journal: THE PERUVIAN OUBLIETTE

The last DCG meeting of 2005 was last night and it ended in full Grotto fashion.  The nominations for new officers for 2006 occurred, followed by the standard announcements, with DCG preparing for yuletide cheer with activities ranging from Christmas caroling through our current Chair's neighborhood, wrapping presents for a Toys-for-Tots-esque program which provides gifts for children year-round, to the annual DCG New Year's and fireworks bash at the TAG Cave-In site.

One of my favorite parts of our meetings are the trip presentations done at the ends of meetings.  This month, Andy presented a trip he took with Ashley last July to Peru, where Andy was later joined by four other cavers from the U.S.   The trip takes about a week to get from the US to the actual caving site itself---traveling by plane, train, bus, and mule caravan.  From what Andy was saying, this area of Peru, past mega-ruins site Machu-Pichu, through another civilization that predates the Incans, leads up into virtually untouched territory---a vast mountainous chain of limestone caves upwards of 15, 000 feet above sea level. 

The magnitude of undiscovered caves is staggering.  From what he was able to explore on this trip, the majority of his findings were pits rather than networks, but given the size of the mountains and just the number of openings he came across, he just may find "the deepest cave in the world" in this area.  One interesting find were the number of human remains at the bottoms of some of the pits---some looked like they were formally arranged, burial style, while others looked like they had either fallen (or were pushed?).  If there ever was an oubliette, "a place where you put people to forget about them"---these pits, 4000 vertical feet away from the nearest village, would be a disquieting network of them.

The recommended time to take future journeys---so many caves to survey (Andy & Co. GPS'd as many locations as they could so they could start a log going)---is 3+ weeks, ideally a month or more.

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