2012_12_02 Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave

Up at 6:30 with tea delivered to our cabin.  Continental breakfast @ 7:00 and then Jeronimo picked us up (again) for transport to Actun Tunichil Muknal.

Stopped along the way in San Elena to pick up Luis (our guide for the cave tour). There are only a few authorized guides for the cave tours and each guide is limited to 8 persons into the cave.

Luis the guide and Steve in the van.  He spoke Creole - mix of English, Spanish and Caribbean words.

Heading from Blancaneaux Lodge to A T M

Took about 2 hours to get to the cave - the last eight miles on a road that was described by Luis as "8 miles of bad road - 3 miles of bad road and 5 miles of good bad road".  He was telling the truth!  More later……

We had our lunches in backpacks that Jeronimo brought with in the van. We placed our orders for lunch last night at dinner.  Because some knuckle heads had walked on a broken some of the artifacts in the cave all cameras have been banned so I had to leave the camera behind.  I really would have liked to have it but that's the way it goes.  

In the parking lot.  Our van is over on the right.

Arrived at A T M and walked for about 45 minutes on some pretty slick muddy paths to the cave entrance.  We crossed through the same river 3 times on the way, the water was never more than knee high - but pretty cold.  Had to pay attention not to step on the bigger rocks as they were quite slippery.  The nice thing was the river was really clear so it was real easy to see where you were walking.

Once we got to the cave mouth we got our helmets with lights on them for inside the cave.  Luis gave some instruction about how to behave inside the cave.  Right away you had to swim (only about 35 feet) to enter the cave.

Swimming into the cave

Looking back to the entrance of the cave from inside.

The first little bit was up some pretty steep rocks to get to where the river leveled off.  This part of the cave had collapsed at some point so we were basically climbing over boulders and rocks that had fall from the top of the cave.  You could still see light coming thru from above.  There is no way they would allow this in the U.S.  WAY too dangerous for most folks.

Lifted this from the internet - Back when cameras were allowed!

Once into the flatter section we walked upstream thru the river - at this point the ceiling of the cave was really high and loaded with stalagtites and stalagmites.  The river went from just above knee hight to almost up to my chin at some points.  Mostly nearer to knee hight.  

After about 900 feet of river we started to climb up again.  Here we started to see the artifacts - pieces of pottery and plates from Mayan rituals.  The pieces were always broken as the Mayans thought you should never offer anything too perfect to the Gods.  Basically, they believed that caves were the entrance to the underworld and they were making offerings to the Gods to try to stop droughts or whatever else bad was happening.  This was pretty amazing!  At one point there was a naturally occurring rock out cropping that had a stalagtite hanging above it.  Archeologists have been able to determine that the Mayans chipped away at the bottom of the stalagtite to make it look move like jaguar teeth. When you cast a light the shadow of the "top teeth" and the naturally occurring outcropping by moving the light up and down it looked like the profile of a jaguar opening and closing it's mouth!  The Mayan shamans took pine sap torches into the cave and it must have seen auspicious to find this.  Pretty sweet!  I wish I could have photographed that!

We then climbed up some more to another regroup of chambers where there were MANY artifacts.  Luis explained them to us - at one point I thought if I saw one more piece of pottery…. I should mention that before we entered these chambers we had to remove our shoes.  The artifacts are not protected at all and at some point tourists have stepped on and broken some artifacts so we had to pay the price.  Our tender American feet were not ready for walking on the uneven rocky floors!  After more artifacts and two skulls (probably sacrificed by decapitation) with bones we reached a ladder.  Climbed up the ladder into yet another chamber where a mostly intact skeleton of another Mayan was lying.  This is the only intact skeleton ever found in a Mayan cave.  It's ben there for almost 1,000 years!  Almost worth the effort - kidding it was worth it.

Here is the skeleton

Reversing our steps we climbed back down the ladder and then the rocks after recovering our shoes.  The way back was a bit faster - now going downstream and less talking about stuff.  Got back and swam out of the cave.  It had rained quite a bit when we were in the cave so the walk back was even muddier.  45 minutes later we got back to our van and changed into dry clothes.

Headed back and right away Jeronimo tied to sneak around a water filled hole and skidded off the road.  Tried to gun backwards and really got stuck!  Luckily, there was one more driver back at the cave parking lot and he had a chain as well.  Geronimo walked back and got him and we were pulled out.  Rushed back to the hotel and Steve and Kasey made it exactly on time for a couples massage.

Dinner and now sitting in the lobby of the hotel updating this blog as the WIFI seems to be working - it didn't work in the room.

Connie has a massage scheduled for tomorrow morning and the other 3 are going to ride bikes to a local waterfall.  Then at 11:00 we will be transferred for 3.5 hours to our next stop - Turtle Inn.  Can't wait.