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 The
entire Cave is inexorably given over to the whims of time;
to the slow continuos dripping of imagination that shapes
it. It was not we, the people of the 20th and 21 century
who discovered this work of art of Nature, but the ancestors
of the Homo Sapiens, some 30.000 years ago, who chose this
place as a dwelling. It is thought that the Nerja Cave,
before its rediscovery in 1959, had been 3.000 years without
a single soul contemplating such a filigree of calcareous
stone. Time, water and the chemistry of the elements have
modifield it thoughout thousands of years: incalculable
drops of water with dissolved rock that have obeyed only
the rules of gravity and chance. It was fortune and the
inquisitive minds of some children that finally brought
them to the light.
A CHILDREN'S ODYSSEY
The three Wise Men had already been by the humble houses
of Maro and Nerja. José Luís Barbero de Miguel;
the brothers Manuel and Miguel Muñoz Zorrilla; Francisco
Navas Montesinos and José Torres Cárdenas
probably did not receive many toys from the generous Christmas
chacacters. To play, these chidren went out on the street
in search of adventures, but they could never have imagined
that on that 12th January 1959 they were going to find a
cavity containing more than 30.000 years of human history
and several million years of geological life. It all began
on the previous day, when the five adventures went down
into the hole known as "La Mina" to hunt for bats.
It was a cavity in the ground where the locals would dump
their broken appliances and all sorts of useless things.
Once there, one of them noticed that there was a draught
coming from the dark bottom. He went closer and saw that
it was a crack in the rock approximately one metre high
and half a metre wide; enought to slip though. The hole
gave onto a sort of cell of stalagmites that prevented them
from going further; the bats breathed easier because now
the object of the fun was to find out what was behind the
strange stone pillars.
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On the next day, on the
12 January, they returned with the aim to satisfy the intense
curiosity aroused in their heads. They managed to break
the stalactites and one of them went down, groping on the
ground towards the deepest darkness they had ever known
the torches showed that the adventure continued onwards.
though narrow galleries of damp rock and rocky slopes they
reached what is known as the Cataclysm Room. An enormous
underground cavity with a giant column of 35 metres high
and 18 metres diameter. The initial amazement soon turned
into panic as they found human remains. Terrified but happy,
they told that they had found something grandiose. At the
beginning no one believed them, but then there was a second
incursion, this time with a photographer and a doctor. One
hundred days later, the Málaga newspaper "Sur"
published the photographs: five intrepid boys of Maro had
discovered the Nerja Cave.
THE CREATION OF A TOURISM LANDMARK
After the discovery of the cave, speleologists, geologists
and archaeologists came in search of answers. The formation
of this cave, as we know it, began 5 million years ago,
with the karstification process that took place throughout
the pliocene and pleistocene periods at the foot of the
Tejeda and Almijara mountains.
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Archaelogists, who still today continue
to seach in certain areas of the cavity, discovered objects
from the Palaeolithic and Neolithic eras, as well as several
fossilise human remains, which led all those involved to
take more seriosly what in the beginning seemed "just"
to be a large cave. Thus, in 1960 the Board of the Nerja
Cave was created and on the 15th June 1961 it was declared
National Historical-Artistic Monument. The speleologists
marked the present day tourism route, but they were in for
a surprise. In these years of euphoria an opening was discovered
in the top of the Cataclysm Room, which led them to the
Higher Galleries, almost as large as the touristic area,
where the childish of the primitive inhabitants were found:
fish, goats, deer and other animals. Later, in the seventies,
they found the socalled New Galleries, which again were
a source of amazement. These last two groups were double
the initial extension and at present, there is still the
possibility of new surprises behind some of these walls
THE
ADVENTURE OF SPELEOTOURISM
The discovery of the Higher Caves
and the New Caves brought about the need for the Board
of the Cave to show the geological and historical riches
it possessed, in addition to the grandiosity of these
new cavities, as they are double those visited in the
touristic route. The natural entrance to this subterranean
area has still not been found, as it may possibly have
been sealed by some seismic movement. The only access
is found close to the ceiling of the Cataclysm Room. This
is where an exciting adventure of 5 hours practising speleotourism
begins, towards a series of galleries and rooms of spectacular
dimensions and rich in cave paintings.
The Romm of the columns of Hercules is the first we see,
two huge rock pillars that welcome the visitor. Beside
this is a small cavity where the primitive inhabitants
painted different species of animals and which constitutes
one of the best-preserved specimens of Palaeolithic art
of all Europe. We cross the abrupt Gallery of the Goats
to reach the Room of Immensity, the height of which is
breathtaking, as there was another cave over it, the floor
of which fell in and is now spread all over the ground.
We then reach the Room of Levels where the most incredible
forms tickle the imagination of viewers: small projections
in the shape of teeth, fried eggs or pearls, macaroni,
pine cones of thin sheets of rock, needles, etc.
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THE
FESTIVALS
One of the biggest phenomena of
the cave takes once a year and for a few days: the Nerja
Cave Festival. The natural auditorium that water and time
have sculpted is filled with music and colour. Everything
is tinged with a dreamlike quality, the best performers
of opera, classical music, ballet and flamenco make the
walls of this millenary cavity resound. A unique event
that will take place every year.
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