The Spanish 50-year-old mountaineer, climber and cave explorer, Beatriz Flamini, has surfaced after voluntarily spending 500 days underground in a 70-metre-deep cave in the southern Spanish province of Granada.
"I'll tell you what it was like down there ... but if you don't mind, I'm going to take a shower, because I haven't touched water for a year and a half," she said, laughing loudly to the cameras of the state TV channel RTVE and other media.
The elite athlete was greeted by relatives and researchers who followed the project and, according to the media, she gave a good impression both in terms of her health and emotions, although she initially had some difficulty keeping her balance, as she admitted.
However, she described her experience as: "Excellent, not to be outdone, not to be surpassed!"
Researchers from different fields at the Universities of Granada and Almería led and accompanied the "Time Cave" project which they recorded on video.
Flamini didn't have any contact with the outside world since the beginning of the experiment, in November 2021, they said. Among other things, she had no watch or telephone with her and only had a laptop with which she could send information to the outside world but not receive any.
The scientists plan on making a documentary and want to study the effects of total isolation and determine, among other things, whether it has led to neuropsychological and cognitive changes.
According to the Spanish researchers, Flamini has broken the world record set by the Italian Christine Lanzoni, who spent exactly 269 days in a cave in 2007.
Flamini reportedly had a tent in the cave and the team regularly supplied her with food and drink, which were left in a so-called safety zone, from which the team could also check up on her well-being.
The explorer is already planning her next adventure.
