The Belly of the Beast
Trip Start
Jun 02, 2007
1
47
Trip End
Ongoing
Tangkahan,
Indonesia
Friday, October 3, 2008
The mouth of the cave yawned ahead, the entrance to the belly of a great beast. Inside, crouching in the dark, their flashlights shining on the slick grey walls, Jack, a guide in Tangkahan, and Sendhi, my new friend from Aceh, encouraged me to enter.
"Come on, Wendy. It's all right!"
Inside the belly of the beast, somewhere in the depths of hell, bats squealed. The scent of guano, strong and ammoniac, like the inside of a diaper pail, made my nostrils twinge in revulsion. Jacqui, my pal from Pulau Weh, and Preen, the guide who had taken me on an elephant trek earlier this year, were waiting. From the lip of the cave, a thick moustache of jungle vegetation dripped on our heads.
"It's all right, mate," Jacqui encouraged. "Face your fears."
The rocks were slippery and slimy. Behind Jack and Sendhi the gullet of the cave narrowed, leading deeper inside.
I imagined, in my usual overactive way, what would happen if I entered. Maybe an earthquake would rattle the cave so rocks crashed down on our heads, cracking our skulls and sealing us in this tomb forever. Because, let's face it, Sumatra is earthquake central.
I already felt trapped, unable to breathe.
"I don't even like elevators," I protested. (Or the idea of marriage. Or a nine-to-five job. Trapped, trapped, trapped!)
"How long will it take to get through this thing?"
"About one hour," Jack replied.
"An hour? Oh, God!" I groaned. "I can't do it!" Suddenly I felt like the city girl I am. What was I doing, going out on these crazy adventures, risking life and limb in a world so filled with hidden dangers?
I stood frozen at the entrance, unable to move forward or back. If I went back to the beach where Ucok was waiting with the inner tubes for rafting downriver, I might be lost in the woods. And I didn't want to make someone walk back with me. It would just be embarrassing. This was no time to be a wuss. I had to go forward.
I stepped into the cave.
"Atta girl!" said Jac.
Preen took my trembling hand and led me over the tumble of rocks. "I want to go to Sun Plaza," I whined, bare flip-flopped feet squelching in the mud. He just laughed, as he always does, at my stupid jokes.
My freshly polished toenails, from a recent pedicure at Enamel on the fourth floor at Sun, were now caked in mud and blood from several leechings during our four-hour trek. The leeches, snug between my toes, had grown so fat on my blood they looked like garden slugs. I had screeched when I discovered them, blood pooling in my flip flops. I pried them off, their barbed little mouths dragging in my flesh, and chucked their fat bodies, along with a pint of my blood, with relish into the river. To think they were used in the Mediaeval times to cure illness. Didn't anyone notice they didn't actually work?
It certainly still felt like Mediaeval times. Little draculas sucking my blood, and now bats-hundreds of them-clinging upside down from the roof of the cave. Exposed by the glare of our flashlights, they screeched and flew around like a bunch of crackheads under a bridge being raided by the cops.
"It's all right, darlings, we won't hurt you," Jacquie soothed.
"Eek! Eek!" they cried indignantly.
"Wow! So cool!" said Sendhi.
"Let's get out of here," I said, slipping along the path. Add bat guano to the list of insults to my freshly pedicured feet.
It's amazing how much fear can make you sweat. I was drenched, and my muscles quivered with adrenaline. The place felt like a crypt. How could Sendhi and Jac be so relaxed at a time like this, spelunking along so happily?
Our flashlights revealed narrow openings further into the darkness. It looked like we were going through the intestines now, like one of those microscopic cameras doctors use to inspect people's colons. Along the sides of the passage were mini caves, bat apartments in a big bat apartment building.
"Hey cool, let's look for buried treasure!" said Jac.
"Yeh, we're pirates looking for loot!" said Sendhi.
I would do anything to be out of here and in the arms of Jack Sparrow, that's for sure. Maybe if we ran it would take only 45 minutes. I scurried further into the belly of the beast, pushing Jack along. "It's okay, it's okay," he kept saying in an attempt to comfort me, but it wasn't working, especially when he took a wrong turn and eroded my confidence even further. Great. Trapped in here forever.
We reached another polyp of bats.
"Eek!" one shrilled. I could hear the swoop of its wings as it came at me. Then I felt the impact of its soft, furry body as it crashed into my head, wings flapping in my hair.
"EEK! EEK! EEEEEEEEEK!"
That was me shrieking.
I had a fit akin to an epileptic seizure and the bat flew away. Crouched behind me, Preen was grinning and the girls were all giggles.
"Sorry for laughing, mate, but that was pretty funny."
At least someone thought so.
Resigned to my fate as a captive in the very depths of hell, I pulled out my camera to see what kind of photo I could get of it. My flashed bounced in the darkness. I pressed the button to have a look. I gasped.
The cave was golden. Like the inside of Aladdin's cave, rimmed with elegant archways. I half expected a genie to emerge out of a golden lamp, or a pile of coins. It wasn't the depths of hell after all. It was beautiful.
I felt better, and even began to enjoy it a little. Suddenly I felt about 12 years old, on a special adventure. As we scrambled through the twisting corridors, my imagination led me back to that same age, when I wrote my first book. It was called "Riley Rover, Dog Detective," and I wrote it in a spiral bound notebook, complete with pencil illustrations, curled up on the couch.
I followed the story down into the recesses of memory, where Riley and his pal Snoopy (Peanuts was my favourite comic back then, except this Snoopy is a Yorkshire terrier) track some jewellery thieves into a cave. Riley, a pipe-smoking mongrel in a tweedy Sherlock Holmes cape, discovers the treasure heaped in the cave (the illustration shows lots of dollar bills poking out, too).
But then a big flood comes--there is an underground river edged in blue felt pen for effect--sweeping them away. The good news is they all survive, and the flood has helped to flush out the thieves (one a raccoon with bandit eyes). They are promptly put in jail, where they belong. Riley and Snoop manage to hold onto the loot (their heads are poking out of the river, along with bulging gunny sacks) and save the day. Way to go, guys!
I was a bit sorry when we reached the other end. Ucok was curled up fast asleep on the inner tubes, which he had lashed together and tied to the rocks.
I raised my arms in triumph. Like Riley and Snoop, I had made it out alive and was all the richer for it. Even better, this was a treasure I could keep in the storehouse of my memory.
"I can't believe I was so scared," I said.
"I'm proud of you, mate," said Jac.
We jumped in the tubes and made our getaway on the rain-swollen river.
This business of facing fears is pretty cool.
