Thursday, April 2, 2009

Cueva Mucara 2 - Into the Mud


Ron was the last down and he plopped straight into the mud and river that Jeff and I managed to swing away from. This was his first "getting suctioned into stuff" episode of the trip.

From the drop zone we were one our way through the river to the more open parts of the cave. This is when I wish I were a little taller.

Deeper, deeper, deeper - the guys are waist high and well, it is a little higher on me and it is cold!
We get to the first place Ron wants to survey so he gets out his equipment and Jose and Bro act as assistants to set marks and record data etc. Jeff and I explore to the end and return so Bro and Jose can have a chance to explore.

Mud - yeah, right...you wish it was mud but nope...bat shit! We surveyed our way up into the bat chamber and up and up. The actual bat room was steamy and really warm and full of bats and guano at least knee high if not more. Hot steamy warm bat guano that smells kind of like burnt popcorn (I tell myself anyway). As we measure distances and elevations etc we are getting deeper into the stuff when Ron creates an avalanche of "stuff" (suctioned in episode two) and mentally hits the end of the road. He was so done with it it was comical (sorry Ron) - he didn't want to stay another minute in the stuff and headed at a quick pace down to the muddy river to wash off. He was covered in the stuff and I am sure it was totally in his boots and socks and every orifice. At least he didn't have a two hour drive home before he could shower!


We saw some nice formations in this cave.

We saw a lot of bats. Mainly you feel the bats as they make wing wind across your face.

2 comments:

Fran and Steve said...

Amazing stuff, Katrina. I love the picture with the bats. And when I saw the pic of the guy in front of the giant evil head, that's exactly what I thought it looked like before I even read your comment! Fran

Anonymous said...

Have you gone cave exploring in Mona Island? Here is a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SXI-wpLAfA