06/06/2017
Some 10,000 years ago, the Khoisan, the world’s most ancient race, used the entrance of the Cango Caves as shelter. To stand in the same spot as our forebears was a transcendent experience. Just as I was lost in the caves’ vastness, a group of visitors began singing a hymn, their melodious harmony carried by the echoes rippling through the subterranean hall.
Widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest natural wonders, the Cango Caves stretch for over five kilometres, though ingress is only allowed for only a quarter of its length. They are nestled in a Precambrian limestone belt adjacent to the Swartberg mountains. Some twenty million years ago, rainwater began burrowing its way through crevices in the limestone, and this natural activity engendered an intricate network of caverns and tunnels.
Spikey dripstone formations, or stalactites as they are called, hang like icicles on the lip of a branch. Such formations are created when there is an accumulation of calcite, which abounds in limestone. Rainwater erodes and carries the mineral, and over time the deposits burgeon into stalactites. As incoming water drips from one end of a stalactite, it deposits more calcite into a heap. Thus stalagmites, which jut upwards from the ground, are formed.
The Cango Caves are segregated into a few halls. The grand Van Zyl’s Hall is named after Jacobus Van Zyl, who myth believes was a local farmer who rediscovered the caves in modern era. Here dwells the must-see Cleopatra’s Needle, speculated to be over 150,000 years old. The stalagmite rises almost ten metres to touch the ceiling.
When visiting the caves, there are two tours to choose from: Heritage; and Adventure. As its name suggests, the Adventure tour is more physically demanding, taking visitors to the 200-step Jacob’s Ladder, and fascinating formations resembling King Solomon, an ice cream cone and coffin. The trek leads to Devil’s Kitchen, in which the Devil’s Chimney, measuring only forty-five centimetres in width, awaits. Egress is only possible by executing a leopard crawl through the twenty-seven-centimetre-high crevice of the Devil’s Post Box.
