The latest expedition of the Espeleología con Alma project has marked a milestone in inclusive sport. On 13 July, Alma Matamoros, the girl with cerebral palsy after whom the project is named, and Alberto Molinos, a blind man, managed to descend more than 100 metres in the Sima del Republicano, located in Villaluenga del Rosario, in the province of Cádiz. They have done so together with members of the Andalusian vertical rope rescue competition team, Espeleosocorro Sin Fronteras, the driving force behind this project which aims to make the underground world more accessible to everyone.
This is a great feat, as the descent of the Sima del Republicano is technically very difficult due to the existence of numerous shafts, lakes, marmites, chaos of blocks and narrow passages through which Alma and Alberto have had to progress to reach a depth of more than 100 metres, a complexity that is even greater in the ascent to reach the exit.
LA LÍNEA VERTICAL, which sponsors Espeleosocorro Sin Fronteras, has contributed to this expedition by providing various materials, such as lighting equipment and ropes.
After this experience, Alma says she feels “full of magic, strength and joy. I’m enchanted by my passion, caving, and discovering all the beautiful things there are inside the underground world and inside ourselves”.
She says that during the expedition, ‘I felt I had powers, which were sent to me by the people who were there. The power of struggle, effort, trust, care, love, affection, energy and positivity. What I needed in those moments to keep going, to not give up in the cave or in this life.
Alberto, for his part, details some aspects of the expedition. He says that the entrance to the cave was quite complicated ‘due to the amount of rocks that were there before and the fact that we had to pass over them by anchoring ourselves to a safety chain’; however, the descent did not seem very complicated to him, ‘except for one section that was and that the colleagues from Espeleosocorro sin Fronteras solved by setting up a zip line to pass it’.
Alberto and Alma’s groups met at the deepest point of the route and there they experienced an emotional moment, stopping for lunch to celebrate Alma and her sister’s birthday.
Alberto admits that the ascent was hard due to the fatigue and the fact that the route was a bit more complicated, ‘but it was also more beautiful’.
He was able to keep his bearings throughout the expedition thanks to the fact that the route was marked with coding adapted for the blind, so “I always had enough information to know what I was going to find on the next stretch”, says Alberto, adding that even so, he was always supervised by two companions who ensured that he did all the manoeuvres correctly, as this was the first long cave he had been in without being accompanied by another person.
“I was delighted to share the experience with Alma and her family, and I would like to thank the Espeleosocorro Sin Fronteras team and my colleagues from Club Plutón in Seville for giving me the opportunity to enjoy this cave in a totally safe and autonomous way. I am looking forward to the next one”, says Alberto.
Alma is also grateful to the “great team” of Espeleosocorro Sin Fronteras and their team in Granada. She says that celebrating her birthday inside the Sima del Republicano “was wonderful. I was happy”.
She also wanted to thank LA LÍNEA VERTICAL for its support for this project: “For that headlamp that illuminated that piece of cave and illuminated my life, for the ropes, and Nico del Bazar for that cool helmet”. LA LÍNEA VERTICAL is proud to collaborate with Espeleología con Alma and to support every challenge it sets itself to make the underground world more accessible so that many people with different abilities can achieve their dream.