1° Congreso Nacional Argentino de Espeleologia
The National Caving Conference of Argentina was held in Malargüe, Mendoza between the 29th January and 6th February 2000. This was the first national caving conference to be held in the country and proved to be a great success. The week-long event, organised by members of the Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones Espeleologicas (I.N.A.E.), the local caving club, was held in the local primary school. There were approximately fifty cavers at the conference with representatives from all the main caving clubs in Argentina. The international contingent consisted of Richard Carey and Tim Francis from the Mendip Caving Group, and André Slagmolen on behalf of the U.I.S. The conference was reported on in the regional newspaper "Los Andes" and given a live slot on local radio.
The conference programme included a wide range of lecture topics and field visits. Lectures covered familiar themes such as conservation, micro-explosives, surveying, topography and original exploration undertaken by each of the clubs. Richard Carey gave a lively talk on caving in Great Britain ‘assisted’ by sketches of Ogof Draenen and flowcharts of caving politics scrawled on the blackboard by his non-linguistic colleague. However the main focus of the conference was to initiate the formation of a National Caving Federation. After considerable deliberation, the setting up of this body was formalised at the end of the conference, but with the details of the constitution still yet to be decided.
The emphasis of the field visits was on cave rescue. Indoor workshops and two rescue practices were co-ordinated by Luis Carabelli, president of Cuerpo de Espeleologia, Rescate y Montañismo de Argentina (C.E.R.M.A.). André Slagmolen of the U.I.S., who created some ingenious indoor obstacle courses using the school furniture, provided practical advice and rescue scenarios. The MCG members gave technical assistance where appropriate including hauling practise and SRT demonstrations. In the inevitable more light-hearted moments the local cavers were introduced to the delights of table traversing, chair squeezes and the broom trick.
Aside from the demands of rescue practice, delegates were able to visit four caves in the area. The first visit was to an area of basalt lava flows associated with the Payan volcano where two lava tubes of Cueva del Tigre and Cueva Doña Otila were explored. The second field trip visited two areas. Firstly the Jurassic limestone cave of Caverna de Las Brujas, approximately 3000 metres long, was looked at. This was quite a coup for the conference as caver access to the cave has been severely restricted since the increasing development of the site as a tourist cave. Finally a large gypsum cave in the Poti Malal region, Caverna San Agustin, was used for the last rescue practice.
The conference was nicely rounded off by the discovery of a new gypsum cave at Poti Malal. Lack of time and lighting meant that this was only cursorily explored but the way on draughts strongly. The cave was dubbed "Cueva Federación" with the ongoing lead, a suitably small, sharp but well decorated bit of passage, named "Galeria Mendip".
Report – Tim Francis
Updated 24-03-02