Help! I need fresh air!

All my life I’ve been in touch with mountains: climbing, walking, running, and so on. But there is only one thing I can not stand: going into caves.

I was 12 or 13 and, with a group of friends, we went to a small cave near Esparreguera, my home town. I was very excited because it was my first time and I liked very much the idea of being under the ground.

We went into the cave and we did the first steps with the outside light. As we went deep inside the cave the light was going down. We had to pass over a big rock and that meant it was completely dark. We lighted the torches on and… It was awful! The air was completely rare and thick like a “patch of fog”. I could see the dust floating and I started imaging all those particles coming into my lunges. I was certain that dust was suffocating me. I yelled my friends to go out: I needed fresh air and feel the outside light again. And the worst thing of all is that I thought I suffered from claustrophobia all my life!


After that I realized I’m not a claustrophobic person. I can take lifts, stay in small places and rooms, in the dark and everywhere without feeling panic. But I’ve tried to go into caves, even big ones like Andratx in Mallorca, and I always have a similar feeling…

Enric.