Travels with Baby: Hard Rock
The awesome Škocjan Caves in Slovenia test Milo's patience.
by Ayun Halliday
May 15, 2007
Though a history of intense claustrophobia has rendered me constitutionally ill-equipped to share in his enthusiasm for such capers, I could see why Greg was so hot to tour the Skocjan Caves, a UNESCO-protected site much hyped by the Slovenian Tourist authority. The one thing New York City lacks, beside decent Mexican food, is 6,200 advertisement-free, underground meters of naturally occurring pools, waterfalls, canyons, dripstone formations and bat breeding grounds. No doubt the children would find it educational, even if their mother backed out whimpering twenty feet in. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to stretch out on the hood of the car with a good book while the others explored this miracle of Nature.
Arriving in time for the day's final timed entry entailed hauling some serious ass on eastern Slovenia's curvy, hilly roads at breakneck speed. While Greg went off to see what he could discover about the cave's interior dimensions, I remained in the parking lot with the kids, using a moist towelette from Delta Airlines to wipe away, as best I could, all traces of the car sickness that had hijacked Inky several kilometers earlier.
"The woman in the ticket booth says you shouldn't worry," Greg reported back. "The only part that might give you trouble is right by the mouth. Speaking of which, how's the girl?"
I figured if a nine-year-old could brave the cave so shortly after losing her lunch on a narrow roadside shoulder where motorists are instructed not to pull over under any circumstances, I could handle a minute or two in the underground tunnel en route to the first soaring chamber.
The tunnel turned out to be a total cinch, at least three times wider than the entryway of the East Village tenement we lived in before Milo was born. What luck I hadn't elected to sit this one out, for Skocjan turned out to be one of those natural wonders that truly merited its thousand superlatives.
It was almost too cool. I kept expecting to see a Day-Glo gnome peeking around a papier-mache toadstool. "Cool, huh?" I asked, nudging the kids.
"Whoa," they agreed, gaping wide-eyed at the thousands of stalactites and stalagmites gracing the aptly named Paradise Hall.
"Told you it would be worth it," I smiled. "Now do you see why I said no when you were bugging me to stay behind on that swing set back at the Visitor's Center?"
"Yeah!" they conceded gracefully. "This is soooo cooool."
Actually, it was almost too cool. Not that I would have wanted it to be any less cool given the unexpectedly high entry fee, it's just that it didn't look quite real. I kept expecting to see a Day-Glo gnome peeking around a papier-mache toadstool, the way I would have at Disney World. Frankly, a couple of Smurfs wouldn't have hurt, at least as far as the boy was concerned.
"I'm bored," he announced, after five minutes. "Let's go."
"Are you kidding?" I demanded in a deliberately light tone, knowing that he was not. "This is so cool! You said so yourself!"
"It was cool at the beginning," he allowed, "But now it's boring."
"You'll see," I said. "It gets cooler."
"When?"
"Soon. Just a little ways up ahead. You'll see."
©2007 Ayun Halliday and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Ayun Halliday is author of The Big Rumpus and No Touch Monkey! and the popular zine East Village Inky. She is a columnist for Bust and a frequent contributor to Babble. Visit AyunHalliday.com.
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