Caving in Portugal and Spain.
Today we went to the cave complex at Maire d'Aire(grunta). This is a cave in the Serra de Aire and Candeeiros about an hour north of Lisbon via the A1. Tickets were around 6 Euros.
Over the past weekend we went to the Caves in Nerja on the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain along the Mediterranean coast.
I would describe the two caves as similar in kind. Spain has a well developed (perhaps over developed) complex complete with an amphitheater in the cave and the obligatory gift shop and restaurant. In Portugal the caves struck me as decidedly less developed. Both are worthy of a visit. The Portugal caves do not have prehistoric drawings but you don't get to see the drawings in Nerja so that doesn't really matter. In Nerja there is the obligatory display showing an artist rendering of how the people who lived in the cave lived and played in the stone age including some colorful drawings of funeral rites (haunted caves haunted by cavemen [and women and maybe a cave dog]). In Portugal there is a glass case containing some animal bones that where found in the cave. I recognized some grazing animal jaw bones however it was pretty much a leftovers from the dustbin and no explanatory effort.
The other big difference is humidity. In the Nerja cave it was a bit damp with some collected water. In Maire d'Aire this is really an underground river so it rains underneath. Nothing to worry about - just don't wear stuff that cannot get wet. The other thing - and this was a little fun - is that Portugal emphasizes that humans are visitors in this world, there is some obligatory safety lighting but the lights are on a timer. IF you lollygag you will find yourself in the near darkness. I don't think this is to protect the cave fauna (which was not present) but to prevent any flora from the outside setting up shop and contaminating further down the watershed.
The difference between the two experiences was stark but probably indicative of the differences between the countries.
As far as taking a child to go in the cave it was fine but I or my wife was carrying him the whole way. He liked feeding the goats and donkey so the petting zoo was definitely a win.
I got to figure out just how badly my Portuguese has gotten over the past week of not speaking because there was a short 5 minute film about the discovery and exploration of the cave in the nineteen forties and fifties that was totally in Portuguese. I had gotten the high points from reading about the cave in the guide book but it was still hard. Fortunately our guide spoke wonderful English and was able to give us the run down of the cave in English after explaining to the Portuguese family what was going on. It was essentially the same thing.
