Dave's Great Adventure

Well, it really has been a long time since I last emailed a progress report of my adventure. I think my last email to you was from Antigua, Guatemala. It has been a real problem to decide on the next move as there are so many beautiful destinations to choose from within Guatemala. 

It's been a case of sacrificing one potentially amazing destination in favour of another. In Antigua, I shared a room with an Italian backpacker who had just arrived from Honduras on the back of a lorry. A good fellow and we swopped stories over a few cups of the most delicious Guatemalan coffee I have ever tasted. He was making his way to Lake Atitlan, which is surrounded by volcanoes (7 in the vacinity). The writer Huxley called Atitlan "The most beautiful lake in the world". An agonising decision but I opted in favour of visiting the Mayan ruins peppering the landscape between here and the Yucatan Peninsula rather than a festival of scenery. The following night I shared a room with a German (collects old vehicle number plates on his travels!) and a Belgian backpacker. The Belgian had climbed the active Volcan Fuego that morning and he looked as though he had gulped one too many mouthfuls of sulpher at the mouth of the volcano.

Sunday 25 January and I caught a minibus to Guatemala City ( 4 lane highways and skyscrapers, mind you) followed by a connecting bus to Flores - a tiny island town on the banks of Lake Peten Itza - right in the heart of the nothern Guatemalan jungle. The following morning, I caught a "collectivo" which transported me the 60 km or so into the Guatemalan jungle where the Mayan ruins of Tikal rise like giant monoliths above the jungle canopy.

I chose not to take a stock standard tour of the ruins at someone else's pace but rather to walk the 2.5 sq km ruins armed with my trusted Footprint Guide Map of the site. What a haunting and awesome experience! Walking along wide cleared causeways with the jungle canopy overhead, encountering the occasional group of colourful Toucans feeding on berries and fruit. Ancient and majestic trees that look like they have come straight out of the pages of Thomas Peckham's book "Amazing Trees of the World". Not another soul around me. And, then suddenly looming in front, a giant temple structure built by the Mayans around 300BC. Climb to the apex of the temple and, as far as the eye can see, a 360 degree panoramic view of the Guatemalan jungle. There in the distance, another temple rises above the canopy ... and another... and another.

I was particularly interested in the astronomical link of these structures. The solstices and cardinal points of the compass were factors influencing the construction of these temples. One particular pyramid was strikingly similar in construction methodology to those I had seen outside of Mexico city at Teotihuacan. I snapped over 40 pictures of the multitude of structures I encountered so that I can research them back home and hopefully present a few short talks to the astronomical society.

Now firmly hooked on Mayan archeological sites, I decided to catch a bus to Tulum on the Yucatan Pininsula. As an aside, you can catch a bus to any town or site in Central America, as long as you have three essential ingrediants: time, money (and it is really inexpensive to catch luxury air-conditioned buses in Central America) and patience for the constant barrage of old Spanish spaghetti westerns you will be subjected to on the bus television screens. 

En-route we had to enter the tiny country of Belize, with its distinctivly British Colonial influences in buildings and towns. I was able to spend an hour in Belize City, but the hordes of holiday makers confirmed to me that it was not really a wise option to spend too much time lazing around in expensive accommodation and on holiday-maker packed beaches. The pleasure of going thought Belize - US$20 exit fee at the border.

Upon arrival in Tulum, 4 backpackers tagged onto me and I helped then find accommodation - getting good at this! Again, the trusted Footprint guidebook. It was Tuesday 27 January. The following morning, I decided to scout a few scuba diving operations as the guidebook mentioned the high quality of diving in Tulum. One outfit really caught my eye - Cenote Diving.

Now, I didn't have a clue what cenote diving was. I felt a little foolish when I asked if I could take my daypack onto the boat and the amused response that we don't use boats in cenote diving. So, what then is cenote diving?

Beneath the Mayan Riviera on the Yucatan Peninsula, there is a subterranean system of over 50km of surveyed passageways connected to the Carribean Sea. These passageways, formed over a period of 4 ice ages, are ancient freshwater underground river systems. They are now completely flooded and they remain as a system of caverns (cenotes) and caves that are accessed via holes in the ground in the forest.

And I had just purchased 2 dives into 2 of these caverns. I'll tell you all about it in my next email!

Until then   
Dave

Hi from the Cenote (Caverns) of Tulum
05 February 2004 10:53

As I peered into the crystal clear water-filled hole in the ground, I wondered what on earth I was doing in the middle of the forest about to jump into a cavern filled with unknown surprises. Heavily laden with scuba cylinder and gear, I went through the pre-dive check with the Dive Master and asked about the visibility. He replied “Forever man, forever”. The dive was rated with a visibility exceeding 100m. 

I plunged into Gran Cenote and immediately enjoyed the relief of the cool water from the stifling forest heat. I dumped air from the BC jacket and descended to the bottom where I carefully attained a neutrally buoyant state. This was important, the DM explained, as the fragility of the environment would not tolerate any bouncing off the floors or the ceiling. Also, I practised a new frog kick - strange gentle curling kicks so as not to disturb the ultra fine silt in the caves. It was explained very earnestly that if I disturbed the silt it would be game over and visibility would quickly drop to zero; we would have to feel our way out of the caverns. 

Great - makes me feel really comfortable. 

Torches on - ready to go.

As I descended into the darkness, with just our powerful torches illuminating the surrounds, a new planet opened up to me. Crystalline caves of ancient limestone formed over four ice ages of dripping fresh water. Needle-like stalactites and pillars of stalagmites surrounded as I gently frog-kicked behind the DM deeper into the caverns. Just a rope to guide us and the emerald eerie half-light filtering from the distant entrance. 

Huge cathedral-like pillars glistening like glass. I touched the silted bottom with my hand and just that movement sent a talcum powder-like puff swirling around the spot. Very few fish - a tiny pure white albino cavern fish wriggled into a secluded cranny. Though tiny cavern entrances, wide enough for only a single diver and cylinder. Then into the next gaping and darkened cavern with new organ pipes of stalactites. Eerie silence, just the sound of my exhale as the bubbles trickled from my regulator. Almost daring not to breath so as not to disturb this ancient memorial of an underground river system; interconnected tunnel ways, running an estimated 50 km beneath the Mayan Riviera. We encounter an underwater sign with skull and crossbones: ?Do not enter!? My torch stops working!

Calmly tug on the fin of the DM ahead of me and signal him to give me a replacement torch. No fuss. Press onward into the darkness.

We stay on the rope and all to soon my pressure gauge reads 2000psi and its time to signal the DM for our egress from the caverns. My depth gauge reads a mere 10 metres and my stopwatch 40 minutes. Unbelievable - where did the time dissolve to. Safety in this form of diving overshadows every other objective. The rule: one third air in, two thirds out. I have plenty of air for at least another 20 minutes but it?s time to surface. Stay on the rules and we dive safely.

As I surfaced, I could hardly speak with awe and excitement. The DM said: ?the next cenote is a short 2 km drive away and even better.? Impossible!

An hour later I was entering Caveleros Cenote, or affectionately called ?Temple of Doom?. Great label of encouragement, I might add. An even smaller opening in the ground and a 2m plunge with full dive gear into the warm crystal water. This time the dive would be to 17 meters and take the form of a giant circle around the cave entrance.  Just Doug, the dive master and myself. Dump air from the jacket and down we go. 

A completely different environment this time. Very few stalactites and stalagmites. But now, the most gorgeous carvings of limestone that look like finely laminated pieces of forest timber. Like pains-takingly intricate carvings of baroque artwork. Some, paper thin and as tall as trees, others reaching from floor to ceiling and appearing out of the darkness like giant monoliths. Colours of beige, ochre and cream.

Then we descended through the halocline - the mixing of comparatively cool fresh water and the warmer salty water of the Caribbean. For these tunnels are connected to the sea nearby. I could hardly make out the blurry form of the DM just a few yards in front of me as the disturbed halocline created this blurred mixing. Then into a new cavern where the halocline was undisturbed. The impression was of layer upon layer of mid-water mirrors.  Shine the torch through them and the reflection of hundreds of tiny spectrums gleaming back out of the darkness. Impossible beauty. As I drew my hand through the mirrors the mixing created the blurring effect in front of me. I am swimming through a world only science fiction could have created.

35 minutes and one third in - it was time to very slowly move out of this alien planet and back to the familiar. Every moment a grand experience that will live with me to my conclusion.     

Bye for now
Dave