12MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

Yucatanby• • •bicycle!Jim PisarowiczThrough a strange set of circumstances(involving anthropologists,Vietnamese war refugees, and psychologists),I found myself gettingoff an AeroMexico flight in Merida,the capital of the Yucatan, on March29, 1978. My trip had been a longone, leaving Denver at 4:00 AM andinvolving an eleven hour layover inHouston. The flight from Houstonarrived Merida at 10:00 PM. Rushingdown to customs I saw a bewilderedofficial looking at my luggage--twosmall, and one LARGE box. He motionedthat I should open the large one,which I did. "~Una bicicleta?", heasked. "Si," I replied. He was confused,but I was not, as my means oftransportation for this bizarre cavingtrip was to be a bicycle.To experience an area like theYucatan a bicycle is an ideal conveyance.My goal was to see many ofthe Mayan ruins and to locate andexplore any caves that I·should findin the process. Since most of theYucatan is just one flat, or at timesrolling, karst plain, a bicycleprovides an inexpensive, enjoyablemeans of transportation. By combiningthis slow means of transportationwith an almost complete immersionin the environment, the areasthat I traveled along could be checked,quite thoroughly, for caves orany other interesting karst features.From Merida I traveled south towardthe major ruins of Uxmal andKabah. From a geological point ofview, this was a spectacular ride.From Merida to Muna one travels acrossa vast, flat karst plain. Herethe soil is only a few centimetersthick and no surface water is seen.Dolines can be seen immediately tothe side of the road and off in thedistance. Small cave entrances dottedthe roadsides and I stopped tocheck several of these. Most weresmall, crawling type caves thatpinched down to nothing within 10 or15 meters. Along the route to MunaI stopped at my first cenote -­Cenote de la Culebra for a quick visit.Actun de HenequenAlthough I was finding manysmall caves, nothing of any significancewas found early that morningof the first day. But then, whilestopping to take a landscape photo(which I never did take) I saw alarge iguana run across the road.Thinking that I could perhaps geta good picture of it I followed himoff the road and into the thickets.About 100 meters from the road Ilost the creature (or rather it lostme) but there I found a small sink-9