Yes, we have no bananas

In field-food has a tendency to become very repetitive, especially when it’s the same thing everyday. Because cave work is so hot and sweaty and the caves are dark and humid and often muddy you never really feel like eating anything. But the energy is needed and snacking always helps give you a blood sugar boost in the cave. Our in-cave food consists mostly of Pokari Sweat, an isotonic drink that I believe is Japanese, and SilverQueen, a brand of chocolate bar. The Pokari Sweat is excellent because drinking just water isn’t enough in the caves to give you energy back and replacing lost salts when in the tropics and doing hard work is obviously a very good idea. Plus its not too sweet. As for the SilverQueen, we try for the dark chocolate variety, partly because it has a slightly higher melting point than the other ones, and partly because when you’re in a muddy cave, the dark chocolate hides the dirt the best.

One food that never travels particularly well is the humble banana. So you can imagine that in a situation where there are big packs with everything loose inside being banged against rocks and hauled up pitches that bananas would not necessarily be the cavers’ fruit of choice. And yet we haul in quite a few bananas. Being the tropical variety they are the very small ones which you can eat in two mouthfuls, or one if you feel like showing off, and not too sweet. Very tasty but not very practical.