Trip Report
Exploring Hidalgo, México
Spring Break 1998 (March 13 - March 22)
by Dale Barnard
Crew: Terry Raines, Christy Quintana, Dale Barnard
After Terry Raines spent days studying various topographic maps looking for possible new caving areas, he, Christy Quintana, and I headed for the border. Christy and I had to take on faith that Terry had determined an approximate destination. Perhaps he preferred to leave the plan open. Perhaps he preferred to let us "discover" the plan as we went along. Perhaps he thinks that I am overly interested in needing a plan so he intentionally withholds it. Whatever the reason, when someone who has thirty years of Mexico caving experience finds time to travel, I tend to use words like "yes sir!" in place of complaints. Indeed, as the trip went along, he seemed to have some approximate objectives in mind, the first of which turned out to be in Ciudad de Mante, where we rendezvoused with a local caver named Jean Luis Lacaille Músquiz.
Jean Luis wanted to get some AMCS books from Terry to help with his cave and orchid studies. He invited the three of us to visit his parents' house for wine and a snack. Our quick stop turned into a six hour visit. They lived in a wealthy area of Mante where houses hid behind thick walls and hired help did most of the chores. Inside the house, dozens of paintings and thousands of literary books lined the walls, making it look like a library combined with an art gallery. They kept our wine glasses topped off as we talked all about Jean Luis' caving and orchid studies, some of which have been published in magazines.
Two of their hired workers prepared a light snack for us while their gardener sharpened Christy's new Machete. The light "snack" included stuffed croissants, homemade cheese, salad, crackers, and plenty of wine. They welcomed us in this comfortable house even though we wore raggedy caving clothes and smelled a bit foul.
We thanked our very hospitable hosts for the afternoon and said our good-byes. Before leaving, Jean Luis' mother repeatedly warned us to be VERY careful when we go south because it is becoming so dangerous in Mexico. We just smiled and nodded. During the rest of the trip, we encountered some of the nicest people on the face of the Earth...and no banditos.
We drove to Ciudad de Valles and had dinner at Café Don Juan. We stayed in a nice $9 hotel room to bring our journals up-do-date and to avoid having to scrounge for a late-night camp site in the rain. In the morning, we resumed our southward journey through the state of Hidalgo toward the municipality called Calnali, which lies in the northern tip of our targeted limestone band. Along the way, Christy and Terry made comments such as, "That appears to be an uplifted, tertiary sedimentary limestone sub-layer with an earlier underflow of volcanic solidification with metamorphosed surrounding layers." I made an occasional, equally intelligent-sounding comments like, "Isn't that a pretty gray rock?"
We arrived just after dark and stopped at a restaurant for dinner. The waitress asked if we were from the United States. Terry quickly corrected her by saying that we were Tejanos, as if there were a world of difference. He then told her how glad we were to have escaped the terrible snow conditions of Austin, Texas: "¡Es cruel! ¡Sufrimos mucho! ¡Hay un metro de nieve!" Here, we met the secretary of the municipality, Arnulfo Lara, who owns the restaurant. He welcomed us and offered to let us camp at his near-by property, which happened to contain a small tourist cave.
We spent the night on the cement balcony of an unoccupied building. The next morning, we followed the power lines to the little cave. We found the obligatory shrine about 25 meters inside before crawling through the bloody droppings of a few frantic vampire bats to some short climbs, but the cave ended in mud plugs.
Back in town, we visited Arnulfo, and he arranged for two guides to take us to a lower village called Tula where some caves might be found. We lacked frame packs so we packed minimal caving gear and warm clothes in case we had to sleep without sleeping bags. Pedro, our tour guide, led us on the one-hour hike down to Tula, a small village next to a clear river. This village does not often attract outsiders so word spread quickly of three gringos in town. After resting in Pedro's house, we followed him up-river about 45 minutes to two horizontal caves at the base of bluffs. The nicely decorated caves had plenty of walking passage, but both were fairly small--one about 100 meters long and the other about 50. We returned to town where Pedro's wife fed us pork chili and beans with a tall stack of tortillas for dipping.
Everyone in Calnali and Tula welcomed us and their smiles and kindness distinguished this village from some of the larger towns we had visited thus far. After dinner, we headed down the main street while Pedro worked on making sleeping arrangements for us. We sat on a bench in front of a house and were quickly swarmed by no fewer than 30 children. They stood there staring at us like we were the greatest television show of all time. We felt obligated to say something to them now and then, but I think that they were too busy laughing at us to listen to what we said. Christy told them that I was a teacher and they nearly fell to the ground in laughter. What was so funny? Terry finally found a game that filled the dead-air space. He said, "Who here is named Juan?" Of course, they would point to someone named Juan. Then, "Who here is named Pablo?" Then, they would point to someone named Pablo. This kept them entertained for about 10 minutes. After what felt like an eternity, Pedro and his friends returned and led us to the home of a widow who had an unoccupied room with two beds in it. She would not accept money for her hospitality. They asked us if we needed a second room for Christy. Terry relieved some of their visible tension by explaining that Christy was his daughter (a white lie), and that it was okay for her to sleep in the same room as the two of us.
After a good night's sleep, Pedro brought us a lunch that his wife had packed for us and then his father led us up an Arroyo toward a rumored sótano. His father looked like an old man, but could have run circles around us as we hiked up the arroyo. After about an hour-and-a-half, our guide made a sharp left turn out of the arroyo and found the cave a short distance up the hill. Their sense of direction impressed me.
The cave sloped downward at a 45º or 50º angle, following the angle of the rock layers. By listening to a rock tumble down it, we estimated that it reached a depth of about 100 meters. Although we were tempted to rig the pit with some jungle vines, we postponed our descent until we could return with appropriate rope at a later time. Unfortunately, the hike back to the truck turned out to be a bit farther than we had hoped and we never returned to the cave with our gear.
Once back in the Calnali area, a new guide took us on a "short" hike to a nearby waterfall. The short hike turned out to be several kilometers of rough trail. Our first view of the falls immediately justified the hike, though. From our high perch, we looked down on the water, which fell about 100 meters into a clear pool, and then roared down some narrower falls. We made the final descent to the falls, discovering a strong, chilly breeze coming from the base of the falls. Although the coolness relieved some of our urge to swim, the clean-looking water still appealed to our dirty bodies. Christy did a face-plant on the rocky approach to the pool, which gave her a nice chin bruise to proudly display for the rest of the trip. The clear, chilly pool quickly silted up, but we enjoyed the opportunity to feel a little cleaner. One the way back to the truck, one of our guides decided that he liked Christy enough that he wanted her to stay and live with them. The fact that she is married did not discourage him.
That evening in Calnali, we camped on the patio at Arnulfo's property again. The next morning, we left Calnali and drove toward a one-year-old road that crosses from Molango straight to Ixmiquilpan, opening up some possible new caving areas. Molango interested me with its steeply sloping town site and a red paint theme throughout. By this point in the trip, I felt warmed up to Spanish and spoke to people whenever I had the chance. While in a restaurant in Molango, I suffered a bit of a set back, though, when I asked whether they had a restroom and the worker looked at me puzzledly and then handed me a toothpick.
Just south of Molango, we found the new road. It skirted a near-vertical topography for many miles, bounded on one side with the mountain and the other with certain death as it dropped off many hundreds of feet, inches from the edge of the road. Terry marveled at the interesting limestone while Christy reminded him to watch where he was driving. I think that she may have put finger dents in the door handle where she nervously readied herself for a quick escape. Of course, the more she complained about Terry not watching the road, the more he exaggerated his interest in the limestone observations. At some point, she tried to distract herself by telling us the grasshopper joke:
Grasshopper walks into a bar. Bartender says, "Hey, we have a drink named after you!" The grasshopper says, "Really? You have a drink named James?"
We descended on the dry side of the mountains to a natural lake called Laguna Metztitlán. In the early 1950s, the government decided to drastically reduce the flooding by drilling a tunnel through the mountain to let the water escape. This reduced the occasional 50-foot floods. We crossed a second pass and ended up zigzagging across a river bed for a number of miles. Thankfully, Terry's four-while-drive Landcruiser had no trouble at all as it pushed its way through the one- to two-foot deep current. That evening, we camped in a remote, dry area next to the road. As we shone our lights around looking for a tent spot, large spiders' eyes reflected back our lights. I spent this long night reacting to all of the unusual Mexican foods I had eaten. As I repeatedly practiced the three-point backwards stance, I kept watching for those glowing eyes staring back at me.
The next day, we drove to a commercial cave and recreation area called Cueva de Tolontongo. We paid about 30 pesos each to get in, but it was worth it. The cave releases an entire river. Some of the water pours forth from falls above the entrance while the rest of it pours out of a number of fantastic cave formations. It gives the impression that the entire mountain must be full of water, desperately trying to escape through every nook and cranny of this large cavern. As we neared the entrance, a blast of hot, humid air hit us. Inside, it felt like a sauna. The water felt about 100 degrees F (40 degrees C), obviously warmed by some non-sulfuric thermal action. I opted to leave my camera at the entrance rather than risk damage from the humidity. Thankfully, Terry had a waterproof camera and managed to capture some very nice shots while Christy and I popped flashbulbs for him.
We then drove northeasterly, back across the mountains on the more familiar highway 85 toward Tamazunchale. We observed dozens of dolinas beside the road as well as some small caves in the road cuts. Locals spoke of many caves in the area, most of which would require an afternoon's hike. The fog eventually reduced our visibility to nil so we stopped at a side road and camped for the night.
The next day, we drove north to a commercial cave in Monte Zulel, near Aquismón. We intended to make a map of the cave, but the local cave-master informed us that mapping the cave requires a permit from the secretary in Aquismón. A permit to map a cave? We were free to photograph it, though.
We then drove up the valley toward Sótono de las Golondrinas to inspect the new fence that guarded it. The rain became steady and camping prospects seemed a bit damp. Near the cave, Terry spotted a light from someone walking amongst the jagged limestone. He asked the young man if there was an unoccupied building in which we could spend the night. The man invited us to stay with his family just up the hill. We piled into the little stick and cardboard house and found a small patch of dirt floor on which to lay our sleeping bags. Four people currently occupied this tiny home with only two twin-sized beds. Terry cooked soup for them while Christy and I brought our journals up-to-date, with the entry titles, "The Night the Gringos Came to Dinner." It felt like a large scale invasion of an otherwise peaceful dwelling, which made their generosity even more appreciated. We slept shoulder-to shoulder while baby chickens pecked on Terry's face through their cage. A young child cried nearly the whole night due to illness. Their other children were staying with relatives until the germs had passed.
In the morning, we walked up the hill to see Golondrinas in the fog. Even though we could only see about 50 feet into the massive, clouded chamber, its magnitude impressed us beyond words. The brand-new barbed wire fence around the pit did not impress us, though. Terry has since launched a campaign of letter writing to try to get the fence removed.
On the way down the bouncy dirt road to Aquismón, we picked up four adults, one child, and a baby. This brought our total to 8.5 people in Terry's Landcruiser. Impressive, if not a little absurd! Terry told our new passengers the story about how awful the snow is in Texas. One passenger began asking questions: "In which months does it snow? Does it snow every year? How much does it snow? Do people really die from the snow?" Terry's little lie began to get bigger.
In Aquismón, we had lunch with the secretary of the municipality, the husband of whom is an American from Amarillo, Texas. They had a magnificent house with a palm roof that peaked at around 20 feet. Several social hours passed before we finally hit the road for home.
We drove full speed ahead back toward Austin, stopping at Cueva del Abra for some photographs, and finally camping near Victoria at the well-known "under the bridge" camp by the river. Here, we encountered a vehicle with a bat sticker that turned out to be Pete Strickland, his son, and Melonie Alspaugh. Although the idea of staying up all night socializing and drinking appealed to us greatly, a thunderstorm chased us into our tents. The storm passed quickly and brought us the morning's light far sooner than I would have preferred.
The next morning, we crossed back to the United States, giving me a familiar disappointment. However, I did return with an entirely new perspective of Texas. When we rendezvoused with Pete and Melonie, they told us that it had been snowing back in Austin, at least according to a clerk at a Pemex station. See what can happen when you tell a little white lie, Terry? Half of Mexico probably thinks that Texas is snow country. Immigration should probably thank Terry for his work.
Until I can return to Mexico, I'll be wrestling with Spanish text books and maybe some language school to prepare myself for a follow-up trip. On this trip, we logged many possible new caving areas. Good Spanish will be very useful when gaining access to them. The hard part will be deciding which ones to revisit first. A few more trips with Terry, and I may have learned most of the secrets of the original Mexico cavers. As much as I will mimic Terry's speaking style with Mexican locals in hopes of experiencing similar success, I am not sure that I am quite ready to tell the story of the cruel Texas winters.
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