Cueva Ensueno - Dream Cave

It all started with a dream...the dream of making money by starting up a "tourist" spot in Puerto Rico. A dream that never did come to fruition for many reasons. We had been to this cave before but did not know the history. Ron Richards let us borrow his copy of "The Ensueno Cave Study," which was made by Russell and Jeanne Gurnee (with others) in 1988. The Gurnees are responsible for major exploration and "discovery" of the Camuy System. The expedition into this small cave was in February of 1987. It was being considered for development as a show cave by the Cordero family which owns it to this day. They managed the Camuy show cave for 5 years and had plans for a Hacienda presenting a turn-of-the-century coffee plantation in addition to the show cave. They purchased property around the cave and there were plans for a road to the location, plans for how to get lighting into the cave and water services. There were drawings of the whole shebang and it all seemed well thought out. About the cave: The cave is part of the Lares Limestone Formation formed in the late Oligocene (24 - 30 million years ago - unless you believe earth was made in 7 days and hasn't been around that long). It is an upper remnant of the Rio Camuy Cave System formed by "undersaturated water flowing into carbonates off of less soluble rocks in the interior." The river used to be at a higher level than it now flows. It used to flow through this cave. It is a decorated cave with a walk in entrance, small constriction in the middle and then a nice room of helictites.

We parked on the small road outside the gate of the property owner's house. There were caretakers out trimming and we asked for permission to cross the property and enter the cave. Ron was collecting temperature information and we just wanted a nice caving day! Inside we saw some evidence of where they were thinking of putting lighting. There were also damaged stalactites.

We saw a few scorpions. We had to go through a constriction that regular people would never go through. The plans had the owners tunneling a parallel hole alongside the cave so visitors could walk on a flat surface and see into the cave without having to duck or crawl or go through this part. After the constriction there is a room with some large stalagmites and stalactites and possibly evidence of earthquake damage (large things at odd angles that clearly have been broken and have regrown). Ron is in front of one of these. Up close you can see the cake-like formation has toppled! The cave then gets lower and lower and ends.

The stalactites on the roof of the cave in the main room had many helictites on them. You had to look closely to see them but once you start looking they were all over! If the cave had been developed it is doubtful you would have been close enough to see them. Here's Jeff under an impressive drapery with bacon. It is all very Doctor Seuss looking.

So why didn't this come to fruition? Many reasons. The cost to tunnel around the constriction, build the Hacienda etc etc was around a million dollars. The break even point was 189,000 visitors which means Puerto Rican's have to visit it. They estimated that more of those visitors would be Puerto Rican than would be from other places. If you live here you know that people here generally would not be interested in something like this in the numbers they projected. At $3 bucks a person for entry there is no way this would work! They could have made it work if they could provide food in a nice setting that was served reasonably fast and was well-priced, and in a clean environment but we all know that that indeed would be a DREAM...

Cueva Ensueno (Dream Cave)

First off, was it a dream or a nightmare? Jeff and I headed out on a SEPRI (cave group) trip that lead us to Cueva Ensueno in the Camuy area. I had just crunched my knee the night before - smacked the kneecap on the road and it was swollen and raw. I needed a diversion from the selling-the-house mess so I figured I'd go anyway and skip the second cave. Cave 1 was a short walk and short cave so I figured it'd be ok. There are different reasons people go into caves- for some it is a totally ruckus affair and totally social and for others, like us, it is a quiet commune-with-nature-and-marvel-at-nature-with quiet friends kind of thing. This trip was ruckus. The cave itself, once I could think, was quite beautiful and very decorated. It was a small cave but it was full of helictites and flowstone. What it lacked in "adventure" (climbing, crawling, swimming etc) it made up for with formations. Here is Dallas working his way through the cave.

The group, like most groups, was too large. 15 people is just too many to move through a cave. Too many personalities, too many "missions," and definitely too many people moving at different paces in tight places. To move carefully you have to have some room so you can stay fluid. When people jam up, whoever is behind has to shift their weight around while they are crouched in uncomfortable positions. People just don't seem to understand this and they don't leave room for fluid movement. This is when formations get bumped, hand prints get on clean formations and things break. Oh well. I always try to be first or last because I move smoothly and quickly. Didn't happen this trip. So back to the beauty. The room was covered on the ceiling with helictites, or what Puerto Rican's call ecentricios (don't know if I spelled that right). I figure that means "eccentrics" or something close to that since they are the anti-gravity grow-in-all-directions formations. This cave has beautiful ones! Here Jeff is pointing out another one...

Here it is up close. At the end there were the drippy, candle-wax flowstone formations. Perfect for Halloween.

This was my favorite formation of all - a giant slab of bacon hanging from the ceiling. With the bacon and helictites it is clear where Chihoully got his inspiration (underground and underwater and flowers I think). Nature's chandeliers trump anything man comes up with.This formation was HUGE!

It was also very clean and well-formed. It was very high up so it was intact without damage.

More helectites..

The water drops show that the formations are still growing.

Here Bro is on his way out. Above him are lots of stalactites and shields.

Leave the dog a bone.

The jungle walk is always full of beauty as well. Here a palm has a multi-colored trunk. I'll leave out the worst nightmare. Sweet dreams!