Pestera Ialomitei - The Ialomita Cave

What a day we had today!

As I said, I decided I will not be driving in the mountains. However the hotel owner offered to take us on a day trip, for a small fee, so I took him up on it. The plan was to drive to the Ialomita Cave, visit it, then take the cable car to the top of the mountain - weather permitting. This morning the weather forecast was on our side; the wonderful internet said the cable cars are open and functioning, so it looked like a great day on the horizon. However a phone call in the morning indicated the cable cars are closed and nobody knows when they will open. Welcome to Romania! So we switch to Plan B: half a day trip to the Cave today and we will take the cable car from Busteni tomorrow.
We start leisurely around 10:00. The road leaving Sinaia looks pretty good, tight in some places but doable. Part of me regrets the fact that I didn't take the bull by the horns and drove there myself, while the other part is relieved that I can actually look around and enjoy the ride instead of focusing on the traffic, curves and occasional pothole.

The road out of Sinaia

And what a view: we drive through fir tree forests, pastures and summits; the forest looks old and peaceful and green, and there are so many wild flowers on the side of the road I want to stop and go by foot.

Fir trees

Green all around

And we do stop here and there so we can take pictures and take it all in. When we leave Prahova county we stop at an observation point (very few of those here), and the view is absolutely breath taking, with an easy slope in front of us, complete with a sheepfold; then far away, mountains, tall and majestic, covered in forests and clouds. We breathe the cool air and let the wind play with us, while Buni feasts on raspberries. The sheep are dotting a hill right across from us, and we can hear their "baaas" filling the air.

View from the observation point

Glimpse of a sheephold

Sheep on a hill

It's hard to get back in the car, but we do and after  few more miles, surprise: the road to the Cave is not functional; the recent rains have washed away parts of the newly built road, so now it's closed for repairs. I am really bummed, and so is Mikey who really wanted to go spelunking. A little highlight of this stop: a cow comes to us begging for love, she rubs her head against us and gently pokes us with her horns until we pet her and love on her. We call her the cat cow.

Gentle cow love

After a few minutes debate, we go on to plan C and take the backroads. According to our guide, it's about 1 1/2 hours one way, but we also have to backtrack almost back from where we started. We're OK with it. We drive relatively easy to a village called Moroeni (you may be familiar with it from Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat - although it grossly misrepresents the reality of this Roma village), and then the nightmare starts because the Swiss cheese road (asphalted road with potholes) turns into a gravel road with potholes. To that add the fact that it's going uphill, it's full of curves, the edges are sometimes crumbling and mostly without borders to separate the road from the ravines, and it's so narrow that two cars can barely fit on it at the same time. It's a bouncy ride, and I am glad I had a very light breakfast as my stomach and inner organs are probably misplaced by now due to the bouncing. Mikey however has no problems and sleeps soundly most of the way. But, and this is very important, the discomfort of the ride pales in comparison to the joy I feel in being out there because everything is so beautiful; the same old fir tree forests, the flowers, the peace, the sense of wilderness and untamed nature. I would gladly walk this road to be in the middle of it all.
Anyways, by 2:30 we are at the cave, and Mikey and I start excitedly towards it. We have about 1/3 of a mile walk to the cave, and it goes by easily although it's mostly uphill; this in itself is a beautiful hike. We cross the Ialomita river and after a short climb we are in front of the cave. 

Going down towards the river

Ialomita River

Right in the entrance to the cave there is the Ialomita Monastery. The legend says that even St. Andrew found refuge in this cave, (St Andrew is the one who brought Christianity to Romania), and through times it has been inhabited by hermits and old monks, until the first wooden monastery was built in the XVIth century. It was rebuilt several times (three, if I remember correctly), due to it having burnt down.  Now imagine this, a monastery on the top of the mountains, hardly accessible, at the entrance of a cave. Yet it is one of the most popular monasteries in Romania, partly because of its location. Although I am not a very spiritual person, I feel humbled in front of this center of spirituality.

Ialomita Monastery

From here we enter the cave. Most of it is accessible to tourists, and pretty well set up for safety. Mikey and I even get hard helmets and we start exploring. The cave is fairly well lit so we can see not only our way but also the fantastic water sculptures on the walls and ceilings. The water is still at work now as we can feel it drip on us. We even catch a quiet moment, just the two of us in a hall, and close our eyes to better hear it dripping from the ceiling. Sometimes the ceilings are so low that I have to bend, sometimes the walls are so tight that I almost touch them with my shoulders, but we're loving it. Oh, and I forgot to mention, it is cold cold cold, but it's a good kind of cold, full of moisture and freshness.

The entry to the cave

The cave is not big; all in all it takes us about 30 minutes to explore it. There is a big hall, called the Bear Hall, over 200 feet tall, where remains of cave bears have been found; there is also a spring that, according to the notes, has an absolutely clean water, 0 bacteria and minerals, probably due to the different layers of clay and possibly silver deposits that it passes before it springs inside the cave. It is also called the "water of life" and it is believed to have been the holy water of the Dacians, our ancestors. We walk all the way to the end of the cave, to "the Altar", where supposedly religious masses were held in immemorial times.

The spring of the "Water of Life"

The Altar

Mikey and I are both having a great time, and the boy is really disappointed that the cave is not bigger. But it's time to turn around now; although it was a short hike, we are tired and ready to go. On the way back to the car, we stop to buy more raspberries (yesterday was the first day EVER that Mikey tried them, and he declared them "finger licking good", so now he gets two little baskets and chows down on them till I laughingly tell him he'll turn into a bear!). Then back in the car, and the long trip back on the same bumpy road starts. But I don't care. Mikey falls back asleep with his head in my lap, and feel so rejuvenated by the beauty I saw and felt today that it does not really matter anymore. I vow that on the next trip home we will go to a cabin in the mountains and spend a few days away from the world, hiking and playing on the pastures and letting Mother Nature take us into her arms. It was a great day today, and I am grateful for it.

July 25, 2018