Peter's Japan blog

Today we have another long ride to the Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. 4 hours of driving and 4 hours back on one day. When we arrived there just after noon we were surprised to see that Kentucky has 2 time zones and that the Mammoth Cave was in another time zone ;p (we're really going to extremes on this trip ;p)
The Mammoth Cave is the biggest cave system in the world with 260 miles of charted tunnels and there are probably many more. We did a 2 hour tour through a small part of the caves. It was through the New Entrance which was blasted through the rocks and is about 300 steps down into the ground and you sometimes have to duck of squeeze through the rocks. But once you're down it's quite enough room to walk. We had a very nice and knowledgeable guide who told lots of interesting things about Mammoth Cave. At one stop, he asked us if we wanted to experience complete darkness. We were sitting on benches and he turned off the lights and it was utterly pitch black and not a sound to be heard. It's a weird feeling being surrounded by complete darkness and silence. You can't even see your hand if you held it an inch from your eyes.
He turned the lights back on and we went further. At the end we got to see some stalactites and stalagmites which were quite nice. We went out at another entrance, we didn't have to go all those stairs up again.
After this we went back to the chalet.