Get Physical Under Budapest

For a rush of adrenaline, the Naszály Caves is definitely the place you need.

Speleology, or the study of caves, has been around for a long time, but few know much about it. The closest an average person gets to it is by taking a nice stroll through great chambers, with a tour guide shouting every five minutes, “Don’t touch the dripstones!”

But there is more than just science to Speleology. In fact, it’s tough, hard, dirty and exhausting. It’s extreme; it’s a sport; it’s Spelunking.

When you have to walk forty-five minutes in a pitch black forest up a slope that makes you feel like you’re going vertical, you think the hard part is over. Wrong. It’s just warm-up.
The next day you wake up at six a.m.—no running water, no TV, just a tent and back pain from the ground you slept on. You’re tired but excited. In two hours, you’ll be entering a world you never knew before: the underground. But first, you need your gear.

Rubber boots come in handy. So do clothes you don’t mind getting ten kilos of clay on. Ropes and carabiners are necessities. The helmet with the lamp, do not start without that. After five minutes and fifteen head-bumps on the rocks above you, you realize how much you need it.

After you get your gear, you begin the trip. A short walk through the woods in the Naszály hills and you arrive in front of a hole in the ground: a hole that goes a hundred and seventy meters deep and has so many mosquitoes at its entrance you are bound to swallow at least a dozen while sliding inside.

Thick rock walls close in around your shoulders and complete darkness welcomes you. It’s a cool 8.4 degrees Celsius, inside which feels nice after a hot summer morning. The descent starts with climbing down a series of ladders attached to the cave wall. When you look down from the top of a six-story high ladder and see nothing but darkness and the occasional bat, it takes courage to continue.

After a few hundred steps on the ladders, you leave your ropes behind (which were making sure you don’t fall if you let go of the metalwork) and start using nothing but your arms, legs and the rock. This is where it gets real nasty. A slip of the hand and you are down a ten-meter deep precipice, but your fellow cavers are keeping an eye on you. You keep an eye on them, too. The tunnels are narrow; a shoulder-wide one is a rarity. The walls are slippery; it takes all your strength to pull yourself up or lower your body while balancing on muddy rocks waiting to plummet from beneath your feet.

Two hours of climbing and you are still not at the endpoint, almost two hundred meters underground. Sweat and clay have completely soaked your clothes. You are hungry and tired, but you have got to move. If you stop, the cool air chills you to your bones.

Ticks the size of fingernails are resting peacefully on the walls, unable to move from all the bat blood they sucked. You take a glance and then you are gone, lost between massive rocks posing as the entrance to another narrow tunnel.

When you finally reach the endpoint, you think again about sitting down for a while to catch your breath, but you can’t. Everything is wet and cold. You miss the sun. You try to keep from freezing by doing jumping jacks. You realize the chamber you are in is no longer the size of cardboard box. You stand up, examine the walls, and get a bite of the chocolate you brought before getting down on your knees again and starting your ascent.

The climb back up is even harder. Your fingers are numb, but you need a good grip on the wet stone, otherwise you’ll fall. Your muscles are already fatigued by the trip down and you need everything you’ve got to get back up, to push yourself up, through a gap between two rocks just to end up in between another two, where there’s barely enough space to raise your head.

Crawling downwards you did not think about how creeping up the same tunnels would feel. But, if you want to feel that sunshine, the only way up is climbing.

When, finally, you emerge from the darkness into that familiar mosquito-plagued hole, the sense of relief is overwhelming. You swallow a few protein-rich bites and feel the sun shining on you for the first time in nine hours. You are thankful. The aching muscles, nasty bruises that won’t fade for weeks, numb fingers and toes: none of that matters. You are out. You can look up and see something blue, not black. You can hear birds and the wind through the leaves, not just the breathing of your three caving mates and yourself.

But something is bothering you. You would like to go back. You would, without hesitation. That’s the beauty of it. The cave cold, dark, narrow, moist, and tiring, yet it gets the adrenaline going like nothing else, but beware! Even as a one-time caver, I know doing this requires commitment. If you get caught up in it, it may change your life. It can become more than a sport; it can easily turn into a lifestyle.

Naszály Hill, part of the Northern-Middle Mountains of Hungary, is just outside of Vác. It can be reached by train, bus or car. For more about the Naszály trips, visit the website of the Troglonauta Speleology Society  or contact them via e-mail. They are more than happy to welcome tourists, adventurers, and anybody interested in the world of caves!

Words by Gábor Zilahi for XpatLoop.com

Edited by Ben Brundage