by Patty Mah I'm trying to deal with the morning after, being sore in places that I do not care to disclose and trying to dim the afterglow of the excitement. And Steve - that's Steve Hoyles - had definitely promised me "a Freudian thingÉ the passion to be in dark, moist, tight spaces". No, not sex - spelunking. Cave exploring. Caves; Freud; sex; tight enclosed places? I get it - that's disgust ing. But it's given me another opportunity to risk my health, something that the young and the young-at-heart feel we must do, and naturally I jumped at the chance. I met up with Steve and his colleague Bryan Koene, the two co-ordinators of the Waterloo Underground Spelunking Society, to find out exactly what I would be getting myself into. But nothing they described prepared me for the awesomeness of actually going into a cave myself. A group of nine enthusiastic spelunkers, including myself, Steve, and Bryan, had made the effort to wake up early on a Sunday morning and drive three hours to Belleville, to the Moira caves. Steve had described the Moira caves as "solution caves", an outcrop of mainly limestone where naturally-formed maze-like passages, actually more like little crevices, were created by water erosion. So, Steve said, be prepared to get muddy, grimy, slimy, and wet. Wonderful. We got all geared up: hard hat with fluorescent lamp, knee pads, and leather gloves, and headed toward the cave. To find the cave entrance, we first had to weave our way through a cow pasture, so, you can imagine what we had to be plodding through. The cave entrance was an opening that dropped at a 75-degree angle, at the side of this outcrop, overlooking the river. As I slid and bumped my way gingerly down this opening, I felt as if I was going down to the depths of Hell. There was no turning back - this was where the fun began. Immediately we were on our hands and knees, squirming through narrow cracks. So far so good. I managed to crawl, squeeze and relocate my fat to get around and through tunnels of rock that I was starting to know intimately. I cursed my hard hat at least a hundred times already for being too big, for being too small and for blinding my peripheral vision. And that was only the first 100 meters. We stopped at a "room" just big enough for four of us to squat comfortably for a rest, while Bryan went to scout ahead. It was dark, and the air amazingly, was crisp and fresh. Around me, at close proximity, were boulders piled haphazardly on top of other boulders to form this "room". Oddly, I found it rather tranquil and pretty, in a rugged kind of way. I squatted in amazement that I had not yet freaked out from claustrophobia; I was actually enjoying it. Bryan returned and we headed in a different direction because the tunnel he had scouted led to a dead end. After only 15 minutes in the cave, I was covered with mud and had lost my sense of direction, and Steve said that it was only the beginning. Great. Everything was beginning to look the same. Every outcrop of boulder, every tunnel and crevice we had to slither through, seemed as if we had been there before. We continued on, and Bryan pointed out a few formations and some tiny mushroom-like albino plants. How cute. After creeping along and feeling like a worm for God knows how long (I had also lost my sense of time), I saw sunlight! Hallejuah! Bryan said we had looped around and were back at the opening in which we started. Was that it? It was easy! But, Steve said that we were to continue on, and that this was where the real fun began. Steve dove into another crevice that I hadn't noticed before, and with nowhere else to go, we followed. Splash! "Ooh, it's warm!" Steve shouted. Great, it was time to get wet. I didn't know what Steve's definition of "warm" was, but this stream certainly was not warm to me. As if hauling and shifting limbs to accommodate jutting boulders wasn't enough, I now had to deal with wading in knee- deep, waist-deep and even nipple-deep cold water. Amazingly, I found the water to be clear and clean. "Look up, and around you.", Steve said. Bad mistake. I had never seen so many ugly, icky, gross spiders in my life! My face was just centimeters away from these things, and I had actually seen the pulsating egg sacks that many of them were carrying around with them like luggage. Well, look at it this way: it added excitement to the trip. Bryan had mentioned that the water level was rather low. Well, I would hate to have seen the water at high level. I would have probably drowned. Being wet wasn't too bad, but it was just plain weird to be wading (or swimming) with all my clothes on, in an enclosed area where I got to know boulders on a very personal level. I felt like a sardine packed in oil. A few more sharp turns and finally, I saw light, and it wasn't just a tease. I climbed out, and I felt great - so invigorated that nothing would have seemed impossible to me at that time. Wrong. Once everyone was out of the cave, we took the easy way, following the river back to the cow field. Great, one more adventure through the cow dung territory. "Oh, by the way, did you know that caving and nudity kind of go together?" Steve said on our way back. Reluctantly, I did what the Romans did, and undressed at the side of the road, unable to hide anything, not even my modesty. I had never seen such grimy, slimy brown underwear in my life. But I felt great, and I was ready to do it again. Steve had an immediate suggestion: "How about going to the Kelso caves?" Well, I might just be stupid enough to go again. It was a whole new world down there, although some of it - well, most of it - well, all of it - was dirty, muddy, and wet. But it was an adventure and I think I might be hooked because I'm proud to say, I'm a WUSS now. And I would like to thank Steve and Bryan for taking me out and showing me their "Freudian" world. I'd also like to thank the gang that came with us: Kevin I, Kevin II, Kim, Kristine, Denise, and Doug. For more information on spelunking, or if you wish to try it yourself, you can contact Steve Hoyles or Bryan Koene at WUSS: phone ext. 2734 or 576-7547, or e-mail bkoene@chemistry. Caving trips run "every weekend until the snow flies."