Two days ago we found a 10m diameter hole in the ground out near El Progresso. The locals said they had never been down it because it was too deep. They had tried to knock a tree into the hole and use that as a ladder, but it fell out of sight. Then they lowered someone down on a 30' hemp rope but he said he couldn't see the bottom. We threw a rock and it took 3.5 seconds before the last sound occurred, however it clearly bounced off a couple of ledges on the way and may have rolled down a slope at the bottom. We rigged a 150' rope to a nearby tree and sent James over the edge to see how far down the hole really went. He radioed back that the rope went exactly to the top of a rubble pile at the floor of the cave, with 1 foot of rop laying on the floor.

The drop was measured as 38m (125') to the top of a 10m pile of detritus that had fallen in the cave over the years. Once James was down and clear, we followed him into the pit one by one. After about 30' down, the cave ballooned out to a 45m wide dome chamber with a ceiling almost 30m tall. It was nicely lit by the large entrance hole. The floor of the cave was soft clay and showed no footprints at all. We are very likely to have been the first people in this cave ever. It is possible that some Mayans got down here on a really strong vine ladder or something, but they left no sign. We found a couple pot sherds right under the entrance, but they were likely the result of a pot tossed from the surface.

Anyway, the cave was really nicely decorated and sported a large side chamber in addition to the huge entrance room. We did not survey the cave, but I would estimate the total survey length to be about 500m. This was my first significant virgin cave, and it was one hell of an entrance drop. Lots of pictures and a great video of rappelling the drop to follow.

This afternoon we're going to do one last cave and then make an attempt at drying off all our gear and clothes for tomorrow morning's flight out. It's more than likely that I'll end up throwing most of my stuff into the two drybags I brought and just deal with the funk when I get home. Yeuck.

I should be back in Los Alamos tomorrow evening, just in time to hide in a closet for the annual Great American Explode-a-thon. This has been a great trip, though I am absolutely covered in bites from various mosquitos, ticks, spiders, ants, and the odd walrus. And I'm out of hydrocortizone. The next week of posts will probably be related to Belize pictures and videos. Then I'm off to Nashville for a conference on July 15th.