An expedition to the longest cave in Costa Rica – Bananal was organized as a part of the work on the Brunca Bats Project. The main goals of the expedition were:
– To explore the bats population in the cave;
– To study the cave specific environmental characteristics;
– To try to find the connection between this cave and the cave Banano Quemalo
Four Anthros members and one guest caver from Bulgaria participated in the expedition
1. Angel Ivanov
2. Stanimira Deleva
3. Richard Solano
4. Michael Martinez
5. Borislav Paunovski
The group gathered late on Friday (27 January 2017), inspected the equipment and made the plan for the next day.
We got at the the Guayabi Farm early on Saturday (28 January 2017) and prepared for the cave.
We found the Bananal entrance quite easy even though we needed some «machete» workout.
After entering and passing three pits we soon realized that this is one of the most beautiful caves we’ve seen. We respected the white calcite and took over our boots to keep it clean.
It was the coldest tropical cave we explored in Costa Rica up to now – in some parts 21 degrees centigrade, so respectively it was poor on bats. We encountered only eight specimens of the species Carolia Perspicillata.
The beautiful formations were everywhere
After several hours in the cave and some unsuccessful attempts to find a connection with the Banano Quemalo cave we left Bananal.
Happy at the entrance
We had some fun cleaning the equipment in Rio Corredor using strict safety procedures…
The conclusion is that we definitely want to return to Bananal for more detailed exploration.
