Actun Tunichil Muknal- Real Caving Tour

• Inoursuitcase's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from San Ignacio

Trip Start Sep 29, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  San Ignacio, Belize
Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Last night we met a true Rastafarian guy. He was 62 and named Rastafaria. He has a massive mound of dreadlocks piled up on his head  (they must be heavy!) and a cute, smiley face. He sat down with us and sang us some Bob Marley songs in a gorgeous voice then some originals which i recorded. He wanted us to live with him for Winter.

It is still bloody humid and hot. Early this morning we ran into an American ex-pat who we had met yesterday and he took us to his mate's restaurant, "Pops Restaurant" where he supplies the eggs. We had a great coffee and some special beans they had made. We would have loved to have stayed and chatted all day but had hooked up a tour with an awesome English couple Tracey and Nick  to Actun Tunichil Muknal cave (Stones of Sepultura i believe) with MayaWalk company and a guide named Rinan. We were going to choose the tubing down a river but this cave is special and there is nowhere like it in the world. Belize is a special country. We drove for an hour out to the jungle area and walked for another 45 minutes across 3 river crossings to where we donned hardhats and a head torch for the caving.

This cave is well known to Mayans who practiced rituals like human sacrifice and body piercing and gave offerings in this cave and it has not been open for tourists long so the guides go to great efforts to prevent looting of the bones and artifacts within and to keep general wear and tear to a minimum by not allowing touching the walls of the cave which react with human body oils, not allowing the application of sunscreens and bug repellent and wearing socks only for part of the tour. Locals took explorers to the cave in 1986 and then it was mapped and studied in 1999. We got a really good historical background at the mouth of the cave about the underworld and supernatural spirits that dwell there then swam into the entrance. I asked the spirits to welcome us and thanked them for allowing us to pass. Some passages were narrow and very dark and there was alot of rock hopping, walking upstream swimming and slithering around. This was a huge challenge for me with a fear of entrapment and i talked myself into going ahead deeper into the cave. We said goodbye to the last remaining light of day at an opening and swam and maneuvered our way through 500metres of passage. The cave goes for 5.5km.We have never done anything like this before. In some places the caves open up into large, magnificent caverns filled with coloured stalagmites and stalactites shimmering and dripping. These formations show history like a tree's rings and the weather patterns, rainfall and even the amount of deforestation of the trees above the cave can be read through the stalagmites when a piece is taken to a lab. We could  imagine the spaces filled with chanting and flame from torches as ancient people trekked through the caves to leave offerings for the gods. This place is sacred and very beautiful. For some reason i felt safe and proud to have got through this challenge.

We got to a certain part of the cave and looked up to see a ledge which we climbed onto, took off our shoes and padded gently over the limestone amongst many ancient clay pots, some broken, some buried. These were the pots which held the food offerings for the gods. I was terrified of upsetting one of these special pieces. This was genuine gear. A few pieces have been taken out (one with hieroglyphics) for study and preservation but the rest remained intact. We saw a skeleton of a Mayan man with a flat forehead from a skull reshaping done as a baby. It had remains of sharp teeth which had been ground into points and we heard that the people dangled beads over their eyes to make themselves cross-eyed, a sign of beauty. This skeleton was a sacrifice to the rain gods which was a huge privilege for him. This massive cavern was spectacular and seemed to be a place to gather. We climbed a ladder up to another space and saw an eighteen year old female skeleton and a fourteen year old boy's skull and bones. There were 15 more people found in this cave in secret chambers where no-one can go. There is security guarding this site. 

This was an amazing adventure. Again we got absolutely slaughtered by bugs and mosquitoes and exhausted we certainly are. We chatted to the English couple who had done our exact trip in reverse so it put us at ease with all the questions we had and made us excited about what is to come. Tomorrow we will get a ride early in the morning with their tour company across to Tikal in Guatamala....... more monkeys.

Print this entry Share San Ignacio hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry