Wednesday
Today a group of us decided to do the ATM caving tour. ATM stands for Actun Tunichil Muknal. This is a cave that contains many Mayan artifacts including actual skeletal remains. To begin the tour we drove about 45 minutes outside of San Ignacio. We then hiked into the jungle for about a mile. The cave is nestled there. The entrance looked like something out of a movie. We were equipped with hard hats and headlamps and in we dove. To get to the caverns inside we had to wade and swim through the water for about a mile. Sometimes the water was so deep that we had to hang onto the walls and shimmy or we would be underwater. At one point our guide had us turn our headlamps off and we were in actual complete darkness. By that I mean that honestly there was no light in the cave. You could not see your hand in front of your face. It was spooky. We got to see a lot of cave formations including stalactites and stalagmites. Bats and small catfish were also hanging around. Once we reached the main cavern we were asked to remove our shoes and to wear socks. The shoes would scratch the cave floor and the oils in our feet would also ruin some of the formations. As we had hiked in we were asked not to touch certain parts of the cave walls with our hands for the same reason.
The main cavern held lots of Mayan pottery. The Mayans believed that these caves were sacred and the entrance to the underworld known as Xibalba. Here they would pray and offer food (and people) to the Gods. The skeletal remains were unbelievable. The first ones we saw was just a skull. Due to the ways cave form and grow all the remains were under a layer of calcium carbonate. It covered the bones in a white layer. The second set of bones were that of a person who had died from a disease called encephalitis or swelling of the brain. The tour guide said this person was not sacrificed but had died and been carried into the cave. The third and fourth sets of bones had been human sacrifices. Much archaeological work has been done to see if these remains were male of female and to tell a cause of death. The last one we saw was the most magnificently preserved. It is called the crystal maiden. The bones still lay in the formation of a body after 1000’s of years and are preserved under a layer of white.
Today a group of us decided to do the ATM caving tour. ATM stands for Actun Tunichil Muknal. This is a cave that contains many Mayan artifacts including actual skeletal remains. To begin the tour we drove about 45 minutes outside of San Ignacio. We then hiked into the jungle for about a mile. The cave is nestled there. The entrance looked like something out of a movie. We were equipped with hard hats and headlamps and in we dove. To get to the caverns inside we had to wade and swim through the water for about a mile. Sometimes the water was so deep that we had to hang onto the walls and shimmy or we would be underwater. At one point our guide had us turn our headlamps off and we were in actual complete darkness. By that I mean that honestly there was no light in the cave. You could not see your hand in front of your face. It was spooky. We got to see a lot of cave formations including stalactites and stalagmites. Bats and small catfish were also hanging around. Once we reached the main cavern we were asked to remove our shoes and to wear socks. The shoes would scratch the cave floor and the oils in our feet would also ruin some of the formations. As we had hiked in we were asked not to touch certain parts of the cave walls with our hands for the same reason.
The main cavern held lots of Mayan pottery. The Mayans believed that these caves were sacred and the entrance to the underworld known as Xibalba. Here they would pray and offer food (and people) to the Gods. The skeletal remains were unbelievable. The first ones we saw was just a skull. Due to the ways cave form and grow all the remains were under a layer of calcium carbonate. It covered the bones in a white layer. The second set of bones were that of a person who had died from a disease called encephalitis or swelling of the brain. The tour guide said this person was not sacrificed but had died and been carried into the cave. The third and fourth sets of bones had been human sacrifices. Much archaeological work has been done to see if these remains were male of female and to tell a cause of death. The last one we saw was the most magnificently preserved. It is called the crystal maiden. The bones still lay in the formation of a body after 1000’s of years and are preserved under a layer of white.
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