Trip Report
Mexico’s Mazatec Indian Country
Cerro Rabón, Oaxaca, México
Spring Break 1997 (March 5 - March 16)
by Dale Barnard
Crew: Ernie Garza, Jennifer Townsdin, Dale Barnard
Ernie Garza, Jennifer Townsdin, and I left Austin in Ernie's Chevy Suburban much later than planned, which seemed to set the mood for the rest of the trip. Mexico seems to have a way of working on its own time scale rather than that of any individual. This seems distinguished from the U.S., which focuses heavily on the productivity of individuals so that the rat race can remain uninhibited.
In the United States, for example, when a major highway needs repairs, the project is optimized for efficient traffic flow with cones; flaggers; custom road signs; detours; and occasionally, organized delays. However, just south of San Fernando in northern Mexico, we encountered a different vision of highway repair. Our progress halted behind a line of cars, trucks, and busses several miles long. With no visual cue as to what delayed us, we waited for about two hours, during which many cars turned around and headed back north, presumably to find an alternative route. Trucks and busses had no hope of finding room to turn around because the road banked steeply downward on both sides and the constant rain had turned the ground to squishy, sticky mud that captured any treading tire. Finally, Ernie marched ahead on foot determined to find out even a shred of new information to help us judge whether we had hope of passing any time soon. About 20 minutes later, he returned with the bad news: The road had been closed since the morning and the diversion that had been set up for traffic flow had turned to an impassable muck thanks to the weight of truck tires. We lost about three more hours driving a route around the closed road, sliding through sloppy mud most of the way, and ultimately arriving just a few miles past where we had started. Quite a detour! Just as a caver achieves no freedom by fighting with a solid cave wall, a traveler in Mexico achieves no freedom by expecting predictability. It seems better to let Mexico dictate the passages and let the caver decide which fork to take.
We found a good camping spot that night, just north of Ciudad de Mante by Restaurante San Francisco, which Terry Raines had previously referred to as "Cancer Café," due to its location just a few miles from the Tropic of Cancer. We found this camping spot by following a side road opposite the Café and then making a right turn on a "tire-tracks" kind of road.
We stopped along the highway where it passes through the El Abra Range to visit Cueva de El Abra. Jennifer and I hiked up to the impressive entrances that can be seen clearly from the highway. I took several available-light pictures. Then, Ernie showed us a nice specimen of his favorite kind of tree--the Soyate. The rare Soyate tree flares out into a huge cone-shaped base that gives it extra support in shallow soils. Ernie said that in all his Mexico travels, he has only seen Soyate trees in the El Abra.
After a nice lunch at Café Don Juan in Valles, with Jennifer taking on the duty of signing the cavers' log book, we headed east toward Tampico and then south toward Veracruz. The toll roads in this area added up to about 70 pesos ($9), which seems pretty expensive to me. Once at the coast, we hoped to find an old friend of Ernie's who used to live near Nautla within hearing distance of the crashing surf. It would have been the perfect camping spot for the night, but his friend had apparently sold the house and moved away. We then headed southward looking for another camping spot and found ourselves burdened with a sudden blow-out in a brand-new rear tire. The side wall had burst in an 'L' shape about 8 centimeters long. After an efficient 20-minute tire change, we found a camping spot next to a vast river. I chose to sleep in my sleeping bag on a tarp rather than pitching my tent, but I soon regretted my boldness. I was kept up all night by fleas biting me.
The next day, we passed through Tuxtepec and climbed into the mountains overlooking the huge and grotesque Miguel Alemán Reservoir. Hundreds of little islands litter the lake, reminding us that humans created this disturbance. The lake displaced over 50,000 Mazatec Indians who were living in the fertile valley. The story sounds the same all over North America: The powerful, greedy folks conquer the peaceful and powerless folks to make way for development. Can you guess how I feel about dams?
Near where the road ends in Cerro Central, we encountered impassable, wet cement. The lone road worker said that the cement might be hardened by morning. In the U.S., this would never be acceptable. Here, though, it came as no surprise. Thus, we parked the truck and walked the remaining kilometer or so to town to arrange for mules to help carry our cargo. Cerro Central is a cute little Mazatec mountain village near Jalapa de Dios. When we returned to the vehicle to set up camp, we noticed that several more trucks had backed up behind us. I had a great conversation in my broken Spanish with one of them who enthusiastically asked dozens of questions about all of our caving and camping gear. As would be the norm for the remainder of the trip, curious children hovered around us.
I always love finding the ends of roads since they force the traveler out of the vehicle and onto their feet. The next morning, we set off with full frame packs on our backs, two mules, the mule owner, and one additional porter who carried a frame pack. Ernie negotiated that each mule would cost 80 pesos ($10), but we decided to postpone paying them until we reach the top. They carried large duffel bags full of carbide, stove fuel, rope, and caving gear. The mules and two locals raced ahead of us up the burro trail toward San Martín, our distant destination. About midpoint on the hike, just uphill from the village Las Ruinas, some locals showed us a nice cave with a 4-second pit in it (it takes 4 seconds to hear the sound from a dropped rock). Since we had packed all of our caving equipment on the mules, we just logged the cave location and continued. For a local, the hike to San Martín takes between two and three hours. For us, it took six. When we finally reached San Martín, we stopped at Anselmo's Store. Cavers know Anselmo well because he has been welcoming and hospitable from the start. We met both of his wives and several small children.
We also discovered that the porters had left all of our gear at the store, which lay 20 minutes shy of the "Rat House," the field house that the Swiss cavers had rented from Anselmo. We now faced the problem of getting the five extra bags up to the Rat House. A local mule hauled several of the bags for 20 pesos ($2.50) and I made two extra trips back to town to get the rest. We learned that Nathali, one of the Swiss cavers, had been overcharged for the mules and the porter. An appropriate price would have been around 200 pesos ($25), but since she did not know the price that we negotiated at the base of the trail, she was overcharged by 140 pesos ($18). When we returned to Cerro Central a few days later, Ernie confronted the mule owner and the porter only to find that they had already spent the money. However, his smooth negotiating skills lined up credit with them for future trips.
When we reached the Rat House, Nathali greeted us. The other Swiss cavers and one Mexican caver were busy searching through the jungle for a lost gear stash worth over 15,000 pesos ($2000). Since caves lie on such steep trails and so far from camp, they often leave gear in convenient, known caves, to save having to haul it from the Rat House every trip. However, this year, they returned to find the gear missing. Certainly, a local could not have rappelled into the pit, so where did the gear go? Eventually, they found the gear in another cave. When they arrived back at the Rat House late that night, they offered us an elaborate story about how the mix-up happened, but I never quite understood it all--something about two caves that look alike and a botched survey. The Swiss crew consisted of Laurent Déchanez, Jean-Marc Jutzet, Yvo Weidmann, Catherine Perret, Nathalie Gumy, and their friend from Mexico City, Vicente.
The Rat House felt like luxury camping. Inside, a nice picnic table hung from caving ropes attached to the ceiling. Several tents filled up the first room, possibly to keep the rats and mosquitoes away, or perhaps for privacy. The temporary kitchen that the Swiss had built included a large three-burner cook stove connected to a five-gallon bottle of propane (I feel sorry for the mule who had to carry such a heavy bottle up the mountain). The two food shelves sported colorful foods, including at least six or eight varieties of fresh vegetables, and two huge cans of Nido (some milk-related substance that scared me). The food shelf looked more attractive and extensive than those in the local stores, which hints at how the Swiss view the importance of good meals. Large tubs of drinking water were harvested from roof-runoff during a recent storm. I took on the task of treating the drinking water for Ernie, Jennifer, and myself. At first, I tried to use Jennifer's brand new REI water filter, but it preferred to squirt water all over the room rather than into the bottles. I resorted to my iodine, which gave the water a slightly chemical aftertaste. We set up our gear in the dark and dusty back room. As far as I know, nobody spotted any rats in the Rat House this time. The existing tents and extensive gear took up most of the available floor space so Ernie and I pitched our tents outside.
In the morning, after the rain ended, I climbed out of the puddle in my tent and my muscles instantly reminded me how far we had hiked the previous day to get to San Martín. I found the elaborate Swiss cavers' food ceremonies to be rather humorous as I munched my bag of granola with my fingers. By the time they finished eating and completed the dish washing, the morning had nearly disappeared.
Then, as if someone had fired the starting gun, they raced through their caving gear, dawning matching caving outfits, and within 30 minutes were headed up the mountain toward a new pit cave. Nathali was four months pregnant and needed a slow walking pace so Ernie, Jennifer, and I walked with her and her significant other, Laurent, while the others zipped ahead. Even at their slower pace, we had trouble keeping up with them. The Swiss cavers appear to be in superb physical condition, probably from racing up and down the Alps looking for caves all the time. Two and a half hours of climbing through a machete-chopped jungle trail brought us to the newly found pit. Ernie, Jennifer, and I helped with some overland surveying and trail flagging, but mostly just complained about our sore muscles.
The Swiss used the next day for resting and playing around in town. Ernie, Jennifer, and I went in search of a large pit that can be seen from aerial photographs. Ernie has been there before and wanted to take photographs in the cave, but the trail turned out to be at least two years overgrown. Orange flagging tape was covered over with green moss and the machete chop marks had all but vanished. It took all day to get close to the cave. We all three took turns rechopping and reflagging the trail. Finally, we completely lost the trail. A 45-minute search ensued, but yielded nothing. Since daylight already began to fade, we had little hope of creating a new trail for the remaining kilometer or so to the cave. Perhaps next year we can find it. This was the second day in a row that we did not enter any caves.
On the third and last full day that we had in Cerro Rabón, we once again set off for the new pit that the Swiss had found near Kijahe Xontjoa. Jennifer and I had been practicing with rebelays in a tree before leaving Austin, so we felt ready for Swiss rigging techniques. By the time we made it to the cave, Jennifer had decided that after four straight days of intensive hiking, it would be safest if she did not do the 200 meter pit. Ernie and Jennifer then left to go to Goat Cave, a nice cave near San Martín, to take photographs.
Jean-Marc, one of the Swiss cavers, rigged an extra rebelay at the top so that he could watch me practice before I had to cross the real one 150 meters above the cave floor. It took me a lot of time to make it to the bottom of the cave because I carefully thought out each rebelay and always double checked my actions for safety.
Only a small skylight lit the top part of the pit, seeming little more than a candle light. Most of the rappel took me through almost total darkness, with only the sounds of small water falls along the walls. I spent most of the rappel wrestling with my rack to find a comfortable rate of descent so I had only a rough sense of the depth of the pit.
At the bottom, Laurent and Jean-Marc surveyed to the end of the cave while Yvo remained on rope to sketch the profile view of the pit. The Swiss surveying style impressed me a lot: They include full wall detail in their profile sketches. Their maps turn out very artistic with more detail than I have seen anywhere else. To calculate the depth of this pit and sketch the walls, Yvo would hook one end of the tape on the rope, rappel 50 meters, record the data, and then turn around on rope to go up the 50 meters to unhook the tape. Then, he would rappel down again to repeat the whole exercise on another section of the rope. In the meantime, he sketched the barely-visible wall detail while slowing rotating on the rope. When I asked him how he stayed oriented for his sketch, he said that he used the sound of the falling water.
It took me about an hour and a half to get all the way out of the cave, during which time I gained a more clear sense of the depth of the pit. I felt the exhaustion of our relentless hiking and frogged just a few leaps at a time with frequent (almost constant) rest breaks. Crossing the rebelays slowed me down a bit, but I felt safe enough doing it. Now, since the other three cavers remained in the cave to eat a meal and take photographs, I faced the long hike back to the Rat House alone.
Already, sunlight had all but vanished and the drizzling rain darkened the perpetually gloomy jungle floor even more. With my headlight on and a bit of apprehension, I raced along the slippery trail, scraping my arms and legs on sharp plants and rocks, falling down dozens of times, but generally enjoying the success of finding the chopped trail in the dark.
My success ended, though, when I reached the dreaded clearing that housed a corn field and some impressive karst formations. By this time, fog had rolled in and night had completely fallen. I found no way to follow the trail due to sparse flagging and the rotting debris from the clear cutting. I hoped to find the little hut in the middle of the field that would serve as a reference point, but it eluded me. About 20-30 minutes passed as I searched around for any sign of a trail when I finally heard some distant voices. I had no idea whose voices I heard, but I "whoooped!" to entice them to make some noise that I could follow. They "whoooped" back. I raced toward the direction of the sounds, climbing over three meter high karst pinnacles and stepping around corn stalks. The game of vocal ping-pong ended, however, after about three "whooops." Then, they no longer responded to my distant calls. Then, I suddenly stumbled on the trail. I soon found two other cavers, one Swiss and one Mexican, who had answered my calls. They said that they had stopped answering because they assumed that I was just some local playing games with them.
The next morning, with kids swarming around us, we packed up and left the Rat House and San Martín to head back down the mountains to Cerro Central. The Swiss cavers planned to remain several more days before breaking camp. We needed one burro and one porter to help with our stuff. (Who brought so much stuff?!)
I feel reluctant to hire mules or burros to carry gear for us in the future. While they seem to be an integral part of the lifestyle in the remote villages, I would prefer to hire humans to help us carry our gear. The mules and burros spend their entire lives enslaved to humans and never have an opportunity to run in open pasture land.
The hike down took us three and a half hours, a nice improvement over the six hour hike up. We drove to Jalapas to find automatic transmission fluid to replace that which had leaked out all over the ground. Then, we turned toward Huautla. The newly paved road took us past some impressive scenery. We stopped to bathe at a nice river that flowed out of the side of the mountain and then camped with the chiggers and mosquitoes in some tall weeds. The next morning, we ate a very good breakfast at Rosita's, a traditional caver stop in Huautla, shopped for machetes, and then drove to see the entrance to San Agustín. The Dolina of San Agustín exceeded what my small brain could comprehend. How could one cave drain such a vast area? It must be one hell of a cave!
Then, the time came to part ways. Ernie needed to link up with other folks for a trip down the Santo Domingo River, Jennifer needed to get back to work in Austin, and I needed some sense of direction in my life. Since Jennifer does not speak Spanish, I decided to help her get to Mexico City where she needed to catch her flight to Austin.
We could have taken a direct bus from Huautla to Mexico City, but it left at an inconvenient time. Instead, we jumped on an AU bus that would take us to Tehuacan for 27 pesos ($3.50) with many stops in between. The bus twisted its way out of the mountains on the dry, desert side of the range and arrived in Tehuacan five hours later. To avoid a three hour layover in Tehuacan, we jumped in a taxi for 10 pesos ($1.25) to go to a different bus station where we could catch an ADO bus. We had received misinformation, though, because we learned that ADO would not take us to Mexico City. We decided to take a 31 peso ($4) bus directly to Puebla. Once in Puebla, we had to walk across a bus station that is about the size of DFW International Airport. We had luck on our side that evening. Within 15 minutes, we found ourselves on an AU bus for the remainder of the trip to Mexico City for 25 pesos ($3). Once in Mexico City, we took a 28 peso ($3.50) taxi ride to the Maria Isabel Sheridan in the nice Zona Rosa area of the city.
To call this hotel luxurious is to call the Gulf of Mexico damp. The room normally costs over 1000 pesos (about $150), but since Jennifer works for Sheridan Hotels, it only cost us 550 pesos ($70). Split two ways, I figured that we justified the expense just by getting to watch the employees look at us a little crookedly: Our dirty shorts and T-shirts contrasted quite nicely with all the "suits" that normally stayed there. The included continental breakfast amazed us. A meal like that would cost about $8 in the U.S. After stuffing ourselves, we walked to the Zona Rosa Market, a very nice market with all the usual merchandise and aggressive employees. Can you believe that a merchant actually offered me a discount just because I spoke Spanish to him? Such a nice guy! The merchants all seemed so happy to see us, at least until they realized that we had little intention of buying anything.
Once again, it became time to part ways. Jennifer took a special hotel taxi to the airport for 70 pesos ($9). I took a lime green VW bug roller-coaster taxi to the north central bus station for 20 pesos ($2.50). After inquiring at over 20 different ticket windows, I chose a direct bus on the Del Norte bus line that was leaving in three hours and went directly to Nuevo Laredo for 330 pesos ($42). It arrived in Neuvo Laredo at 7:00 AM after a 14 hour haul. In the future, I will choose a seat closer to the front of the bus away from the smelly bathroom and engine noise. With only 15 minutes to spare, I caught a Turismos Rápidos bus for 200 pesos ($25) from Nuevo Laredo to Austin. This awesome bus showed two terrible American movies on the little TV screens and arrived in Austin six hours later.
Arriving back in Austin felt unrewarding: No kids swarming around me; no challenge to converse with people; no cheap huevos con jamón; no historic burro trails; fewer smiles on people's faces; no jungle. I suppose, though, that I am happy to have returned to Texas caving for a while. Here, the challenge lies more within the caves than in getting to and from them.
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