The (nearly) unique aragonite cave – In Slovakia depths (2/3)

May 14th, 2016

Day 2

3 hours and 15 min trip for half an hour visit. Hard ratio, reader, of a non-motorized trekker in Slovakia (but it could be probably true elsewhere in the world). After an exhausting walking day in the Slovakian Paradise, woke up at 6:30am to Ochtinska aragonite cave, West of Roznava at 120 km from Presov, the city I was studying. To reach this natural curiosity, it took me 2 hours of train, one bus and half an hours by foot.

Besides Mexico and Argentina counterparts, this cave is unique in the world. Serendipity helped find this cave in 1954, by minors digging a mine well. According to my flyer in French, this specific way the cave was found proved its peculiarity. It’s the oldest of Slovakia (400 to 460 million years instead of 190 million year mean for the others)

I had no choices than visited the cave a Saturday. In contrary to the Domica cave, I couldn’t avoid tourists. We were well-guided, by small packed groups, with red-covered guides watching for any unauthorized camera. In Slovakia, taking photos is forbidden in most of the touristic sites. You have to pay, sometimes more than the entrance ticket price. Here, it was 7€ for the entrance ticket and 10€ to take photos.

Aragonite heart and corals

Spiderweb-like Aragonite roof in the Milky Way Room

Source

Before seeing aragonite, we crossed a room covered by white, grey and tan marble walls. Finally, we saw the precious crystals in the Star Room. Aragonite, for a novice (like me), easily looks like snow or ice. But it’s a mineral (calcium carbonate) with different shapes: sometimes kidney or heart, sometimes corals or cotton.

The first crystalline formation could be observed in a corridor with the heart of the cave (its symbol), the second one in the Milky Way Room, more impressive than the Star room one. As its name says, it’s covered by way much hank of aragonite needles pointing in every direction. A path to the cave exit gave another aragonite styling called hedgehog corridor.

In the cave, moisture is comprised between 98% and 100%. Outside, it’s not this high but still enough. It was raining. On the 2 km between the cave and the bus stop, the forest looks like rainforest, misty, fogged and soaked for hours of rain. It was in this particular atmosphere that I made my way to the bus, umbrella in my hand, K-way on my shoulders.

Suddenly, my way back went faster. Having seen me walking on the road under the rain, a white Skoda car stopped by. Yvette, Thomas and their 2 kids brought me back to Roznava station. They were coming from the West of Slovakia and came here in the East, “poorer“ as they reminded me, to spend some vacations, stopping at the evangelist church of the small town of Stitnik.

Photo gallery