Cueva Sorbetos

It was raining again when I woke up this morning. We’d got a lot of rain over the night. No workman came to wake Pat, John, and Dawn up but luckily we didn’t have to wait around too long. We drove to a small town built along the Rio and parked across the street from a no parking sign. A Spanish man drove by, stopped and said something to me. When I said no comprendo he told me “It’s slick up there.” Anyway, we hiked up the road and ascended a trail that paralleled high above the Rio. As the trail drew nearer to the river we began to hear thundering rapids and glimpse whitewater thoruhg the jungle. The trail became a catwalk and we arrived at the dam. The water cascading over the dam was pretty. The trail was now quite close to the river and soon Alan spotted a wall across the river with a small plate and determined that must be the cave since it’s a heavily decorated cave. We descended to a sandy bank. Upstream whitewater cascaded towards us and downstream a small turbulent waterfall cascaded into some rather viscous looking rapids. Pat had requested we rig a hand line so I did so and ferried the line to the other side. It was an easy swam through the more pooled section of the river. Everyone else cave across and we soon entered the cave. After a brief crawl, we emerged in walking passage. To the right, rebar and a cement wall hid the cave entrance. To the left, the large walking passage descended and we got our first glimpse of soda straws. The passage was 50’ wide and 35 – 50’ high. Alan and I began taking pictures. Marion trekked ahead and everyone else began surveying. We took a couple tripod shots and progressed down the large walking passage taking pictures of the hundreds of white 1-3 feet long soda straws. It was strange because the floor became extremely muddy and mucky. However, above there were still hundreds of stark white soda straws. What a contrast! You could see how high the passage had previously flooded because the soda straws were brown or butterscotch. We took some more pictures before a 100’ long stoop walk lined with soda straws. Ahead, the passage seemed to enlarge. We took pictures whenever we ran across spectacular displays of formations which was often. We found Marion and climbed up a slope on the right hand side of the passage. We were soon over 40 feet above the lower floor. The floor of the cave is actually at a lower level than the river. Anyway we saw many 1000s of soda straws and more interesting helectite and larger formations. We crested the top of the tall hill and saw a huge formation and enormous column. We looked far down slope into a massive, flat, mud-floored room. At the left end of this huge chamber, the floor steeply funneled down 30 feet to an active stream moving a lot of water. Upstream immediately sumped. Downstream continued as a narrow canyon. Soon, I had to belly down into the water. The water is so warm I didn’t even think twice about getting in. The sharp and snaggy walls narrowed. The rushing water filled my shirt and pant legs making them bell out. I flipped onto my side and wormed ahead trying not to rip my bare elbows up. Two days before I’d banged my knee really hard and my shoulder was still sore. I wormed ahead until the passage became too tight due to formation fill. I got out my bright light and could see that the water kept flowing ahead leaving 4” of airspace. I worked backwards out of the passage, climbed back up, and reported what I’d seen to Brandon who was waiting for me. I felt refreshed. On the other side of the passage, I ascended breakdown into a large 100’ diameter room. Many white formations encircled the entrance to this room. I set up a good shot and tried to entice Brandon to come up. I checked out the perimeter of the room avoiding the numerous, white, stalactite knobs dotting the breakdown. I checked out one lead and then heard them coming. I got my perfect shot and then routed forgetting my anemometer. Hopefully, we’re later retrieve it. We waded back across the river and hiked back down to the cars. To Cueva Indio