Socotra, Part III

The next day we headed off for our hike to the cave. This particular cave is very famous within Socotra because of the stalagmites and stalactites and a 1200 year old communion cup …but we’ll get to that later.

Throughout the day we encountered much of the amazing flora and fauna that gave rise to Socotra’s nickname “the other Galapagos”. We saw bottle trees and dragon’s blood trees (one of which we're standing under in the photo below), flowering aloe plants and numerous others.

This little guy was crossing the path as we climbed the mountain. He was very cute until Sean picked him up. If you’ve never seen a chameleon hiss take our word for it that they look incredibly menacing for such a small lizard.

There were also several trees full of Egyptian Vultures who are jokingly referred to as Socotra’s waste management plan (being the only one they’ve got). They were everywhere on the island and very brazen.

Well, back to the mountain. The climb was punishing, under a blistering sun and very little shade. But we made it the cave's mouth in a high cliff, and our efforts were well rewarded. The view down to the coast was spectacular and the cave was enormous! With a fifty-foot ceiling and consistently one hundred feet from wall to wall, this gigantic cave wanders back through the earth forabout three kilometres from the cliff's face - no crawl spaces for us.

It was an hour hike in from the mouth and the only light was provided by our flashlights, with which we were constantly scanning under, above and around us because we didn’t want to miss one square millimeter of this incredible place. I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves. The first is a shot of Wugdi, our guide, standing on a hill inside the cave, backlit by the entrance (he's that little speck in the bottom right of the light).

And here's Nic rounding the first of many massive pillars, followed by a shot of three of us in the first section where daylight was still visible.

Deep in the cave and a long way from
the light of day (but not far from the light of a camera flash) we came upon a crystal-clear freshwater pool, from which we all drank; the water was pure and cold and tasted great.

Just 20 minutes beyond that we reached the cup. Legend connects it to an early and long-extinct Christian community on the island,

which had its beginning when an early Socotran king was healed by a travelling missionary. It was partly encased in limestone and minerals but very well preserved.

After taking an obscene number of pictures we decided to turn off all our lights. A darkness thick and profound surrounded us, so intense that it would probably be useless to attempt a description.

We made our way out, passing some old writing on the way (our guide told us it was 2000 years old, but we had our doubts – he also told us it was French). I had been struggling with sickness the whole day and so it was with relief that we spotted the car at the bottom.

For the next couple of days I fought with a parasite in my stomach that caused quite a ruckus, but feeling better we decided to venture to a remote village and take some camels for a spin. That and more in Socotra Part IV!

~Ruth