Juan Céspedes - caving 

Today we went to visit a small cave in Buelna, Asturias, called Cobijeru, next to a beach with the same name.

I went with Richi, rover, Cris, Viti, Isabel and Alberto, all of them from Katiuskas.

The most interesting thing of this small cave is that it has two entries: one of them is next to the beach, and has a very easy access, and the other one goes to a cliff above the sea.

"La Cueva del Orón" (Oron's Cave) is a famous cave in Mazarrón, Murcia, whose entrance is on a cliff beside the sea. The access is very nice, and to reach the entrance we had to go down steel cable handrails, stairs, ledges with ribbons, and finally a fractioned rappel which leaves us next to the cave.

The cave is quite comfortable and can be made whole without harness. There are just a couple of places with ropes, but they are easy to pass. There are some narrow places and the cave is quite hot, but it is very nice and has very good speleothems (helictite). The cave ends up in a lake of lightly salt water, and a siphon that leads to the sea. Of course, the lakes are for bathing, and we did so.

In total we were 15 people (Ruly, Esther, Gabi, María, Jesús, José Carlos, Raquel, José Miguel, Puri, Cris, Viti, Rykky, Álvaro, Trini and me) and it took us 11 hours in total (3 hours to get to the cave, 5 inside, and 3 to come back).

The "Cueva de la Mona", also known as "Cueva de la Niña Bonita", is a cave located in the Jan's municipality of Baños de la Encina. However, it is not a natural cave: it was dug in slate, near the castle: from a nearby track towards it.

However, the cave was never finished, and it ends abruptly having about 50m length.

There is a legend that tells us that the digging was ordered by a rich person who wanted to arrive to the hidden treasures under the castle.

Back from our holidays, in our way from Jaén to Madrid, we stopped to look for a geocache in Santa Elena, in the Parque Natural de Despeñaperros: Journey to the Paleolithic - Cave of the dolls.

It is in the path called "Cerro del Castillo", which guides us to the "cave", which is actually a shelter with some ancient paintings.

Everything begun at 6:30 in the morning. David (secretary of the federation), Juan Carlos, Juanky, Ruly and I met in Calle Berrocal, next to David's house, to go to the Refugio de la Zapatilla, in Valsalobre.

We were ready to practicing in our Caving Rescue team.. The activity coordinator was Cartuli, and we were the last to get there (everyone else had arrived on Friday night and had spent the night there.)

None of us knew for sure what cave we were about to go, but many of us thought it will probably be Manuel Mozo, so we didn't expect many surprises. But, in order to get to the cave, Cartuli proposed a "game": we are about to simulate that we don't know how to get there, and all we have are the GPS coordinates and a map.

So, Cartuli chose two people as an exploration group (Juanky and Jesus el murciano), he gave them a GPS and the coordinates, a map, and they told them to go inside a car. Everyone else should follow them. After a while they took the road to Manuel Mozo, but the GPS started to send them to another place... after taking two or three turns, we left the car next to the road and went on walking... until we found the point marked by the GPS: Sima Diana!

For those of you who don't know it, I shall say that Sima Diana is known to be "Flash secret cave", because they seem to know it rather well, but it doesn't appear in the books and it is not well known by the rest of the caving groups, despite being very close to the Zapatilla.

After arriving there, we began working on the practice; the supposed wounded is David, and the people is divided into two GII; in one of them, the team leader is Juanfe, and their rescuers are Juanky, Pedro, Gabi and me. We take care of rising the injured from the bottom of the cave by a 26 meters well, and then carry him by a ramp. The other GII is led by Isaac, and the rescuers are Juan Carlos, Jesús (Murcia), Ruly and rover.

The practice runs smoothly. The pit was not prepared at all for a rescue, so we had to place a lot of spits (I remember my GII placed about 15) and the rock, despite seeming bad at first, is very hard and holds up well.

We finished ashortly after dusk, and a few of us went back to Madrid, while the others stayed to do something more on Sunday.

Well, that day came. Today, 7 people went to Reguerillo: Roberto Lumbreras, Álvaro Hernández Tortosa, Rubén Salas, Irene García, Álvaro Navarro, Yaiza Temprado and me. We did the normal path (first and second level) without problems, except for a little crisis by anavarro after the "Paso del Tablón". At that time, two guys overtook us; they were moving with no helmet, no cave suit, no harness, no headlamp... and it seemed that it was the first time they went into a cave. We still don´t know if they were able to get out of the cave, or if they are still inside.

In the picture, Irene, showing us her flexibility in "El Tobogán".

Today is AHT's birthday. Belén wanted to surprise him, going all of us where he was having lunch with Víctor, and give him a caving helmet.

We were 5 people: Víctor, Belén, rover, aht and me.