Day 4 Sunday 20/09/09

Spain


Having driven away from Matienzo with a Land Rover full of wet kit, the rain soon stopped. The plan was to visit some show caves on our way south. The first cave was close to Matienzo and contained some prehistoric cave art. We walked up to Cueva de Covalanas and paid our 3 euros. We were taken into the cave to see some amazing paintings that were 20,000 years old and yet very clear and easy to make out. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed in the cave.
Drove down to Palencia and found a Hostal (cheap hotel) but spent an hour trying to find somewhere to park the Land Rover and bike. Once we had parked and locked up and walked back to the Hostal, there was parking space outside the place – so we moved the vehicles again! We got a triple room with Wifi for 54 euros and it gave us chance to dry kit that got soaked the night before and catch up on emails and the blog.

Day 3 Saturday 19/09/09

Spain

Docked at Bilbao on time and disembarked into light rain. Drove to what we thought was Matienzo but even with John hurtling round the quiet village looking for “Pedro’s bar” on his bike, we were none the wiser in finding the camp site. Finally we checked a map that Emma printed off from the Matienzo cave website and realised that there was another Matienzo 15 miles away! Once in the correct Matienzo we found the German bar described in the write-up and set-up camp (having discovered that there is no Pedro’s bar!) and it started to rain.

We met Pete (Pedro) in the bar at night and agreed to meet the next morning to arrange a caving trip. The rain did not stop through the night and we awoke to find our tents “afloat”. It was decided to knock the caving trip on the head and escape to a sunnier climate.

Day 1 Thursday 17/09/09

....and they’re off!

We’ve finally left after a slight (3 day) delay due to Syrian visa problems. John and Val had their visas refused due to an Egyptian stamp in their passports. They had flown into Taba (in Egypt) but Syria believes this to be Israeli land rented to Egypt and thus, they had been to Israel – so no visa! This meant purchasing new passports and reapplying for the Syrian visa. Add in to the equation a postal strike in the UK, John and Val got their visas the day before we set off but only thanks to Lewis travelling to London to collect the passports from the Syrian embassy.

After a night without going to bed for certain people (EP) to finish off planning for Hidden Earth (the UK annual caving conference – which we will miss!) and a mad rush at the end, it was an uneventful drive to Portsmouth to catch the ferry to Spain. Upon arrival at the ferry terminal we find there is a 3 hour delay for the ferry. We finally set sail at midnight bound for Bilbao.

So, what are our objectives?

• Our primary objective on our journey will be to pursue our shared passion of cave exploration in Northern Africa and the Middle East, writing about and photographing the underground world, hopefully finding caverns measureless to man ........ Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey to Europe
• Our other objectives are to travel across the roof of Africa recording our journey and people we meet through photography and video, to leave our footprints on the mountains, scuba dive in warm waters, ski in our "second home" of Lebanon and to never stop exploring.