an ore deposit under your tailings after the fact. But instead of mineralization, we uncovered the cave when we excavated the pad for the drill rig. The presence of the cave indicated a karst system, which ruined our plans for using the valley for tailings--more specifically, the water associated with the tailings, which we need to recover. With karst present, we would possibly need to line the whole facility to ensure the water didn't escape. Anyhow, we had to give the board of directors the bad news. Our CEO, however, had a lot of questions about the cave. The following week, we sent some of our miners in. What they found was pretty amazing, so as opposed to covering up the cave entrance, we were told to stabilize it, construct a portal, and make the cave system available for exploration and research."

"I'd like to send the man a bottle of good scotch," said Alan. "Most companies would have just buried the hole."

"Woman, actually. You can deliver it personally and brief her on your expedition. She would appreciate that. She might even fly you to Vancouver on the company jet."

"That would be the least I could do. This is a fantastic opportunity."

"I better let you get to it. Good luck."

"Thanks, Lorenzo, and thanks to your company," said Alan, which was echoed by the other cavers as they picked up their gear.

<<<< -- >>>>

Each of them hefted on their pack, donned their helmet, and turned on their headlamp as they entered the gated concrete portal. The initial section of the cave did nothing to reveal what was to come, having been partially filled by the rockslide, they worked inward along an edge of the filled cavern, solid rock to the right, the wreckage of the hillside to the left. The mining company and earlier teams of cavers had made a path through the debris. The uneven trail was, in effect, built on talus, which was loose underfoot and a threat to twist an ankle before even encroaching 100 feet into the underworld. As the passage opened up, they needed to work their way down a steep slope of loose rock and dirt. At the bottom of the slope, Alan paused and inhaled deeply. "You smell that?"

"What?" asked one of the team members.

"The Earth. The wet, musty smell of the underground. For me, it's like walking into a bakery with bread in the oven. It's a comforting smell."

"Forget the smell," said Scarlet, "look around."

No one else responded to his analogy; they were all transfixed, having entered a dark cathedral of flowing stone. The passage opened into an immense cavern with massive dripstone formations. Those first formations alone made the trip worthwhile. As they started walking, no one spoke except for the occasional, look at that. Alan never tired of seeing the exotic forms created by slowly dripping water loaded with calcium carbonate--the stalactites, stalagmites, ribbed drapes, columns, and delicate features like straws. In one alcove, there was a frozen cascade of smooth stone. Often, behind the nearby spectral forms, there was just blackness, unilluminated by their lights, giving the impression of a void empty of all earthly matter. Another hundred feet further along the passage, he led them along a winding path through a forest of stalagmites, which someday might merge with the stalactites hanging from the ceiling above them. The roots of the teeth hanging above were barely visible in the light of their headlamps.

"It's much more humid in here," said Norman. "I'm sweating without even being in the sun."

"Yeah," replied Alan. "It's especially noticeable because it was so dry outside. What do you think of the slope we are walking down? Does it feel right to you?"

"It seems odd for a cave," said Sean. "Is it?"

"It is," said Marcus, one of the experienced cavers. "What's up, Alan?"

"I suspect that as the Andes were uplifted, tectonic forces tilted the cave. It will be interesting to see if this has resulted in any curved or bent stalagmites or stalactites."

"That is interesting and all, but I've never seen anything like this cave period," said Nicolet. "Except maybe Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. We visited there when I was seven."

"The caves in Kentucky are nothing like this," said one of the other students.

"The scale of this cavern is immense; I'll give you that," said Alan.

"If it wasn't for all the formations filling this place, you could play a football match in here," said Sean.

"He means soccer," added Nicolet. "Are we going to do any mapping or anything in here?"

"Speleothems," said Alan. "You should recall from class that's what karst formations are called. And, no, we are just passing through. What lies beyond our lights will remain a mystery to us--others have already mapped this cavern. We're headed for terra incognita, and if we spend all our time gawking, we'll never get there."

After 20 minutes of wandering through the cavern, Alan stopped and scanned the map he had been provided. "We should almost be through the Entrance Cavern."

"Is that what they called it?" said Scarlet. "That's pretty unimaginative given what we have seen."

"There are more passages and caverns on this level, but what we are looking for is a large shaft. We should be near it. For the benefit of my students, it seems that the water level fell as the Andes rose. Each time the uplift paused, a new horizontal cave system formed. The water in the caves had to find its way downward as the water level dropped. Therefore, the levels are connected by vertical shafts and chimneys, and apparently, some became quite large. So far, no one has reached the bottom where the current groundwater table resides. As I mentioned in Lima, the Peruvian team that explored and mapped this level will work on the next level down when they return. We are going one level deeper. That bother anybody?"

None of the students spoke up, but Nicolet's heartbeat increased, and her stomach tightened. The expedition was now very real, and this was the moment she needed to commit. She wanted to give in to her reservations but just couldn't--no one else had.

"Okay. Listen up," he said a bit louder to get the attention of the team members who hadn't been listening to his lecture. What amounted to a normal voice sounded like a shout in the cavern. The only other sound was an occasional drip landing in a puddle somewhere nearby. What sounded like a leaky faucet seemed impossibly loud for what it was. "We should be coming up on a shaft, so watch where you walk. The other teams have marked the area around it with a rope, but there is no assurance that you won't walk up on it without warning. This is where we will descend. Once down, we will set our first camp."

"Is this the deep one you told us about, or is it the next one?" Nicolet asked, working to overcome her nerves. She had some experience rappelling, and Alan had checked them all out on the rope back home. But she had never rappelled down a black hole.

"It's the second one. But this one is almost 400 feet deep, which is plenty deep. We'll do it in three rappels, and because the shaft is tilted like everything in this upper cave, it'll be relatively easy for those of you not used to dropping down holes in caves. We'll descend from the opposite side, and your feet will be on rock the whole way down. But it is a steep slope, the rock is slippery, and obviously, it's dark, so be very careful. That means everyone. All the rope and anchors we need have been set for this leg. The next shaft is where we'll earn our money."

"We're getting paid for this?" asked one of the students, who Alan recognized was Norman, a bit of a smart ass.

"No, you're paying me, remember, or at least your parents pay the university who pays me."

"You said before that the second shaft will be the crux," said Norman. "Can you explain?"

"Okay. Now is a good time to go over this since we're starting our rappels, and you're all starting to pay attention. To start with, this first shaft has been traversed several times. The cavern below is a bit smaller than this one, and the Peruvian team has already mapped the route between the two shafts. The second shaft to get to where we are going is larger and deeper. One team made it to the bottom but didn't get a chance to look around. We'll have multiple rappels to descend the 880 feet, plus or minus, which is the first challenge. Fortunately, there are some benches. The first of these rappels might unnerve some of you; it will me. You'll be suspended in thin air as you drop from one side of the tilted shaft to the other. We can't access the backside of the shaft like we can this one. The next issue is that it will be getting wetter. Much of the water in this cavern is flowing down that hole, and the deeper we go, the wetter it gets."

"The good news is most of the climbing gear has already been ferried to the shaft entrance, which was a major effort," added Scarlet. "We just need to set new anchors and ropes."

"Why did the first team not just leave the ropes in place?" asked a student. That would have saved some effort."

"The water in this cave has a very high dissolved minerals content," said Alan. "If the rope gets wet, minerals can precipitate and grow in the rope, which breaks the fibers down. It won't be a problem for our short stay, but any longer, and we'd want to ascend on new rope. The rope stays dry in this first shaft, but still, the Peruvians change it often anyway."

"Anyone having second thoughts?" asked Scarlet.

One of the professional cavers raised his hand.

"Not challenging enough for you, Marcus?" asked Alan of the lanky Australian.

"No, sounds fun. Which way to the restroom?"

"Funny," said Scarlet.

"Okay, if we're good to go, let's find the first shaft. Someone needs to start naming some of these things. Once we're in virgin territory, we can be the ones who come up with some creative names."

<<<< -- >>>>

Alan was pleased that the students seemed to have fun with the first descent. A couple had hesitated to take the first step over the lip, but they all managed it. To descend, you basically walked backward down the side of the shaft while on the rope. Once down, the team settled on a large flat ledge just a few feet off the main cavern floor for an evening meal and a night's sleep. Alan settled down next to Scarlet on his light sleeping pad. The cave was a comfortable 69 F; there was no need for elaborate sleeping gear so long as it was not too wet. They left one lantern on so that people would remember where they were if they woke in the middle of the night and, importantly, could find their gear, like their waste bag.

Scarlet asked Alan, "What are you thinking?"