Spanish climber leaves cave after spending 500 days in complete isolation

MADRID — A Spanish mountain climber emerged Friday from a cave 230 feet underground where she spent 500 days isolated from the outside world.

Beatriz Flamini, 50, of Madrid, left the cave in southern Spain shortly after 9 a.m. after being told by supporters that she had completed the feat she set out to accomplish on Nov. 21, 2021.

Spanish media said the spell underground set a new world record, but the claim could not be immediately confirmed.

The Spanish state news agency Efe later reported Flamini as saying she was obliged to temporarily halt the challenge after some 300 days and leave the cave for eight days because of a technical problem. Efe said she spent the eight days in a tent but had no contact with anyone before going back down once the problem was resolved.

It was not immediately possible to contact Flamini or her team for comment on that incident. Given that there are 509 days between April 14 and the day she started the project, it appears she spent at least 500 days underground with an interruption of eight days.

Blinking and smiling as she embraced well-wishers, Flamini’s first words included asking who would be paying for a celebratory round of beers.

In brief comments to journalists, Flamini described the experience of being cut off from the world as “excellent, unbeatable.” She then asked to be excused as she needed her first shower in more than 16 months.

In 1987, Italian Maurizio Montalbini set a world record by spending 210 days in a cave. Internet searches show reports of a Serb who spent more than 460 days underground in 2016.

Flamini’s pursuit was part of a project called Timecave that was designed to study how someone would fare going solo underground for so long.

Flamini used two cameras to document her experiences and placed the recordings at an exchange point in the cave, Efe reported. Her teammates dropped off food and other necessities at the retrieval site and picked up whatever she left there.

A group of psychologists, researchers, speleologists and physical trainers with Timecave studied the recordings but did not have any direct contact with her.