Geocaching is truly a global phenomenon. Even in war-torn Iraq, our sport has established a foothold; there are at least 17 caches listed in this mid-east country.
Who in their right mind would hide or seek these caches? The majority of cachers, of course,
are individuals associated with the coalition forces and military related businesses. At the
time of this writing, eight different cachers have hidden 17 caches in an approximate 100-mile
radius of Baghdad, the nation's capitol.
From the time of the placement of the first cache in September 2003, at least 55 finds and five DNFs have been logged on Iraq caches. Nearly half of the existing caches (six) remain unfound.
The breakdown of cache types presents 12 regular caches, two multi-caches, one mystery night cache, one virtual cache and one event cache. Two caches have been archived.
"In the north of Iraq, on the Kirkuk airfield, there is what appears to be a fire hydrant with trees behind it," states the cache page for My First. As explained in the interview with John Panhorst, caching in Iraq can require specialized credentials and equipment.
Placed by StumbleBump in February of this year, My First, has only two logged finds. An excerpt from one of the logs reads: "My first non-US real geocache! I'm very excited to find a cache while deployed. This one was harder for a couple of reasons: coordinates above are about 35 miles off, my best guess of fixing them was wrong, some help from the Northern Boys was good and I have included a better waypoint above (the one I used to find the cache) but the area was crowded (an extra battalion moving through), and, of course, passing through security to get on the base and the 'special equipment' required around here..."
The only virtual cache in the country,
Over the Tigris and through the woods...,
by Smejk, is
probably the only cache available to the general public, arguably, without credentials.
It may still be a good idea to have some "specialized equipment."
One log for that cache explains, ": Found this virtual cache while airborne from about 75 feet up. Thanks for giving us something else to look for out here."
The Balad Micro Cache # 1, placed by Dan O in September 2003 and adopted by dradams89, has the most entries in the online log with 30; 19 are finds, two are DNFs (later logged as finds) and nine are notes, mostly from cachers outside of Iraq wishing safety to those in the war zone.
The cache page notes: "Like all Iraqi caches, the intent is to keep caching alive during our deployment. I will be going home before the end of the year '04. I need someone to take this cache over to keep the spirit alive as I did from Dan O. So email me and let me know if you are interested."
One log reads, "Cool! Owls again. I count three adults and three young ones and lots of bones.
I wouldn't take the route I took if I knew most of it was the nest. I probably got some bird
diseases, and frightening some birds, but I can tell you those talons put the fear of God in
me for a moment (or two). Anyway, I took a completely different approach route and looked in
the spot I found it last time (nothing), then I proceeded to look in every nook and cranny
an altoids container might fit as if I was looking for a micro back home (since the power
was out back at the hooch and it was cooler in the sun than in the trailer box). I couldn't
find anything but scared owls and a dehydrated geocacher. If nobody else posts a replacement
container has been put in place, I should have the problem fixed in a couple of days. The
original cache owner is a family friend and I hadn't even realized that my wife had introduced
him to geocaching through a mention of it in our Christmas letter. Small world, small army,
small caching community, Johann Panholtz."
The Camp Smitty-cache,
hidden in June of this year by Zuurtje, was specifically placed for all the Dutch geocachers of SFIR 3/4/5 and visiting foreign geocachers.
Deze cache is speciaal geplaatst voor alle Nederlandse geocachers van SFIR 3/4/5 en bezoekende
buitenlandse geocachers.
No less than 18 travel bugs have visited caches in Iraq, including Ralloh, owned by Hawk-eye of North Carolina which has traveled 14,538 miles, and Cache Dashing Dakiba owned by GarminArmin, traveling 89,165 miles. A yellow jeep travel bug, an OIF2 geocoin, and a Moun10Bike geocoin also have found their respective ways to Iraq.