Day 17 Saturday 03/10/09

We were told of cave near a village up the valley called Tawaya. It was said that no foreign cavers had been down this cave and there was a pitch to a river. It was possible to drive, off road to within a 15 minute walk of the cave entrance.


We drove with Abdellah on the back of JC’s bike and parked in a dry river bed, 2 minutes from the cave. Unfortunately the recent bad weather had completely filled the cave entrance with stones. So Abdellah, JC and a local went up the hillside to look at other entrances that the local knew of. When they came back down JC had two small entrances to look in, so we packed up some lightweight caving kit, survey kit and some photography gear and headed up the hillside in the midday heat!

We picked our way up the steep hillside to a cave entrance. JC crawled in first followed by MC and EP. After a short crawl we entered a chamber which continued in a small tube. JC stopped in another small chamber and you could hear water dripping and echoing. MC pushed on, only to be confronted by a sump in the bottom of the chamber. The cave was surveyed out (approx. 90m).

Another smaller cave entrance, lower down the hillside, had been seen by JC, so we headed for this. JC squeezed in but it ended at approx 5m.

On the way back to Tabant, JC got the first puncture of the trip. This was soon mended in the village at the local tyre repair shop at a cost of £2.00. We all headed back to Abdellah’s gite, joined by Tanya and Abdellah. There was talk of a long, horizontal cave in the High Atlas mountains. It would be a one day walk-in with mules. We decided to spend the next three days exploring this area.