Cueva del Murcielago

Cueva del Murcielago

We drove 334 to 111 and back on 333. The beach was a little more crowded now though not many people were in the water. Alan and I thought 80 degrees was the perfect temperature. We hiked back up the Cueva trail checking side trails and anything that looked like a potential entrance. I had just gotten back on the trail when a Puerto Rican man yelled to me. I caught the word cueva and thought he probably wanted to know where the cave was. When I got closer he asked if I was looking for the cave and said it was down the side trail he’d just come from. I called Alan and Marion and Herberto led us to the cave. What a stroke of good luck! We would have never found it on our own because it was quite a ways off the main trail and the side trail split in spots and wasn’t always real distinct. He led us to a small walking slope entrance. We descended into a huge room. Ahead, and to the elft was a very large entrance. Up a slope to the right led to two smaller entrances in another large standing room. I had been rather perturbed that my firefly slave wasn’t working but I was happy when I found a subject that I could use the on-camera-flash on. I found a hermit crab in a small alcove. He was rather picture shy and was heading for a small hole. I was surprised how strong he was and what a strong grip he had on the wall. As I walked I managed to pluck him from the wall and place him on the passage floor. He could move quite fast. I also held him by his shell for scale. He quickly figured out where my fingers were and started scratching my finger with his spiny leg. I sat him down and took pictures as he scaled the wall. Eventually, he decided he couldn’t get away from me and curled up in a ball. I had called for Alan but the others had progressed further into the cave. Back in the very large room I went to the far wall and saw a rather steep, crawling, down slope leading to some walking passage. I went down trying not to get my clothes dirty. I followed th walking passage to another very large room with two large entrances. As I walked down to the others I didn’t realize the floor had become slick and slipped catching myself on my elbow which got a little scraped up. Oh well. Just another minor inconvenience. I’m currently scraped up, sun burnt, have a rash on my knee, a small infection on my wrist, and an rather nasty looking blister from poison wood. The lost skin on my hand from blisters is healing well and my bruised knee has also healed. I also have many small scabs on my chest from pushing cave in a T-shirt. All minor inconveniences. In fact, the sun burn on my calves has helped me forget my itching arms. Across this room was a slope leading to a couple large alcoves with an interested formation to the left. To the left the passage became very mucky, a combination of guano and water. Ahead, the mud and water became knee deep as the very wide walking passage continued. Alan went ahead and reported this was where all the bats were. He said he could see another entrance but didn’t go to it because he feared sinking into the guano sludge. As we exited, I showed Alan the hermit crab. We thanked Herberto and went in search of the entrance Alan had seen avoiding the many spiny cacti and every other bush and tree because most had spikes, spines, or something unpleasant on them. We hiked through the tall dry grass and eventually found E7. I climbed down into the large entrance and knew I was in the right place by the smell. We climbed down to the guano lake. To the left we saw the larges colony of bats we’d seen yet. They seemed agitated by my light and were quite loud. There were bats flying all over the place in front of us. We climbed out and hiked back to the car and drove back to Mimi’s in San Juan. My calves are quite red. I should have put sunscreen on all exposed skin today.

Back to Puerto Rico

Fotos de Cueva del Murcielago

Taken by Brian Killingbeck

Taken by Alan Cressler

Back to Puerto Rico