Actun Tunichil Muknal |
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Barton Creek Cave Actun Tunichil Muknal Road Trip 2004 |
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Fair Warning: At the bottom of the page will be photos that may bother some folks. Mayans preformed human sacrifice in caves and the victims' bones and skulls remain. If this may bother you, we recommend you do not scroll to the end of the page.
General Information
We have never done anything quite like this. The history left behind is incredible. The artifacts in this cave are literally at your feet without yellow tape or barriers. Fourteen humans' remains have been found in the cave to date, some of which visitors see. The number of pots and pot shards are countless.
The visits to the cave are limited and every one must be accompanied by a guide. You can't just show up at the mouth of the cave and expect to join in with a group. The visit is arranged beforehand, usually with the help of the place you are staying.
Despite the restrictions there seemed to be way too many groups there, and there was some agitation amongst different guides. Someone from another group complained to us that their guide told them we were breaking all the rules like group size limit, I think the limit is 8 and we had 6 whereas they had about 18, so it sounds like some people are just trying to create issues. We would not be surprised to see the rules change dramatically and the restriction to increase, or even for the place to shut down completely due to the circus the large groups cause.
To get to the cave you need to hike in about 45 minutes to an hour. There are three river crossings where you wade from shore to shore (see first photo above). This is not the wettest you will be, however. To get into the cave, you must enter the river and swim into the mouth to a 'shore' inside the cave (see first photo). For the next mile or so (perhaps a bit less) you wade, hike, and swim inside the cave to get to the artifacts (see second photo).
Once you are deep inside the cave, you climb out of the water up a pile of rocks and scramble on to a ledge in the cave. From there, access to the rooms of artifacts is dry, and is done barefoot.
If you plan to do this trip, remember to bring your own dry bag so you can access your camera at any point. Also, bring extra film and batteries. I we hiked in wearing teva-like shoes and aqua socks which made it easy. Bring an extra set of clothes to leave in the van so you can change when you get back.
Artifacts
It was decided that the artifacts found in the cave would be left exactly where they found them. Seeing the pots and bones in the position where they were left thousands of years ago is amazing. yes things shift, but in general, the place is a living museum. One of the posts that we saw had the man (or monkey) pressed from the inside out to cause a 3D figure like the one we saw at Che Chem Ha. The pot with the figure from this cave is shown below.
Deeper in the cave there are a lot of stalagmites (from the ground up) that have been altered so that their shadows make a figure on the wall. You might never know that they throw shadows as figures unless the guide shines the flashlight on it.
The Human Remains
It is known that human sacrifice was a part of the culture. In this cave, the remains of 14 humans were found, though the site was used for hundreds of years. This would perhaps indicate that sacrifice was not something done often.
Each victim was found near the tool used to perform the execution. It is a long shaped rock as shown in the only photo directly above that does not click to a larger image. The execution was quick and death instantaneous.
The one human whose skeleton is still intact is up on a higher shelf. Because of the massive amounts of tour groups, we had to wait quite a while to climb the ladder to see her. The area where she lies includes her and the tool used for her death. We are not sure what took the group before us so long (it must have been at least 20 minutes to a half hour on that ledge) but the wait was worth it.
Conclusion
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To leave the cave, we backtracked through the rooms and down the rocks back into the water where we waded, walked, and swam back to the opening. we were glad we did this trip on the last day because we could not imagine anything could top the overall adventure from the hiking to swimming though a wet cave to the artifacts and the interesting history the guide told. And yes, there was a horrible spider, and yes there was a cave crab as well, but we only saw one of each and they were in the same exact place hours later on our return, so it is safe from that perspective. A must do, but please do so with respect for the artifacts, the cave, and the culture. |
