Author’s note: To get the most out of this story, I recommend you first read the previous blog about the place. Thanks!
“Are we good to go?”
The guide squinted one eye shut. From the other, he scanned Martin Hennessey from head to foot. Helmet with attached lamp. High-quality life jacket. Overstuffed nylon backpack. Fast-drying short-sleeved shirt and pants. Leather and air-mesh hiking boots. He pursed his lips.
“We’re good.” Martin voiced confidence, but he had the uneasy feeling Emilio was focusing more on his stomach paunch and flabby arms than his equipment. A year of strenuous exercise couldn’t quite erase ten years of sitting behind a desk.
Except for a tattered life jacket, Emilio’s attire resembled that of a miner more than a caver—badly dinged helmet with carbide lamp, well-worn Levi jeans, heavily stained button-down cotton shirt, steel-toed boots.
The two stood at the rim of an immense sinkhole. Next to their feet, a narrow path descended steeply through trees and shrubs that clung tenaciously to rocky soil. Elsewhere, the cliffs dropped vertically, and only lichens and tufts of grasses broke through the gray limestone rock. At the bottom, some 200 feet below, tropical forest grew in chaotic abundance everywhere but the jagged cave entrance on the far side. It resembled a shark’s mouth open in anticipation of its next meal.
“Pues, vámonos.”
Martin sprang down the path. Almost immediately he lost his balance and had to grab for the nearest spindly tree trunk, which was covered in tiny thorns. “Damn!”
Emilio caught up with him. “Please, let me take the lead.” He inched his way around Martin and eyed the red pinpricks on his hand. “Perhaps you should put on your gloves.”
With slow, careful steps, they made their way to the bottom of the sinkhole and followed a path through a tangle of greenery along the crater floor. When they reached the cave entrance, Emilio eased his backpack onto the ground and sat on a nearby rock. Martin did the same.
In front of them, the cave rose more than seventy feet along the cliff wall. Vines and ferns dripped like drool from stalactite teeth. On the inside, Martin could barely make out the leaden outlines of large boulders on either side of a river before the cave erased even that. Beyond was blackness.
The Camuy would be the fifth major cave system Martin had explored in the space of a year, enough of an accomplishment to merit a short article in the NSS News of the National Speleological Society.
So there, Christine. He’d made sure his former wife received a copy.
Like many men blindsided by a failed marriage, Martin had taken up extreme sport adventures to prove he was doing just fine, thank-you-very-much. While most took to climbing peaks or trekking across continents, Martin gravitated to the Earth’s basement.
The Camuy Caves sheltered what many cavers considered the most beautiful rimstone pool formation in the world. Intricate terraces of scalloped calcite pools descended in levels down the rocks. The water within them gave off a dim bluish glow. The pools were as remote as they were beautiful. Very few cavers had seen them, giving the Camuy formation a mythical renown. “Find it,” the editor of NSS News told him, “bring back photographs, and I’ll feature you in a cover article.”
Standing, Martin adjusted the pack on his back. “Let’s get started.”
