50-YO Woman Emerges From Cave After 500 Days of Living in Complete Isolation | “I Didn’t Want to Come Out”

"I'm still stuck on November 21, 2021. I don't know anything about the world," Flamini said.

Cover Image Source: YouTube | The Guardian

By Suchitra B

April 17, 2023

Posted April 17, 2023

A Spanish mountaineer, who spent 500 days alone in a cave 230 feet underground, made her way out on April 14. After her followers let her know that she had completed the task she set out to perform on November 21, 2021, Beatriz Flamini, 50, of Madrid, got out of the cave in southern Spain shortly after 9 a.m., per HuffPost.

Flamini asked who would be paying for a celebratory round of drinks while grinning as she hugged well-wishers. Flamini made brief remarks to the media during which she praised being cut off from the outside world as an "excellent, unbeatable" experience. After that, she requested a break because she needed to take her first shower in more than 16 months.

Flamini was 48 years old when she first entered the cave in Granada. She shared that she passed the time by working out, reading, knitting, painting, and drawing, per PEOPLE. "In fact, I didn't want to come out," she said.

During the experiment, Flamini was monitored by psychologists, researchers, and speleologists, who study caves, though they never made contact with her, per the reports. Flamini said she lost track of time after about two months, per AP. However, the mountaineer thought she had only been underground for about 160 or 170 days.

Mountain climber Beatriz Flamini spent more than a year and a half deep underground in southern Spain. https://t.co/e9XnUEwHsm
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) April 15, 2023

Spanish media has stated that Flamini might have broken a world record. Later, Flamini told the Spanish national news agency Efe that a technological issue forced her to terminate the challenge after about 300 days and exit the cave for eight days.

Flamini slept in a tent for eight days without speaking to anyone and then descended into the cave once the tech issue was fixed. It indicates she spent at least 500 days underground with a break of 8 days, as there were 509 days between April 14 and the day she began the project.

"When they came in to get me, I was asleep. I thought something had happened," Flamini told reporters, per Reuters. "I said, 'Already? Surely not.' I hadn't finished my book."

The 500-day journey that Flamini undertook was part of a project called "Timecave," the AP reports. The objective was to determine how well a person might adapt to spending a significant amount of time underground. Experts looked at the effects of extreme transient confusion and social isolation on the human body as part of the experiment. "I'm still stuck on November 21, 2021," Flamini told reporters on Friday. "I don't know anything about the world."