Kevin's Life

Today I woke up at 9:30 when the maid knocked on the door.

After a quck breakfast at the Yucatan, I went to the Sunquest desk in the lobby to book some other tours. I booked a trip ti Chichen tIza on Tuesday, and the Captain Hook pirate show on Monday night in Cancun. Will tell you how those went later.

I then saw a pamphlet for a guided tour of an underground cave system called "Aktun Chen". For more information, see http://www.aktunchen.com/. When I asked the tour gude about it he said there was no need to book a tour because it was right across the freeway from the Hotel! So, I started out walking. The entrance was across the freeway (about 1 km from the main hotel lobby), but after that was another 2.5 km to the caves. But it was a nice walk so I diidn't mind. Here's a picture of the road I walked down. Note the sign that says "Aktun Chen 2km".

The guide took us on a small tour of the animals (more below) while he waited for other people to arrive for the tour. He then got us outfitted with hardhats, and took us into the cave. Right at the entrance there was a leafcutter ant colony. It was interesting watching the lines of ants carrying leaves back to their colony. Here's a picture of the entrance to the cave:

Here's a view from just inside that entrance, looking back towards the entrance.

The guide here was very informative and helpful. Here's some of the things he told me.

The Yucitan penninsula is based on limestone created from ancient sea bottoms. Limestone is very porous. So water soaks right through it. There are very few surface rivers, but there are a lot of underground rivers and lakes, cenotes (sink holes) and caves which the water has cut out.

The trees in the area adapt by burrowng roots down through cracks in the limestone until they find water. These roots can burrow through the rocks for hundreds of feet. During the huricane, they found trees that were broken off at the trunk, but the roots were still firmly embedded in the limestone. Here's a picture of some roots going down through the cave.

We continued on into the cave. You could tell this was a sea bottom, because in the walls and on the ceilings were fossils of sea shells and other critters. There were also a few live critters to deal with. Below is a picture of a family of bats in a next on the ceiling.

We continued to walk through the cave. Each chamber was more and more interesting. Here's a shot of the group walking through part of the caves.

The guide explained about how stalagtites are created by water flowing down from the ceiling and leaving mineral deposits. When the water drips down to the floor, more minerals are deposited there, creating stalagmites. Over thousands of years, these can eventually join together to create a column. Sometimes, seismic activity can cause these colums to break when part of the cave floor settles. Below is a picture of a column that must have been a couple feet across which broke in the middle.

The tour cumulated in an underground lake. Here's a couple pictures:

and

Now here's a bonus. If you click on the above two pictures, you will get a large picture in 3D. You will need a pair of those red/blue 3d glasses so go rummaging through your closets and find one. When you find it, the images will leap out at you in all their 3d wonder. It really helps you to get an idea of the depth of this cave.

Afterward, we could walk around the park to see some of the animals.

Here's a picture of the parrots that hung out near the cafeteira. One of them kept saying "Hola" (Spanish for Hello). I find it amazing how such a brightly coloured bird can almost disappear in the trees (did you notice the tree with about five parrots in the background)?

The parrots could roam around free. They also had a toucan in a cage. The phrase everyone said when they saw it was "Got any Fruit Loops?".

Another featured animal was the area's smallest wild cat. I think it is called a Margay. Before you worry about this poor cat living in the cage, listen to this story. Apparantly they used to have more cats. However, during Hurricane Emily, the cage broke and all the cats escaped. A few weeks later, this male cat returned on his own. The guide thinks he's too lazy to live in the wild.

There were also monkeys in cages. They used to roam wild, but soon they learned how to break into people's cars in the parking lot. They said one day they found a monkey who used his tail to pull a man's wallet off the seat when he left the window open a crack. When they got back, the monkey was calmly ripping up his money.

Other animals you could see were deer wanding the park, and various snakes in cages.

As I wandered the park I met a nice older couple from Britain who were happy to find a place that wasn't as commercialized and crowded as most of the attractions in the area.

I didn't feel like walking the 3.5 km back to the hotel, so instead I caught the free shuttle bus (I could have taken it there). Along the way, we found this iguana that climbed a signpost to sun himself.

It was only 2:30 so I went to the Akumal lobby (the southern-most one) and walked down to the beach. I walked back north, stopping for a bit at the beach-side bar. Met a pleasantly-drunk woman from Toronto. Also met a salesman from Vancouver. He was down here on business to meet with some of his company's clients who bought enough stuff to accumulate points for the trip. The salesman was only here three days.

After about a half hour there, I walked back to the Blue Diamond hacienda to type this into the blog.

The towel buddy for today was a crab.

The show tonight was a couples competition. They got couples up there from various countries. They then had to do silly competitions to win tequila and t-shirts.