A 50-year-old Spanish extreme athlete has emerged from spending 500 days living 70m deep in a cave outside Granada, Spain, with no contact with the outside world, in an experiment closely monitored by scientists seeking to learn more about the capacities of the human mind and circadian rhythms.
Beatriz Flamini, an elite mountaineer and climber, is said by her support team to have broken a world record for longest time spent in a cave. She was 48 when she went into the cave, and celebrated two birthdays alone underground.
She began her challenge on Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021 — before the outbreak of the Ukraine war, the resultant cost-of-living crisis, the end of Spain’s lengthy COVID-19 mask requirement and the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Photo: AFP
Media coverage of her emergence into the light of spring was limited so as not to overwhelm her, but a broadcast on national television station TVE showed her wearing dark glasses and climbing out toward her support team grinning. Wearing masks, they encircled her in a hug.
Speaking shortly afterwards, she described her experience as “excellent, unbeatable.”
Pressed for more details by reporters, she added: “I’ve been silent for a year and a half, not talking to anyone but myself.”
“I lose my balance, that’s why I’m being held,” she said. “If you allow me to take a shower — I haven’t touched water for a year and a half — I’ll see you in a little while. Is that OK with you?”
Flamini spent her time underground doing exercises to keep her fit and busy, painting and drawing and knitting woolly hats.
She took two GoPro cameras to document her time, and got through 60 books and 1,000 liters of water, her support team said.
SCIENTIFIC BENEFIT
Flamini was monitored by a group of psychologists, researchers, speleologists — specialists in the study of caves — and physical trainers who watched her every move and monitored her physical and mental wellbeing, although they never made contact.
Her experience has been used by scientists at several Spanish universities and a Madrid-based sleep clinic.
They were studying the impact of social isolation and extreme temporary disorientation on people’s perception of time, the possible neuropsychological and cognitive changes humans undergo underground and the impact on circadian rhythms and sleep.
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