Spelunking
Somewhere, in a watery cave in the small town of Semuc Champey, is a pair of old New Balance running shoes with Spam laces.
I really shouldn´t have taken them off. Several pertinent reasons come to mind - the cave had no distinguishing landmarks to lead me to find them again (a fact I probably would have noticed had I even thought to take note of landmarks in the first place), visibility below the water was zero (and I thus couldn´t see where my feet were stepping), and were it not for the three candles that Bjorn, Elliot and I held aloft, visibility above the water would be zero as well.
But it seemed like a good idea at the time. Given that I had to swim and hold a candle above my head to light the way, shoes seemed an unnecessary weight to drag around. And they were, for a while - through the cave mud, past the waterfall, and through the basin - but I realized I was in serious error once we hit the rocks. They were exceptionally sharp. After three impacts, I resigned myself to swimming and staying afloat with one hand, letting my feet drag behind me. No good. My shin made contact right along the exposed portion of the femur, and I sank underneath the water in a brief spurt of blinding pain. And cursed. Cursed to high heaven. Most of us don´t appreciate just how quickly we actually move our limbs until they´re stopped cold by something that absolutely refuses to move.
Pain aside, however, it was fantastic.
Semuc Champey boasts two main attractions - lagoons and caves. We hit the lagoons the first day, travelingling with two Irish girls we´d met the previous night (our favorite quote quickly became "feck the lot of ye!"). They number roughly four, stacking one atop the other in a series of terraced steps. Most of the water from the river goes underneath a 300 meter tunnel that empties below the last lagoon in a series of rapids. Because it had rained the previous night, the water wasn´t as clear as usual (the usual being, say, perfect). Still gorgeous. Bjorn has pictures, and I´ll upload them later.
Our guide, one of the hotel´s volunteers, was eager to show us areas where we could walk off what would, to most normal people, be considered a cliff, and trust that the water was deep enough to save us. To my great disappointment, I was the only one who took him up on his offer. The second time I dove, an act that took me at least three minutes of preparation as I withstood the callous jeers of Bjorn and one of our Irish friends ("You idiot! Are you insane? Don´t dive from there!"). The fear came not so much from the dive itself, which I´d done a great many times when younger from equal heights, as from the fact that the ground sloped ever so slightly outward to the water, forcing me to leap forward before forming a dive. That way I would clear the ground, but I´d never done it before. Usually I just let myself fall from a standing position. By the time I finished, I´d boosted my circulation up a good 30%.
Bjorn got a picture of some of the smaller dives.
The greatest part of the day, however, and quite possibly the highlight of the trip, was a brief excursion to a cave below the largest waterfall. Ben, our guide, had been there a great many times before, but because of its inaccesibility, it usually wasn´t discovered by tourists. Getting there involved climbing down a steep slope covered in mud and moss, clinging precariously to a series of roots (when I say "slope," I mean, more or less, 90%). Elliot, unfortunately, decided to opt out ere trying to climb down. Bjorn and I were greatly disappointed, but it was probably for the best, since it was by no means the hardest part about getting to the cave. The climb led us to a rocky outpost a good five feet above the water, which, as it turned out, was remarkably cold (the phrase "no tengo pelotas" translated remarkably well). We were in an eddy immediately to the left of the largest waterfall and had to swim through the current to the other side. Ben knew the safest way and managed to grab my hand as I floated past him, pulling me up towards the rock, which, just like the initial root-covered slope, was covered in slippery moss, and water from the falls.
Up the rock, into the first portion of the cave, and Ben pointed to a small hole in the wall and told us to follow him. It was at this point that Bjorn and I realized that Elliot, had he come, would never have fit - had Ben not pointed to it, I doubt I would have seen it for a good fifteen minutes. The other side held a much larger chamber, with one pathway along the side of a steep drop-off that led directly into the exiting water from the 300 meter tunnel. The cave, oddly enough, was home to dozens of swallows.
That was the high point, even though the other cave boasted candles, a waterfall that had to be scaled with a knotted rope, a high outcropping for jumping into a dark lagoon, and a small tunnel in a portion of rock completely covered in rushing water just big enough for one to wriggle through. The first cave was completely unexpected and, given that it was hard to find and get to, earned, in the sort of way that I imagine solo climbers might feel once ascending a summit. And we had no camera with us, and were thus left with whatever descriptions we could muster.
"You like?"
"Fantastic."
I really shouldn´t have taken them off. Several pertinent reasons come to mind - the cave had no distinguishing landmarks to lead me to find them again (a fact I probably would have noticed had I even thought to take note of landmarks in the first place), visibility below the water was zero (and I thus couldn´t see where my feet were stepping), and were it not for the three candles that Bjorn, Elliot and I held aloft, visibility above the water would be zero as well.
But it seemed like a good idea at the time. Given that I had to swim and hold a candle above my head to light the way, shoes seemed an unnecessary weight to drag around. And they were, for a while - through the cave mud, past the waterfall, and through the basin - but I realized I was in serious error once we hit the rocks. They were exceptionally sharp. After three impacts, I resigned myself to swimming and staying afloat with one hand, letting my feet drag behind me. No good. My shin made contact right along the exposed portion of the femur, and I sank underneath the water in a brief spurt of blinding pain. And cursed. Cursed to high heaven. Most of us don´t appreciate just how quickly we actually move our limbs until they´re stopped cold by something that absolutely refuses to move.
Pain aside, however, it was fantastic.
Semuc Champey boasts two main attractions - lagoons and caves. We hit the lagoons the first day, travelingling with two Irish girls we´d met the previous night (our favorite quote quickly became "feck the lot of ye!"). They number roughly four, stacking one atop the other in a series of terraced steps. Most of the water from the river goes underneath a 300 meter tunnel that empties below the last lagoon in a series of rapids. Because it had rained the previous night, the water wasn´t as clear as usual (the usual being, say, perfect). Still gorgeous. Bjorn has pictures, and I´ll upload them later.
Our guide, one of the hotel´s volunteers, was eager to show us areas where we could walk off what would, to most normal people, be considered a cliff, and trust that the water was deep enough to save us. To my great disappointment, I was the only one who took him up on his offer. The second time I dove, an act that took me at least three minutes of preparation as I withstood the callous jeers of Bjorn and one of our Irish friends ("You idiot! Are you insane? Don´t dive from there!"). The fear came not so much from the dive itself, which I´d done a great many times when younger from equal heights, as from the fact that the ground sloped ever so slightly outward to the water, forcing me to leap forward before forming a dive. That way I would clear the ground, but I´d never done it before. Usually I just let myself fall from a standing position. By the time I finished, I´d boosted my circulation up a good 30%.
Bjorn got a picture of some of the smaller dives.
The greatest part of the day, however, and quite possibly the highlight of the trip, was a brief excursion to a cave below the largest waterfall. Ben, our guide, had been there a great many times before, but because of its inaccesibility, it usually wasn´t discovered by tourists. Getting there involved climbing down a steep slope covered in mud and moss, clinging precariously to a series of roots (when I say "slope," I mean, more or less, 90%). Elliot, unfortunately, decided to opt out ere trying to climb down. Bjorn and I were greatly disappointed, but it was probably for the best, since it was by no means the hardest part about getting to the cave. The climb led us to a rocky outpost a good five feet above the water, which, as it turned out, was remarkably cold (the phrase "no tengo pelotas" translated remarkably well). We were in an eddy immediately to the left of the largest waterfall and had to swim through the current to the other side. Ben knew the safest way and managed to grab my hand as I floated past him, pulling me up towards the rock, which, just like the initial root-covered slope, was covered in slippery moss, and water from the falls.
Up the rock, into the first portion of the cave, and Ben pointed to a small hole in the wall and told us to follow him. It was at this point that Bjorn and I realized that Elliot, had he come, would never have fit - had Ben not pointed to it, I doubt I would have seen it for a good fifteen minutes. The other side held a much larger chamber, with one pathway along the side of a steep drop-off that led directly into the exiting water from the 300 meter tunnel. The cave, oddly enough, was home to dozens of swallows.
That was the high point, even though the other cave boasted candles, a waterfall that had to be scaled with a knotted rope, a high outcropping for jumping into a dark lagoon, and a small tunnel in a portion of rock completely covered in rushing water just big enough for one to wriggle through. The first cave was completely unexpected and, given that it was hard to find and get to, earned, in the sort of way that I imagine solo climbers might feel once ascending a summit. And we had no camera with us, and were thus left with whatever descriptions we could muster.
"You like?"
"Fantastic."
posted by NateWazoo at 12:54 PM
1 Comments:
Nice. One of the few times in life I have wished I was tiny.
Post a Comment
<< Home