Cueva de Grillo Gigante

I got up about 9:00 AM this morning. Alan had been up since 7:30 AM and had caught up his journal. I was surprised Marion was still asleep. I didn’t really eat breakfast. Instead, I got all of my stuff together and then tried to pack it into the trunk of the car. Alan, Pat, John, and Dawn went to the Pueblo to re-supply Mimi’s kitchen. Mimi wasn’t very happy which wasn’t really surprising. Finally, everyone was ready to go. I was proud of Alan for not waiting on John but taking off on our own. Alan’s driving is more my style; he drives like me. Pat called and said they had to go back because she forgot all the maps so we headed to the campsite on our own. We arrived just in time for lunch so we got to wait around for the guy to come back to the office. I took pictures of the Ficus tree (strangler fig). It’s a neat tree! A bird drops the trees seed onto a host tree when it craps and the vines grow down the host tree eventually killing it off. Very cool! I also took a picture of a flowering ginger plant. The guy eventually showed. He only spoke Spanish but we were able to figure out that we had to go back to Arecibo to get permission to camp. Earlier I had bought a bag of star fruit for $1.50 so I munched on star fruit all day. We drove back to Arecibo and had trouble finding the government office. The city was grossly congested with traffic. We eventually asked a cop where it was and he led us through parking lots around the traffic to it. What a nice cop! It took awhile to get permits because this campsite is rarely used. The lady there told Alan most Puerto Ricans don’t make use of the islands natural resources and many aren’t even aware of most of them. After that, we drove back and got camp set up. Pat, who had waited behind on a fax, caught up and we went to check out a cave lead marked on her map in the area we are interested in ridge walking. Alan led and I navigated so we drove directly to our destination this time. I was momentarily confused where we had parked but we were soon at the cave entrance. We hiked through light vegetation into a large sinkhole. Alan chopped down some Ortega (similar to stinging nettles) as we approached the entrance. The entrance to Giant Cricket Cave is 30’ wide and 10’ feet tall. We descended a mud slope below the large stalactite lined jaw into walking passage. The slimy floor gently sloped downwards. On the left wall, Alan pointed out a giant cave cricket and an Amblypigid. The walking passage continued for about 100 feet. A short climb-down led into a smaller passage which soon became a slimy, narrow canyon passage. We We were all in our good clothes. I tried especially hard not to get slimy. At the bottom of the climbdown a stream fed out of the floor. We followed that stream through the canyon, around a bend, and then the passage started to get crawly. Pat said she needed kneepads and it sounded like a hammer might also be necessary. We routed and determine we’d come back to map and push it in full cave gear the next day. We drove back to Arecibo and stopped at Walmart. It was part of a shopping mall. The parking lot was jam-packed. What a quagmire of cars. The Walmart was the busiest Walmart I’d ever seen. It wasn’t really a Super Walmart and seemed undersupplied. It didn’t sell Power Bars. We ate dinner at Ponderosa and bought some fruit and veggies from Pueblo before driving back to camp. Brandon hit the sack. The rest of us sat at a sheltered picnic table huddling around candles for light. The frogs were singing Puer-to Ri-co, Puer-to Ri-co. When I filled up my water bottle from the campsite facet, the water was white with minerals and actually fizzing.