Stalagmites and Stalactites
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2004
1
15
48
Trip End
Dec 24, 2004
Postojna,
Slovenia
Friday, October 22, 2004
Hudičevec Tourist Farm
. After checking in, I browsed through my travel book and head off to Skocjan Cave. This cave is listed as UNESCO world heritage site since it has an underground river and a deep canyon all inside the cave. The only problem for this cave is there is NO public transportation to get there. I ended up taking the bus to the nearest town, Divača, and walked 3-4 km through some muddy trails to the entrance of the cave. The cave, as expected, is worth all the trouble. The deep canyon inside the cave, along with the crushing river and thousands of stalagmites and stalactites are very impressive. I left the cave around 5 pm and took a lesser strenuous route, the highway, back to Divača. The only issue I have now is I missed the last bus to get back to Hudičevec Tourist farm. I asked around including the lady in the bar, the man in the train station about how do I go about getting back. They said I can try catching the train to Postojna and take the bus back. Lots of effort not knowing if there is actually a bus coming back. I finally gave up and tried to call the taxi except the public phone only takes local phone card and nothing else. I begged the man at the train station for help. So he called the taxi driver and found out the my ride for 15 km would have cost me 35 Euros. I took sympathy on me and gave me a ride to the tourist farm. I was very thankful. He told me on the car that there used to be 12 buses and 10+ trains that go south on the same route 10 years ago. Except that after Slovenia became independent from Yugoslavia that there was no need for such frequent train or bus services
Path to Skocjan Cave
. Slovene government almost cancelled the entire public transportation route. This is such a shame. It gives travellers much unneeded headaches. I got back safe and sound and decided to reward myself with that Slovenian feast to mentioned earlier, mmmm was is good!!! On day 22, after I had the delicious Slovenian breakfast ( consists of egg, cheese, thinly sliced air dried ham, jam, honey and bread ) I bid goodbye to the nice host family and moved onto Postojna. I was originally going to visit Piran, which is on the Adriatic cost, for the day and return to the tourist farm, but from the lesson I learned the night before, I gave up the idea and decided to move on. Postojna (pronounced as posto-ee-na) is also famous for its touristy caves and castle. Since the city is on my way to Split, and my bus for Split won't leave until 8:30 pm, I have then decided to spend the day here. The weather has been bad with rain and drizzles. But because I will be in the cave, it wouldn't have made the difference. This cave is more like visiting 'the Small world' in Disney World. It is complete with tram ride into the cave, guided tour in 5 different languages and souvenir shop in and around the cave. I managed to get some nicer pictures because the lighting was much better in this cave. Since I still got some time after the cave visit, I went to the Speleology museum and took a quick tour. Speleology is an active branch of science in this area for its richness in cave life and biology
Postojna Cave
. the museum has interesting animals like the Human Fish, which is really a salamander with no eyes, white body, external gills, 4 legs and a tail. It is extremely well adopted to complete darkness of the cave and it feeds on small insects that live in the cave. Couple other things I have to share with you abut my visit in Slovenia. Whenever I travel on the bus, I can hear the loud contemporary music in English. There is this one bus driver who spoke no English but he knows every American singers from the 50s and 60s including Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. No only does he know them by names, he is play their sounds on the bus. I am quite amazed about the extend of the American influence here. Another event, quite frightening is that I was waiting for the bus near the tourist farm when this guy ran his car into the mound and flipped the car over. I found out because of the loud bang. I walked over to make sure the guy was Okay. Fortunately he crawled out the car unharmed (except a totaled car), I asked if he is fine which he said it is. He them started to used the cell phone to call for help while a police pulled up to ask him what happened. As I began to walk away, I saw a crowd forming the watch the whole drama unfold.....
