Lion Cave and Tiger's Nest

The Lion Cave and Tiger's Nest geocache (GC3Z126) watches over one of the most revered places in the Himalayas: the Taktshang monastery, the “Tiger's Nest”, clinging to a cliff at 3,120 metres, several hundred metres above the Paro valley, in Bhutan. Legend has it that Padmasambhava arrived there from Tibet in the 8th century carried by a tigress — his disciple Yeshe Tsogyal, who had taken that form — to meditate in the cave the monastery covers today. The building dates from 1692; a fire ravaged it on 19 April 1998, destroying paintings and statues and costing the life of a monk, before a restoration in 2004-2005.

You go up on foot, a little over three kilometres of trail among the pines and the prayer flags. The site is too busy and too closely watched for anything to be hidden there: so in 2012 nannibella placed the box slightly off to the side, at Singye Pha Lhakhang, the “Lion Cave”, a tiny temple wedged between two rock faces.

Between those cliffs, GPS is of almost no use: better to trust the owner's description. Named “geocache of the week” in April 2022 and then included in the selection of the year, it is the most highly rated geocache in Bhutan.