To The Bat Cave Ryan!

"Dad, wait up!" Ryan’s voice echoed behind me. He was several feet back, struggling to keep up as I hurried through the dimly lit cave. My pace only slowed when I hit a dead end.

"Let’s go back. I’m starting to get a little scared," he called, the edge of panic creeping into his tone.

"It’s okay, buddy," I reassured him over my shoulder. "We’ll head back."

The problem was, we had been heading back—but nothing looked familiar. This was supposed to be a straightforward cave system: one main path with a couple of side tunnels you could climb into if you felt adventurous. I hadn’t anticipated any trouble finding our way out. Yet here we were, lost. Ryan had joked earlier about dropping breadcrumbs. Now, I wished we’d brought a loaf.

Outwardly, I stayed calm, but inside, panic was starting to bubble. Standing at that dead end for just a few seconds, my brain kicked into overdrive, cataloging all the potential pitfalls of being lost in a remote cave in the mountains of a tiny Cretan village. A village that, by all appearances, hadn’t seen much foot traffic since the Minoans. It wasn’t on any TripAdvisor must-see list; we’d only heard about it from a friendly woman at a mountain coffee shop. 

On the negative side, we had no food or water with us (why would we as we hadn't anticipated exploring a cave system when we set out that day) and I did not have the flashlight with me that I usually kept in my bag just in case. In the plus column, Francesca was outside with the girls and knew we were inside exploring. In the negative column, we had Francesca's phone with us to use as a light source which means we would not be able to call her if we got in trouble.  

On the plus side, as mentioned, it was a relatively small cave system and we would certainly be able to quickly retrace our steps and search for the way out. Unless, of course, our cell phones, which were providing our only light source in an otherwise pitch black cave, ran out of batteries first.  I glanced down at mine, worried because I had been filming a lot of video with the flash on, but to my relief I still had a solid 76% left. 

Just as I was finishing my mental tally of the situation, Ryan let out a shriek. A bat swooped over our heads, flapping wildly.  "Presumably," I thought, "this is the same bat that screeched at me earlier when I was exploring a narrow passageway." That bat was the reason I’d decided to turn back in the first place.

The bat flew straight toward what I’d thought was a dead end—and disappeared. I followed, squinting into the dark, and realized there was a gap I hadn’t noticed before. It was too small for either of us to squeeze through, but wide enough for me to glimpse daylight.

Relief surged as I recognized the opening ahead. We weren’t lost after all. We’d been on the right path; the cave just looked different from this direction.

I exhaled deeply and called to Ryan, who caught up to me, wide-eyed and wary. I led him around to the larger opening we’d crawled through about fifteen minutes earlier. As we passed the bat—still screeching its disapproval of our uninvited presence—I quickened our pace.

When we finally crawled out of the entrance, the girls were standing impatiently, arms crossed.

"Come on, guys! We have to go to the bathroom!" they yelled in unison. "Didn’t you hear Mommy calling for you in the cave?"

We hadn’t heard a thing, even though we couldn’t have been more than 100 feet inside. One of the pluses I’d counted—being able to shout to Francesca if we got lost—was suddenly downgraded to a minus.

Truthfully, I don’t think we were ever in any real danger. I enjoy exploring places that aren’t completely sanitized for tourists. A little bit of risk makes it feel more authentic—although Francesca might have a different opinion if I asked her.

What we explored was Krionerida’s Cave, near the village of Vafes. There’s also another cave nearby, Kalamato Cave, as well as an impressive mountainside church called St. Ioannis Erimitis. Below are some photo highlights from our adventure. 

I also put together a video from inside the cave as Ryan and I explored.