YUCATAN PENINSULA (Mexico) 1993
The Yucatan Peninsula is a
level lowland covered by tropical forests without mountains or rivers. In this
large zone there’s a geological phenomenon unique in the world: the water that
falls down with the storms gathers in hydrologic basins called Cenotes (Dzonop
in the Maya’s language). Some of them, seem to be placid small lakes, others are
hidden in abysses rounded by vegetation, and it’s impossible to discover them
flying over the forest with a plane. Casati and Dell’Oro are interested on this
kind of Cenotes and they will try to find and explore them helped by some local
guide. There’s also an official collaboration with the Commandant of the firemen
“the bomberos”, he’s the responsible of the Yucatan state and gave some jeeps to
get in some places not easy to reach. To thanks him, Casati, who’s the Technical
Responsible of the CAI National Speleological School, and the CNSAS National
Responsible of the Cave Diving Rescue Commission with Dell’Oro who’s is a CAI
Speleological Instructor, and a member of the Cave Diving Rescue Team, taught
the firemen the speleological progression, the and cave diving, analyzing
techniques and equipments. The configuration was poor but complete. Were
explained the problems of going into dry and underwater caves. It was important
to talk about the dry caves because sometimes they had to go down into wells
with water on the bottom for 15m or more using the ropes. Also, in the water
there was the necessity to tie up the yarn of the reel, check the tanks and the
regulators, the helmet with its lamps and then go on with the underwater cave
exploration. The galleries were a surprise for their beauty (lots stalactites
and stalagmites that demonstrate it’s dry past) and for their extension and
complexity. One curious Cenote had the entrance about ten metres away from the
Merida’s airport: while we were entering in a short gallery the motors of the
planes roared over our heads, getting on the shore of the small lake we didn’t
care about the grazing flight of the plane, but lots bats showed their grudge
against our intrusion. The water temperature was really nice, about 29°, there
weren’t problems for the cold, but there was another important thing to face:
the organic substances’ decomposition improved by the hot water, caused painful
ears infections that must be healed with antibiotics. Near the entrance there
was a small but very coloured size water fauna, but getting where the sunlight
doesn’t arrive we found white fishes typical of dark places. Also, talking about
palaeontology we found some fossil bones of a big prehistorically animal: the
Mastodon. The Cenotes were the water for Maya populations, and they have been
studied because of it was possible to find some archaeological evidence. Casati,
moving the sand and the mud on the base of a detrital cone at the depth of -10m,
found some clay vases in excellent conditions, and he gave them to the Merida
museum. During the dives, sometimes happened to enter in some zones where the
water appeared trembling and shaking, this strange phenomenon was the result of
the mix of the sea water with fresh water, because of we were far away from the
seaside there’s the hypothesis of a connection between the Cenotes and the sea,
a labyrinth of underwater natural galleries. Although Casati and Dell’Oro could
explore some different caves they had to spend a lot of time to realize a
documentary for the TV program “Reportage” transmitted by Canale 5 and stop a
little bit the willing of going on with the explorations. Casati and Dell’Oro
came back in Italy, but it seems they have just suspended for a while the
exploration of an underwater Atlantis that’s waiting to show its treasures.
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