Magical World #23: The naturals wonders of the Caves of Hotton

A day in the dark

We went camping in Belgium this summer, in the Ardennes to be specific. The weather was amazing. In fact, it has been so hot and dry for so long in this part of Europe, that the river Ourthe which we were camping besides, was to shallow for any kayaking, which we had wanted to do.

Our camping spot right next to the river Ourthe in the Belgian Ardennes. Preparing some water for tea.

Having awesome weather while your out camping is definitely a treat. But, you'll have to get creative about what to do when the sun is high and the temperatures go up. Sometimes we go hiking in forest area. Sometimes we find a nice little town to visit and cool down with a drink. But the coolest thing we did on one of those hot summer afternoons, was visit the Caves of Hotton and travel into the depths of the mountains, into the dark, and into some of nature's most surprising and ancient creations.

Fairy tale material

Another name for the Caves of Hotton is Les Grottes de Mille et une Nuits - the Caves of Thousand and one Nights. Go have a look and you'll understand why. The caves' chilly air, the damp walls, the mind-blowing shapes in the rock, the shades of green and orange, the underwater river and the vastness of the place - they give you the experience of being in a different world, on another planet, in a different reality. Fairy tale material for sure.

Colours and textures on the walls of the cave.

Ancient

We came to the entrance of the cave, a simple building in the middle of nowhere, and were just in time to join the tour. Our guide was a French girl who had this as a summer job, and who gave the tour in both French and Dutch with a cute French accent. She took us down three underground levels, explaining about the natural formation of the caves and its history.

Our guide explained that the stalactites and stalagmites in the cave grow around 2 to 5 millimetre per century. I looked around at the formations all around me and counted - a fast growing stalagmite takes 20.000 years to reach just one meter in height, a slower one 50.000 years. Sometimes they grow even much slower than that. And there were formations in the rock which were many meters high!

I'm not good at estimating heights, but this stalagmite was easily twice as high as our ceiling at home, so maybe 6 to 8 meters?

Not all the stalagmites and stalactites were that large - sometimes an entire cave ceiling would be covered by tiny little structures thinner than a pencil. You'd feel it would be so easy to break one off to take home with you. That's probably why most of them that were sitting in arms reach were kept behind wiring.

The stalactites to the left: thinner than a pencil.

Down the rabbit hole

But apart from the stalagmites and stalactites, what I liked most was how every time we got to another place in the cave, these new spaces would open up. Some of them almost hidden, like the one in the little video below. Some huge, many many meters high and wide, big enough to contain an apartment building.

Pink sandals is me. The girl to the left our friendly French tour guide. Gives you an impression of the caves' scenery.

The caves' larger open spaces were difficult to capture on picture nicely. But some of them were really huge, with the largest one stretching 35 meters high, 10 meters wide and 200 meters long.

35 meters high, 10 meters wide, 200 meters long: that's just huge

As we started moving back up the cave, we came across this structure which really resembled an elephant trunk! You can see the lights in the background, showing the path where we walked before.

In the end, it weren't the largest spaces I loved the most, but the ones that looked most like this surreal, ancient, dinosaur-age landscapes. With little pools and so much colour variations in the rock. So easy to imagine all these weird creatures that would be living in a place like this.

My favourite spot of the cave. Like a little alien landscape.

The bright outdoors

Touring through the cave was a lot of fun. The temperatures were low, around 15 degrees, so if you are ever looking for a nice escape from the hot summer sun while being on holiday in the Ardennes, then visiting these caves is a great idea! After this cool midday event, we were happy to go back into the sun, and continued to have a lovely outdoors holiday!

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Magical World Series

This is post #23 in the Magical World Series. With these posts, I hope to add a little happiness and light-heartedness to your day. There is magic in every little corner of the world. And if we share it with each other, it does really brighten up the place!

All content is created by me, and Steemit original. Camera: Canon G7X.
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