El Eden Mine: Under the Mountain in Zacatecas

For around 400 years, generations of people, some as young as 12, chipped at the mineral rich rock. Gold and silver was carted out of the richest, most productive mine in Mexico. But most of it was to sail away to Spain for the glory of the Old World. What remained were the history, the legends and a spectacular series of caverns and tunnels, adding up to an amazing tourist attraction today. There's even a night-club in the depths of Mina El Eden.


The El Eden Mine may be found in Cerro del Grillo, Zacatecas. A tram brings visitors to the entrance, where they meet with a tour guide for a stroll, 2,000ft inside the mountain. For approximately a mile, through the tunnels and hanging galleries, the party will be regaled with the stories from this historical place. The huge caverns are truly something to behold. All carved by hand, yet vast, with stalactites forming and unmined crystals still embedded in the rock.

Along the way, statues and animated tableaus display a visual glimpse into what it must have been like to work here. Until 1960, this was very much a working mine. Then flooding in the lower levels, and the encroaching city making blasting dangerous, caused it to close down. It was rendered safe and turned into a site for tourism in 1975. The whole history is relayed, both in the tours themselves and in the small museum near to the exit. The mine, like much of the city center of Zacatecas, is a UNESCO World Heritage site.


El Eden Mine was founded in 1546. Its owners and overseers were all Spanish conquistadors, while the workers were Mexicans. These were a conquered people, at the lowest end of the new world order, and they were treated as expendable.

Some of the stories from this mine are horrific. An average of six people died every day, usually due to working conditions which have modern sensibilities shuddering. The majority of people didn't see their mid-30s; and they spent their short lives working, from childhood, through 14 hour shifts in punishing labour.

As the centuries passed, conditions obviously improved with legisation, modern machinery and better techniques. But it's easy to imagine, especially with the statues laid on to guide you, what it was like back in the early days. The whole mine becomes as fascinating in the atmosphere, as it is beautiful in the aesthetics.


Two things to note here, to avoid disappointment or confusion:

* The entrance and exit are not in the same place. The latter is a twenty minute walk up the mountain. For the majority of people this is fine, as they use the exit as their starting point to explore the terrain up there. As well as the hiking trails, with panoramic views of the city, there is a gift shop, selling crystals mined in El Eden. There is a cable car to return to the lower level.

Others simply retrace their steps within the mine. It's a perfectly deligned, well-marked path and the return, done without a tour guide, can sometimes surpass the initial journey. After all, it's walked at your own pace, with ample time to inspect the awesome caverns along the way.

* The guides conduct their tours in Spanish. While this has an obvious benefit for Spanish speakers, it doesn't mean that there is nothing there for those without the language. The visual displays are there partially to enable everyone to glean the history, regardless of their ability to hear/understand the spoken word. Besides you won't need a tour guide to tell you that your surroundings are spectacular.

Benjamin Simpson is amongst those who have blogged about this attraction. 'Mina el Eden' contains a lot of pictures taken there, as well as a commentary on the experiences of a non-Spanish speaker on the tour.



On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, there is a unique party to be had here. In the very depths of the El Eden Mine is a nightclub. It opens at 10pm, until 3am, and it is truly a great night out. Those caves were made to have disco lights shone on them!

Cenotes

Eden must have looked like this. Little bubbles of paradise glimpsed from the ground. There are no natural lakes on the Yucatan. The porous bedrock can't support them, as it acts like a sieve sucking the water down into the hidden caverns. But there are the cenotes and they are wonderful.


Cenote (pronounced Sen-o-tay) is a Yucatan Mayan word meaning any sinkhole with accessible groundwater. For thousands of years, these cenotes have been the wells, providing water for the villages and towns dotted around them. They are formed because the bedrock here is limestone. Rainwater hitting limestone is a little like trying to hold water in a colander. It seeps through the bottom and drips down below. Eventually it will hit sturdier rock and will be allowed to pool. Hence the lakes, in the Yucatan, all being underground.

Yet, as the water filters through the rock, it dissolves it, undermines it or erodes it. In some areas, this finally becomes too much and the roof collapses, exposing the pool to the open air. Thus the cenote is formed around crystal clear water, filtered by its slow passage through the rock. For the local human population, it's a source of life, spirituality and entertainment.


There are thousands of cenotes on the Yucatan Peninsula. Some are tiny, some are vast; some are self-contained bowls, some are the access points to a sprawling subterranean maze of rivers and caverns; some are shallow, some are deep; some are major tourist attractions, fitted with piers, springboards, rappel lines and all the comfort amenities, and some are hidden away in people's backyards. More are discovered all the time. Building work and landscaping can suddenly uncover a cenote. They are usually a welcome addition to the scenery.

For generations of locals and tourists alike, cenotes are a spectacularly beautiful place to refresh, after a trek through the jungle or a visit to the Maya ruins. Not only is it shaded in a cenote, but the water is deliciously cool. Some, like Ik Kill, near to Chichen Itza, are always full of bathers. They enter with a look of serene relief, then bob about in the water, with smiles on their faces. It's the purity of the water; the beauty of the scenery; and the sense of the sacred, in this hidden world.


Of course, sacred is right, because many of these cenotes meant more than just accessible drinking water and a place to bathe for the Maya people. In many cenotes, votive offerings have been found. The legends and histories also make it clear that, for the ancient Maya, these cenotes acted as holy places. They were the natural cathedrals.

Sometimes, this religious feeling had darker overtones. In the Cenote Sagrado (Sacred Sinkhole), within the grounds of Chichen Itza, there have been found ancient human bones. This was where human sacrifice was offered to the gods of the underworld. Elsewhere on the Yucatan, in Sahcaba, a whole underwater complex of Maya temples were discovered in 2008. It was believed that the Maya viewed this as an access to the land of the dead.



If you are in Mexico, please don't pass up the chance to swim in a cenote. It is a sublime experience that will remain with you for years - a little piece of paradise on Earth.

The Cave of Swallows

Imagine a pit so deep that it could hold the New York Chrysler Building without a tip of it showing. Such a abyss exists in Mexico. It is the largest cave shaft in the world. It is the Cave of Swallows.



Some measurements:

* Elliptical cave-mouth: 160 by 205 feet (49 by 62 m) wide
* Cave shaft main body: 995 feet (303m) by 440 feet (135m) wide
* Cave's depth (shortest side): 1,094-foot (333 m)
* Cave's depth (highest side): 1,220-foot (370 m)

In Mexico, it is called Sótano de las Golondrinas (Basement of Swallows), because of the birds which make their home there. Unless there are extreme sports people demonstrating their skills, then the birds are the most popular creatures to watch. The pit is so large that it is difficult to gain a sense of its proportions, without seeing the birds fly into it. They freefall, tucking back their wings, so they can plummet into the depths. Then, as they draw near to their nests, their wings are extended. They glide into their perches and rest.

Literally thousands of birds live in this shaft. The vast majority are members of the swift family, hence the name 'Cave of Swallows', though there are also other species. These include the rare cave parrot (cotorras de la cueva) and green parakeets.


Each morning, there is a wondrous spectacle, as the cave's feathered inhabitants flock en masse out of the entrance. The cave's mouth darkens and the sound of their wings is thundrous. It can take up to half an hour to get them all clear; then the sight is repeated, in the evening, when they all come home. Meanwhile, the parakeets spiral out. They emerge as lonely green dots, drifting around the interior far below, coming closer, until they finally reach the top and fly to the skies.



So many birds have lived in this cave, for so long, that the bottom of the pit is spongy to the touch. It is their waste that has built up to carpet the ground. They make their nests amidst the flora that eeks out an existance in the darkened crags. Also at the bottom of the pit are other creatures. Millipedes, scorpions, snakes and all manner of insects. The abyss is a vibrant hub of life, if viewed with the right kind of eyes.



The Cave of Swallows is near to the town of Aquismón, in the state of San Luis Potosi. The local Huastec people viewed it as an entrance to the Underworld. The first foreign explorers were Americans. Three cavers, from Texas, named T.R.Evans, Charles Borland and Randy Sterns, entered the pit on 27th December 1966. They didn't make it all of the way to the floor; returning in 1969 to do that.

Their reports saw interest growing, in the giant hole, throughout the rest of the world. The resulting tourism has changed Aquismón from a small, jungle village, into a thriving hub of amenities. It takes just 20 minutes to walk from the town to the cave. For many, the great attraction are the extreme sports to be had there.


Rock-climbers, cavers, rappellers and BASE Jumpers have all flocked to this site, including one balloonist, who managed to successfully fly a normal sized hot air balloon to the floor of the pit. It can take 10 seconds to BASE Jump down; twenty minutes to abseil; or 1 to 2 hours to climb. Temperatures in the pit can also make life difficult, damaging equipment with its extremes or exhausting the wary. Even highly experienced thrill-seekers and explorers have warned about the Cave of Swallows. (For an example, see this thread, on Cavechat.org.)

However, the sheer number of people visiting, to dive into the cave, has resulted in some restrictions being placed. All sports are banned during the time when the birds are flocking in or out. Also no damage may be done to their nests. The descent into the cave may be made at only one designated spot. Nothing may be thrown into the cave nor left in there afterwards. Helicopters may not be flown near to it. People may not shout into the pit (the echo was great!), as this disturbs the creatures living in there. All of these restrictions came after ornithologists realised how much the bird population was starting to decrease, due to the effect of adventure tourism.

Earliest American Found in Quintana Roo

Mexico often has the air of an archaelogists' adventure paradise about it. I defy anyone to visit Cobá, without feeling like they are on the set of an Indiana Jones film. But beyond the vacationers, the experts are flooding in too. So many of Mexico's treasures lie undiscovered beneath the surface of the soil. This past week has seen not one, but two highly significant finds. One of these might change what we know about the history of the Americas. Has the first trace of humanity, on this continent, just been found in Quintana Roo?


In a previously unknown cavern, 4,000ft (1,200 meters) below the surface of the Yucatán Peninsula, diving explorers found the remains of dinosaurs, alongside a human skull. They have yet to be officially dated, but the presense of many megafauna bones, including that of a mastodon, suggests that they date from the Pleistocene Period. In short, they could be over 12,000 years old.


These Mastodons once roamed the Americas.
The remains were discovered in the depths of the labyrinthine Aktun-Hu system. These are a series of subterranean caves and tunnels, beneath Quintana Roo, which were flooded during the last Ice Age. Quintana Roo (famous for being the state where Cancún is) lies upon limestone, through which groundwater easily seeps to create this vast underground world. However, caves like this one, where the discoveries were made, weren't always so far down. The human being inside could well have simply walked in there, before it was ever flooded.

If this human is as ancient as the explorers believe, then (s)he may pre-date even La Mujer de las Palmas (the Lady of the Palms). It certainly adds credence to the theory that the earliest human settlers, on the Americas, came from Europe. They would have sailed from modern-day France, following a wall of icebergs, lining the Atlantic. Until recently, the most common belief was that humans reached the Americas from the north, crossing the Bering Strait, between modern-day Russia and Alaska.


La Mujer de las Palmas - does the latest find pre-date her?
The team, who made these discoveries, had to trapse through dense jungle, carrying their heavy equipment, before even making the deep dive. More details can be read at National Geographic: Skull in Underwater Cave May Be Earliest Trace of First Americans.

Also in the spotlight this week are reports of the discovery of a 3,000 year old Olmec sculpture, in Ojo de Agua, in the state of Chiapas. Standing at 3ft (0.9 meters) tall, it is made of carved, volcanic rock. It depicts a figure, with his hand held up to the Heavens, though no-one knows precisely who he is. The best guesses are Corn God, Tribal Chief, Tribal God or Priest.


Olmec Sculpture found in Chiapas
It was a chance discovery, uncovered by locals, in 2009. Fortunately there was an archaelogist in the area, who was able to quickly reach the site and document precisely how and where it lay. John Hodgson, an anthropology doctorial candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, immediately sealed off the area, into a 250 hectare archaeological zone. This allowed experts to thoroughly chronicle the site.

The intervening years have shown that Ojo de Agua was once a thriving Olmec settlement. Raised platforms and formal pyramids can be discerned around central plazas. It was abandoned around 2,000 years ago.

Chevé: The Caving Equivalent of Climbing Mount Everest

There is an extreme race going on, with human beings pushing the borders of the known world, and the limits of their own endurance. It involves training akin, in intensity and danger, as preparing astronauts to go into space. The participants have to be self-sufficient and able to save their own lives, because if they get into trouble, no emergency service will be able to reach them. The goal is to find the deepest pit; the greatest vertical supercaves. This is a real life journey to the center of the Earth. In the vanguard, currently, are Mexico and Georgia.



Chevé Cave (pron Chay-vay), pictured above, is Mexico's best hope. It's L-shaped system has so far been navigated to a depth of 4,869ft (1,484 meters). American supercaver, Bill Stone, and his team then arrived at huge boulders, which they couldn't squeeze through. But water was passing beneath. They dropped dye into the subterranean river, then discovered where that emerged on the surface. They know that the cave is deeper still, they just need to work out how to explore it.

Chevé Cave begins with a 1,247ft (380 meters) sheer descent. The shaft then kinks to the west, sloping downwards for the remaining known 3622ft (1,104 meters). At this point, cavers encounter a terminal sump. That is a section that is completely flooded. Short sumps may be explored with cavers holding their breath, as they swim through it. But this one is too big. It will require cavers to lug proper diving equipment down there. An intimidating prospect considering the obstacles that have to be traversed before they even reach the waters.

Chevé's biggest rival is Krubera Cave, in Abkhazia, Republic of Georgia. A Ukrainian supercaver has finally charted its depths at 7,188ft (2,191 meters). Krubera Cave currently holds the title as the world's deepest pit. However, its extent is known. Chevé's is not. Yet finding out how deep it is requires amazing feats of human endurance.


Image froma 2004 expedition into Chevé

It is said that there are over 50 ways to die in a supercave. Falling is only the most obvious. Hypothermia, electrocution and sheer panic have all taken their victims. These cavers are underground for up to a month, as it takes a week to even get to the area where exploration can take place. During this time, they are usually in pitch darkness. They encounter pockets of poison gas, vast lakes and flooded chambers. Water levels can rise suddenly, if a flash storm occurs on the surface. There is no way to warn those below that this has happened.

Temperatures can plummet or soar, often quite quickly. One of the biggest dangers of Krubera is freezing to death. Sounds echo in the vast systems. Bill Stone described a 150ft (46 meters) waterfall, in Mexico's secondest deepest cave, Huaulta. He said that the noise was like standing next to a jetliner's engine, for days on end, without being able to get away. Moreover the mind can play tricks on you down there.



There is a phenomenom known as 'the Rapture'. It is not pleasant to experience. Supercave exploration taught us that every human being has a limit. It differs from person to person, but there is only so much darkness and depth that each of us can take. When that points is reached, a switch clicks in the brain and that individual is gripped by 'the Rapture'. It manifests as the biggest panic attack ever. They need to get out; and they need to get out NOW. No time for safety precautions. No consideration for the lives of your colleagues. It's fight and flight in overdrive. It's uncontrollable and they have to leave NOW!

This, naturally, is a bit of a problem, when you are a week's arduous journey from the surface and there's no way back without a lot of skill and self-control.



Sleeping takes place in camps, wherever the cavers can find a relatively broad ledge or underground beach to set one up. If they can't, then they tack a hammock between two boulders or onto the sheer face of a cliff. They dangle there to re-energize themselves with a little shut-eye. They carry with them food to sustain them. With any luck, they might even find a slab big up to rest their cooking gear onto it.

Sheer stamina and a high level of fitness has to keep them going. Some passages are so tight that only Yoga techniques can contort their lithe bodies enough to see them through. Often they are supporting their whole body weight with just a hand or strategically placed foot.

James M Tabor's book 'Blind Descent' tells the story of the supercavers, as they explore Chevé and Krubera.

Three miles on a level path–or even a mountain route–in daylight is one thing. Three miles immersed in absolute darkness, drenched by freezing waterfalls, wading neck-deep through frigid lakes, spidering up and down vertical pitches, scrambling over wobbling boulders, and belly-crawling through squeezes so tight you must exhale to escape them, is quite another…Imagine climbing the stairs of two Empire State Buildings in daylight, dry and unburdened. To get out, Vesely and Farr would have to do it in the dark, soaking, heavily loaded, on rope the diameter of a man’s index finger.

There is another, longer excerpt from this book on NPR's website. It compellingly describes a climb into Chevé Cave that ends in a fatality. There is also an interview with the author, which explains more about the conditions into which cavers descend, when exploring a supercave. That can be heard here.

Naica: The Crystal Cave of Giants

The Naica Mine of Chihuahua had been worked for centuries before two miners, following a seam of silver, broke into a vast subterranean cavern. What they found there made them stop in their tracks. Within days, an iron door was installed to protect the entrance. They had uncovered a true wonder of Mexico.



It has been called the Crystal Cave of Giants and Cave of the Giant Crystals. The locals call it simply Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of the Crystals). There are actually three co-joined caves, one much larger than the others. This cathedral-sized cavern is home to vast fingers of selenite, rising in columns so tall that they dwarf the humans crawling amongst them.



The ghostly, transulent crystals have been measured up to 36 feet (11 meters) in height, weighing in at 55 tonnes. They make up the largest natural crystals ever discovered on Earth and therefore attract geologists and scientists in their hordes, as well as the tourists. However, no-one can stand to be in the cave for more than a few minutes, due to the crippling heat inside.

Cueva de los Cristales lies 1,200 feet (365.76 meters) below the surface. Beneath it is a pool of magma, rising up from the Earth's core. It is a very hot place. Temperatures of 150 F (65.6 C) have been recorded in the larger cave, while the smaller bakes in a mere 100 F (37.8 C).

The risks of entering are very real. Shortly after their discovery, an opportunist miner bypassed the protective iron door through a small tunnel. He took with him plastic bags filled with fresh air, in a bid to stay alive long enough to steal some of the precious crystals. He was found the next day, not only dead, but roasted too. This is the reason that visitors to the caves do so under strict supervision and with proper equipment.


Photograph by Richard D. Fisher

These gigantic crystals have been slowly growing over the past 500,000 years. They sit over a fault line. Around 2-3 miles (3-5 km) beneath the caverns is a giant pool of magma. As groundwater seeped down, through the porous limestone bedrock, the caverns became flooded over time. The waters were rich in gypsum minerals, oxygen and . The magma's heat worked like a hob on a cooker, maintaining this water at a simmering, steady 122 F (50 C), for half a million years. The gypsum in the water solidified into selenite crystals. However, unless the cave is flooded again, the crystals will stop slowly increasing in size and quantity now.

The caves are kept free of water by the mining company that owns them. Their pumps extract 22,000 gallons of water per minute from the system. This is an expensive operation and is likely to cease later this year.

Mining first began, in the area, in 1794. The local Tarahumara people had long known that there was gold and silver in the Naica Hills. They had extracted some of it through small-scale surface digging. However, there was also zinc and lead in the ground and, in 1900, this was more valuable. That's when the first large scale mining company was formed, tunneling deep into the earth.

The mine was about to close down, in 1912, when an exploratory burrowing discovered a wonder at 400ft (120m). This was the fabulous Cave of Swords (Cueva de las Espadas).



Much smaller than what was to come, it's still an impressive cavern. Some of the crystals have grown to around 6.6ft (2 meters), while others cloister together, covering whole walls. Some of these crystals were taken away as geological wonders, to be exhibited in museums around the world.

In 1922, the mine opened again, extracting gold, silver, zinc and lead, yet still occasionally finding small selenite crystals lying around. The miners moved steadily deeper and deeper, their progress only pausing for new levels to be drained, before they could dig on.

In April 2000, two brothers were working for Industrias Peñoles' Naica Mine. Juan and Pedro Sanchez had been given orders to drill a new tunnel into the previously unexplored depths of 984ft (300 meters). They broke through and stood staring. They had found the first of the truly awe-inpsiring caverns, the Crystals' Cave.



They called the engineer-in-charge, Roberto Gonzalez, who immediately contacted the mine's owners. It was now, within days of the discovery, that the protective door was added to the cavern's entrance.

However, this wasn't the end of the story. Shortly afterwards, two more employees of the mining company, also brothers, were sent to explore further into the cavern. Eloy and Francisco Javier Delgado worked in sweltering temperatures to bore a small passageway into the cavern beyond. The gap was tiny, but Francisco decided to squeeze through anyway. His Davy Lamp torch lit up the interior and Francisco cried out. He had become the first human being to behold a sight that has caused grown men to weep with the sheer majestic beauty.



Eloy quickly inched his way through the difficult passage to join him.

Both were in awe, it appeared that an eye was looking at them. They experienced something fantastic; a totally dark bubble inside the cave, which at first contact with the light shone like a diamond.
NAICA Project

They had found the Queen's Eye Cave.

Yet there was still something even more breath-taking beyond. This is the cavern that geologist, Juan Manuel García-Ruiz (University of Granada), in an interview with 'National Geographical', called 'the Sistine Chapel of crystals'. Photographer and author, Richard D Fisher, describes his feelings there:

Momentarily, the penetrating heat is forgotten as the crystals pop into view on the other side of the newly named "Eye of the Queen". The entire panorama is now lighted and the cavern has a depth and impressive cathedral-like appearance that was not visible on earlier trips with just our headlamps.

When inside the great cathedral of crystals, the pressure of intense heat makes my feelings run up and down the emotional scale from sheer religious awe to outright panic... When I'm done working after three trips into the great cavern, my friends almost have to carry me out. We want to see more, but physically cannot. When the experience is over there is a great relief, but all we can think about is when can we go back in.
Crystal Cave of the Giants - Discovery of the Largest Crystals on Earth

This is the largest of the three caverns, the mystically stunning Candles Cave.



Selenite is named after the Greek Moon Goddess, Selene. The crystals' apparent magical properties, in seeming to glow from the inside, are reminiscent of moonlight. Selenite is used by some to calm the emotions and provide clarity of reflective thought. It has also been crushed and used in cosmetics.

Naica Mine is still an active worksite. It is possible for tourists to arrange supervised access to the upper caverns, but the lower ones are restricted to employees and scientists only. It's simply too dangerous at present, to expose tourists to the temperatures involved.

Rio Secreto: Conversation and Tourism

50 million years ago, the Yucatán Peninsula was just drying out from being under a warm, shallow sea.   During this time, billions of fish and other creatures had lived and died in the proto-Caribbean Sea.   Their remains sank to the bottom of the waters and were buried in the sediment.   They were joined by the ancient coral and tiny marine insect life.    Then, as the sea receded, land emerged.   The fragmented remains of all these creatures and plantlife became crushed together, compacted, and, as the millennia passed, hardened and became limestone.

Limestone changes in water.   As the drip, drip of surface moisture passed through the Earth, from uncountable years of rainfall, some of this limestone began to erode.   First cracks, then holes, then caves, then caverns, then wondrous subterranean natural cathedrals were etched out of the rock.   Long before humankind had even stood up on two legs, an underground river was starting to twist its way through the early stalactites and stalagmites; crystal clear water pooling.   One tiny drop after another tiny drop, in endless succession, in patient formation.

Thus it was that, four million years ago, Rio Secreto began.   It is one of the best kept secrets of Playa del Carmen.  A subterranean Wonderland, based in a series of caverns, 13km (8 miles) deep.   It has only been open to the public for just under three years.   Those visiting it tend to emerge, in blogs and forums, or excitedly chattering to friends, saying such things as, "OMG!  If you do nothing else in Mexico, go there!  Go there!"  or "Wow!  That was really spiritual.  I'm going to have to contemplate this.  Excuse me..."  or "I've been all over the world and seen so many wonders, but Rio Secreto has blown my mind."    Yep.  I don't think it's going to be a 'best kept secret' for much longer.




But the owners of Rio Secreto have a deep responsibility here and they know it.   When a system has taken longer to evolve than we have, then destroying it in the name of a quick buck is worse than criminal.   Therefore, they have gone out of their way to ensure that it can be seen, whilst maintaining minimal damage.   It's a hard call, particularly when bending to the pressure of tourist convenience could make them all very quickly rich.   Yet the owners are steadfast.    They are all passionate and knowledgeable about conversation.   Even students are starting to be directed towards them, in order to learn about ecological sustainability.

Visitors are required to have a quick, rinse-down shower before entering the caverns.   This can be done in their swimming suits, but ensures that harmful chemicals, such as might be found in perfume, sunscreen, deodorant or insect repellent, isn't carried in to pollute the pristine waters.   Even band-aids and jewellery have to be removed, in case they fall into the environment.   There are two tourist routes through the system, carefully planned to minimalize damage caused by people banging into rocks.   Multi-lingual guides are always on hand to steer their parties in the right direction.  There are discreet ropes both to mark the route and to politely keep tourists on it.

One of the other measures, often commented upon by visitors, is the lighting.   Those at Rio Secreto have resisted the temptation, endemic in other subterranean attractions, of placing electric lighting throughout the caverns.   In fact, there is no electricity down there at all.   Instead, visitors see the spectacular sights by use of Davey Lamps.  These specially adapted torches are fitted onto helmets, lighting up wherever the head is turned to see.   The result is not only a sublimely magical ambience, but it also protects the rocks.   You see, the limestone is still forming and the caverns still growing; the river and pools are still getting deeper, drop by drop.   Rio Secreto has learned the lessons of other cavern attractions, where electric lighting creates moss, which spreads and eats away at the very things that everyone has come to see.




Another policy is more controversial amongst visitors, but entirely understandable in the circumstances.   This is the banning of cameras and camcorders underground.   Pictures are taken, but by a company photographer, who takes four quality snaps of each party.   These can be purchased for a price, once everyone is out again.   One photograph for $25 or a DVD of all four for $59.   Many have bulked at this and screamed 'scam!', as some people are wont to do.    But there are very good reasons for this camera prohibiton and not all of them are commercial.

The first is purely and simply to do with health and safety.    The tourist routes aren't overly arduous (young children and the elderly have managed them with relative ease), but the owners refuse to harm the environment by putting down walkways.   This means that visitors walk, wade or swim through the natural ways.  Sometimes that involves watching their footing, therefore the guides would rather people weren't distracted by trying to take the perfect photograph.    There's also the fact that cameras in hands mean that people haven't got both hands free.   This can be problematic, when there are narrow, rocky areas to traverse.   Not to mention the fact that photographers, who don't pay attention to their surroundings, could well be knocking off fragments of the formations.

The second reason is to do with the ambience of the place.   The selective lighting renders a sacred air to the caverns.   The ancient Maya did use them as a place of meditation and worship, so this isn't entirely imaginary.    Most who visit the place emerge expressing gratitude at the lack of camera flashes.   It would have totally detracted from the atmosphere.

The third and final reason is commercial.   This is something that commercial manager, Gavin Greenwood, has apologetically defended.   "I must also however point out here that given our current global economic struggle, soaring costs, and terribly expensive distribution channels (especially in tourism) our hand is sometimes forced beyond where we would like to be."




Rio Secreto is a business.   That should not be something to be sneered at, even if all of the members of staff are ecologically aware.   If they were just doing it for extra profit to get rich, fair enough.   But that isn't why they are doing it.   While Rio Secreto own the subterranean caverns, they do not also own all of the miles of land above it.   If they went out of business, then there is nothing to stop landowners snapping up the cavern below them and then digging down to create their own entrances.  It's not a hollow fear, as it's already happened in the past, with previous owners.   A concrete door is the legacy, something which would damage the system more to remove than to keep.

As Gavin Greenwood explained, "I cannot protect Rio Secreto from fast-encroaching urban sprawl and the hoards of profit-mongers that lurk in the wings if I cannot ensure that we have a viable business. No business means no conservation of the site."    All of the money, from the photographs sold, go straight into the conversation fund for the caverns.  No-one forces tourists to buy them, but when they do, the funds are gratefully received.   Greenwood added, "There is no sustainability if there is no triple bottom line: environmental protection/conservation; healthy community development; and profitable business."

In the meantime, the whole company seeks to spread its message of conservation, protecting our natural resources and sustainability; whilst also providing a stunning attraction for visitors to their complex.   Go to Rio Secreto.   It's worth it.