{"id":584,"date":"2009-03-21T14:05:49","date_gmt":"2009-03-21T20:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saskatchewangypsy.wordpress.com\/?p=584"},"modified":"2009-03-21T14:05:49","modified_gmt":"2009-03-21T20:05:49","slug":"las-grutas-calcehtok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/2009\/03\/21\/las-grutas-calcehtok\/","title":{"rendered":"Las Grutas Calcehtok"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dsc05299\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, March 18th, we headed south to Merida and then headed southwest to a small town called Maxcanu.\u00a0 We got there before the two men who serve as guides to these caves.\u00a0 That gave us time to eat our breakfast and do a bit of exploring.<\/p>\n

\"dsc05307\"<\/a>Then, when the guide finally arrived, we began the descent into the huge cavern.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 Imagine a small forest all below the surface level of the ground above filled with banana trees and other plants!<\/p>\n

\"dsc05318\"<\/a>The roots from the trees on the surface provided climbing opportunities, a means of entering the caves for those of past centuries.\u00a0 We began the descent which would take us 40 metres under the surface, the underworld.\u00a0 With natural light on the first leg of our journey, the scene was incredible.\u00a0 All I could think of was Jules Vernes and his “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”.<\/p>\n

\"dsc05351\"<\/a>As we walked along, continuing our downward trek, there was quite a bit of evidence that this place once served as home to many people.\u00a0 Many hollowed out stones such as this one we placed to collect water that dripped from stalactites overhead.\u00a0 The centuries that have passed have worked magic on some of these water troughs.<\/p>\n

\"dsc05394\"<\/a>We entered into a cavern larger than any we had yet seen, far from any source of natural light.\u00a0 It was as big, if not bigger than any cathedral we had yet seen.\u00a0 In the centre of the vast space was a grouping of three almost white rocks.\u00a0 Our guide told us that these formed the altar of this underground temple.\u00a0 As we moved on to one side of this temple we were told to kill our lights, to experience total darkness, to experience a meditative moment.\u00a0 We listened to the silence hearing only occasional drips of water.\u00a0 The blackness was deeper than anything we have yet experienced, even with our eyes wide open.\u00a0 After a few minutes of a fully “awesome” experience, we turned on our lights.\u00a0 The guide then showed us a huge quartz crystal and told us of a vein of crystal that extended for at least a kilometre somewhere within the cave system.<\/p>\n

\"dsc05400\"<\/a>Then we were shown a number of small shelves, natural little grottoes in which we saw broken pottery.\u00a0 He explained that these pots had contained offerings to the gods, especially the rain god and the god of the underworld.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"dsc05405\"<\/a>At the end of the temple area, just as we were to enter into another space, we stopped so that he could reach into yet one more little grotto in which sat a conch shell.\u00a0 He told us that the shell was used to alert the Mayans living in the caves about danger approaching.\u00a0 All would then scatter into small side caverns, some which required crawling through narrow crevices and then blocking them with rubble set nearby for just that purpose.<\/p>\n

\"dsc05455\"<\/a>It was time to begin the return journey.\u00a0 Needless to say we made our way back wishing we could have explored more of this incredible place.\u00a0 But, the other paths which we didn’t take were for more adventurous people, people who could rappel and didn’t mind tight, claustrophobic spaces.<\/p>\n

\"dsc05458\"<\/a>With a final moment before returning to the surface, we got our guide to take our photo.\u00a0 We then climbed with the aid of a rope to the next to last level where we tooks some time to ask a few more questions and listen to our guide.\u00a0 Of course, I forgot to mention, our guide explained all of this in Spanish.\u00a0 Somehow or other, we both understood most of it.<\/p>\n

Then we climbed back up the ladder to arrive at the surface.\u00a0 It was kind of sad to have to say goodbye to this Mayan who served as our guide to the underworld.\u00a0 If we ever come back, we want to bring our grandchildren so that they can have the most incredible journey, so they could experience a Mayan journey to the underworld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, March 18th, we headed south to Merida and then headed southwest to a small town called Maxcanu.\u00a0 We got there before the two men who serve as guides to these caves.\u00a0 That gave us time to eat our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}