Sabano Hoyos

We drove back to our parking spot. Our goal was to find Cueva de Sabano Hoyos which was supposed to be further down the road, then right, then left. We hiked all the way to the town of Sabano Hoyos but none of the locals we talked to knew of any caves nearby. We had checked out a couple karst features along the way. The first one was a 22’ long horizontal passage. Alan, Marion, and Pat quickly surveyed it. They named it Wimpy Old Goat Cave. Only after they decided to name it after Marion did he climb up there. Brandon and I followed but we watched from the entrance. The next karst feature had an 8’ wide, belly crawl, slot entrance. I bellied in. To the left the passage quickly ended after about 15’. I shone my light down slope to check the holes. To the right and back the passage extended about 12 feet. I could look under a ledge into a formation room with dry, white formations. I was almost certain nothing went and didn’t feel the need to modify to be certain. We hiked back up the very steep hills towards the car. We passed by a jeep trail and I spoke some Spanish and learned that we wanted to go to the next dirt side road and turn left. On our way there, we met two English speaking Puerto Ricans who had dug up 6 large bags of wild yams in the jungle. We helped them haul the bags onto the road and into the back of their pickup. He knew of a cave on his property and offered to drive us there. I watched the small truck edge closer to the ground as we piled more than 800 lbs of people in the back. Pat was scared as we descended the steep hills in the small pickup. We got out and hopped over his barb wire fence and gate posted with a shard of wood stating Properdad Privada No Pasar. The fence and sign had a look to them that really did make you think twice about crossing uninvited. We would have never found the cave without his help. We walked down a slope through some palms and ascended a rough trail up the hill. We passed right by the entrance. The owner climbed up and pointed us uphill. To Cueva de Hector