The last time I visited the Cango Caves, I was around about my daughter’s age so, it was interesting to see how she experienced it. Like me at that age, she isn’t fond of the dark so she was apprehensive, just going into the cave.
Like with all guided tours, your enjoyment is highly dependent on whether or not you have an engaging guide and, like with much of life, it is often “the luck of the draw”. We were fortunate to have a lovely guide who quickly got us all laughing, but also had us thinking about what it must have been like for the first cave discoverers.
The fact that they only had access to the tiniest of parrafin torches and having to be lowered 7 metres into the dark unknown, helped us realize how brave those farmers actually were. It’s not something I can imagine myself volunteering to do.
So, I encourage you to go and see it for yourself. At R85 per adult and R50 per child for the heritage tour, if isn’t an activity that will break the bank (relatively speaking) and you will walk out with some more knowledge, an hour later. It takes place every hour, on the hour while the adventure tour takes place every hour, on the half hour.
The road to get there seems shorter in kilometers than it does in reality – it feels like it takes forever to get there! So allow yourself enough time. If you happen to visit about 4 days after some heavy rain in the area, you may see water dripping down from the ceiling. That’s how long it takes for the water to see through the mountain.
Considering these Caves were at one point completely full of water and, it was only after all the water had dried up, that the stalactites and stalagmites began to form (at the rate of around 7mm every hundred years) it gives you an awe inspiring idea of how old these Caves really are.
Since we are still without a functional laptop, we are unable to download any of our more recently pictures, but I will add some more to our Facebook page soon.
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