We went to a world-class cave today called Actun Tunichil Muknal, or ATM for short. The name is Mayan, and literally means Cave Stone Death though it is often [poorly] translated as Cave of the Crystal Sepulchur. The cave has two components—a stream passage with a vigorous river flowing through it and a solutional cave that the river broke in to. To get to the solutional portion, which is where the Maya performed a lot of rituals, you have to hike up stream in the river.

We drove to a parking spot near the river, grabbed some inner tubes that we bought at a gas station, and hiked along a trail that paralleled the river for about a mile. We had to ford the river three times, but the water was warm so this wasn't a problem. Near the entrance to the cave is the archeology camp, which consists of a few simple structures to shelter the archeologists from the rain. We switched into water gear and threw our caving stuff into dry bags, then got down into the river and entered the cave. There is no choice but to walk in the river, which is sometimes deep enough to require swimming, and this makes the entrance really stunning. I've never done a warm water cave before; it's a lot of fun. After about 500m of the twisty whitewater passage, we reached a point where the ceiling seemed to disappear and we had access to the main chamber.

The main chamber is exquisitely decorated with numerous active areas. John said it is more beautiful than many of the best rooms in Lechuguilla. This part of the cave is very large and is divided by refill into several distinct regions. All parts of the main chamber are well stocked with Mayan ritual objects. This includes pots, grinding stones and grinders, bloodletters (eeeuch), and... wait for it... the victims of ritual sacrifice. Yowzer. Skeletons-O-Rama. That's a first for me. The bones have been calcited over in some places, making for really creepy skull-shaped cave formations. I've got lots of pictures.

After touring the archelogical area, we got back in the river and hiked out of the cave. Then we grabbed the inner tubes and tubed back to the truck. It was awesome. Except for the part where I crushed my hand between a rock and my inner tube while negotiating some class 1 rapids, but a couple bandaids later and I'm ok.

ATM: Definitely the highlight of the trip thus far.