panic

New Zealand, 2012, after our cave adventure

As soon as we walked into the cave, I knew I was in trouble.

We were in New Zealand, on the North Island near Waitomo, which is well known for its caves with glowworms. My husband and I had gone inside a glowworm cave on the South Island when we visited in 1998, but I didn’t remember much about that visit.

Which was a shame, because a little foreknowledge would have been helpful.

We went to one of the cave outfitters and got in a van with a small group of people on our tour and rode through gorgeous countryside to the cave itself. We were given helmets with headlamps and as we entered the cave, we turned them on.

About 40′ into the cave and out of sight of the cave entrance (and daylight) our guide stopped us and told us to turn off our helmets. As soon as our eyes adjusted to the total darkness, the guide said we would be walking without light the rest of the way.

And that’s when I started to fall apart.

I’m not afraid of the dark necessarily, nor am I terribly claustrophobic, but combine darkness and caves and I’m very, very uncomfortable. If I had remembered from our previous tour 14 years earlier that we would be in total darkness for much of the tour, then I would have prepared myself mentally. But darkness, a confined place, and a change in what I thought the situation would be made a potent cocktail of fear for me.

I started to panic.

My body shook uncontrollably, my breathing became erratic, and tears streamed from my eyes. I didn’t want to ruin the tour for anyone else, so I clung to my husband, buried my face against his chest, and tried to panic as quietly as I could. No one seemed to notice as we moved deeper into the cave. Every so often, the guide would stop and tell us something new. I continued clinging to my emotional support spouse and sobbing quietly into his hoody.

(No, I have no idea why I didn’t just walk out of the cave and wait for everyone else.)

At the end of the path, we reached an underground river where a Zodiac-type of inflatable rubber boat waited for us to climb aboard. The guide briefly turned on a weak flashlight to guide us to our seats.

I am terrified of water. I don’t swim in lakes or oceans. I don’t snorkel. I definitely don’t scuba.

New equation: darkness + cave + water = very panicked Jen. I cried harder but still managed to stay quiet.

The boat gently floated down the river, which wasn’t actually very deep. Eventually, I was able to relax and calm down. I stopped crying. The timing was perfect because we had reached the place where the glowworms lived. I was able to look up at them and marvel at the beauty of their glow.

Eventually, we went back to dry land and got off the boat. We turned our headlamps on and made our way back up the path. The entrance to the cave appeared and daylight beckoned. We walked outside into a beautiful afternoon.

The rest of our tour included a break for cocoa and cookies, then a walk through a dry cave that had lights so that we could appreciate the formations inside.

Later, as we rode back to where we had met the shuttle, I snapped photo after photo of the beautiful countryside. I was drained from my earlier panic but relaxed and happy.

In spite of it all, I don’t actually regret going on the tour. And I would definitely do it again. But the next time I’ll be ready.

What about you? Have you ever gone on an adventure and reacted as badly as I did?