Cueva del Gato
Jon Riley
An account of a trip through a cave in southern Spain
It had taken us a lot of time to find out about this caving trip. Even after exhaustive information gathering in dreadful Spanish and sign language, we had very little to go on. We knew that it was a through trip of about 5 km with lots of swimming, some big caverns and pull-through abseils. We were pretty sure that we had parked at the correct exit, an impressive gash in the cliff face from which a small stream flowed. We had a vague idea of where the entrance was, though we hadn’t actually seen it, for all we knew we could have been going into one cave and parking outside of the exit to somewhere completely different!
The entrance to the Cueva del Gato (Cat Cave) lies in the bottom of a steep sided gorge blocked at both ends, to the West by a cliff, similar in height to Malham Cove, with the cave entrance in the shape of a slot, c30′ wide and 90′ high, in the middle of the face and to the East by a 200′ concrete dam!
The Spanish had built the dam in the hope of catching water between it and the cliff face and the story goes that for a time it did hold some water, until suddenly the level dropped and the water disappeared into the ground, leaving the dam wall high and dry. It was only after several attempts at plugging the holes with everything from concrete to dynamite that the Spanish discovered this enormous cave, put two and two together and linked the disappearance of the water from the reservoir to the massive flooding of the river in the next valley! whether the cave entrance has since been enlarged by man or nature we are still unsure. We think that the next stage in the history of the cave was for it to become a show cave of some sort, because as you walk in you follow a series of man made platforms and ramps. Throughout the cave you can see old timber walkways and platforms at the most spectacular formations.
After walking along in the enormous entrance passageway for about ten minutes we came to the first pool with a handline down into it and apparently no return once you let go! The water was extremely cold as we slid in and swam the few metres across the pool to struggle out at the other side, at this point three of our party decided that maybe caving wasn’t such a great idea after all and turned back, leaving Stuart and me to carry on.
There really is nothing like caving with very little information as to what comes next to sharpen your senses and keep you excited and we had to make it up as we went along when we came to what appeared to be a dead end sump. We decided to double back a short way and soon found two very thin steel cables in the roof, one above the other, spanning a 30′ deep pit with an old wooden ladder on the other side. Unfortunately I was the lighter so I got the dubious pleasure of testing the traverse first. With my feet on the low cable and my hands and cows tails clipped into the upper cable I slowly edged across to the other side looking straight down into the pit, I reached the other side and waited for Stuart and then climbed the rickety ladder to find myself looking down into a chamber with the way on marked by a series of pools and pull through abseils, we had bypassed the dead end. We felt a mixture of relief and anxiety because it had taken us half an hour and we had made little progress into the cave however it turned out that this was the only awkward piece of route finding.
After the abseils we found ourselves swimming in canals with similar proportions to Kingsdale Master Cave in static water with just the sound of our flaring carbide lamps to punctuate the silence. Really the only thing that worried us was getting trapped by some of the submerged walkway that we were swimming alongside. After about a kilometre of swimming, broken only by large boulders to rest on, the water abruptly ended and we found ourselves in a large perfectly circular chamber with a 15′ high white stalagmite boss dead in the centre, certainly one of the most amazing formations that I have ever seen. The chamber was followed by some lower wider passages with sand and clay floors which then plunged into another canal section ending in a tall thin boulder strewn dry chamber with a wall that had been covered in calcite, it was perfectly white and reflected our light illuminating the large cavern. This was quickly followed by a final swim before smelling the outside world, feeling the heat of a southern Spanish summer and once again being in daylight.
We allowed ourselves to be taken downstream by the gentle current and almost caused an elderly Spanish woman to fall of a bridge at the entrance as she thought we were two dead bodies floating past! We met with the others at the cafe and they recounted the story of their trip back to the car in the back of an empty meat wagon who’s driver had given them a lift. We realised that in fact the trip had taken us about five hours and we had swum and waded for about 2.5 km of the 5km trip. In all it was a great through trip with some challenging swimming and amazing scenery. Remember though to take a thick wetsuit!
Information
Location: The Cueva del Gato is found about four miles outside of Benacoan on the road to Ronda in the Grazelema national park in Andalucia.
Situation: The whole area is fantastic karst scenery, has enormous potential for caving and is relatively unexplored. The exit is found on the left of the road when heading towards Ronda, there is a small bar near the exit that has a large wall survey of the cave and from this you can find the entrance which is on the other side of Benacoan.
Accommodation: This area of Spain has few regulations so you can wild camp just about anywhere. Benacoan has a Scotsman who resides in the village and rents out apartments for up to eight people at reasonable rates. If you fancy a touch of luxury you could stay in the Parador hotel in Ronda which has stunning views of the gorge and is about 20 minutes from the cave.
Travelling: I think the best way to get to this area would be to fly to Malaga and from there hire a car and drive to Ronda.
Season: The cave shows signs of catastrophic flooding and is not be a good place to get caught out, however this is southern Spain and floods of this size are very rare so a through trip is possible throughout the year.
Equipment: You need a harness with cows tails, a figure of eight or Stop to abseil on and a 35 Metre rope. A good quality, thick, full wetsuit is essential and if you are unsure of your swimming ability a buoyancy aid would be a sensible precaution.