This has to be the wildest cave system I have experienced. There were no lights, no steps inside, absolutely everything was left natural and original.
First, a little bit of history. The King Marcos Caves are about a 15 minute drive from Coban, Guatemala. Coban is heavily populated (about 70%) by Mayan Q'eqchi. It is interesting to note that in the early 1900's the Germans began populating Coban mostly taking over the production of coffee; however, in the 1940's when WWII occurred the US pressured the Guatemalan government to push the Germans out of Guatemala. Nowaday, only very few Germans still live in Coban and most are now mixed with Mayan.
Sometimes the reason past history is important is because it gives me a better understanding of the place I'm visiting such as King Marcos Caves; it turns out King Marcos was actually not a King at all. The Spaniards used to call governors "kings". Marcos was responsible for bringing multitudes of Mayan Indians to Coban to work the coffee fields and was granted the position of governor or "King" by the Spanish crown. The caves were not discovered until the late 1990's.
We made our way up into the cave. As soon as I stepped into the I immediately almost began crawling. The ceiling was very low and I hit my head 13 times throughout the whole expedition (yes, I counted them all). One if the young women in our group, 10 minutes into the cave, decided it was too much for her and made her way back out. It was pitch black, a river gushed throught the middle of the cave, and everything was wet and slippery. I was grateful we were given rubber boots and hard hats with flashlights attached to them. Pictures were very difficult to take as my hands and feet were constantly busy trying to keep my balance.
Note the ceiling in the picture below and observe the gold colored mineral deposits on top.
My favorite part was when we reached the end of the cave and our guide asked us to turn our headlamps off. Standing in utter darkness gave me the sensation I was just a spirit. No name or body. I simply.....was. When the headlamps came back on I felt everything but that moment had been an illusion.
Good night everyone, thanks for reading my blog. Tomorrow: the ancient city of Antigua.
Where there any bats in the cave?
ReplyDeleteNot in this cave. The cave from the day before there were a lot of bats. Unfortunately, they were all sleeping and did not come out to play.
ReplyDeleteAww drats. :)
ReplyDelete