What happened in these days of silence? We have been literally swallowed by the jungle.
Tierra Colorada is the last human outpost before entering the green sea. An esplanade stolen from the forest to grow corn and beans, but the wilderness demands it constantly, to the point that imperceptibly conquers it inch by inch every day. Of course, to contrast it, men resort to drastic measures with fire. But that is seen and known.
Camp at Tierra Colorada I was saying. From there we left every morning to dive into the directions scheduled by the program.
The first day we reached a big sotano detected by aerial photos. The chasm, which we call Oaxaca de las Huellas, opens at about an hour and a half from the camp. During the two different trips, one explorative and one documentative, our approach has been followed by a family of monkeys, of the type mono aragna, and by the deafening shouts of hundreds of cotorras, parrots of an emerald green color.
The descent is a shot of about 50 meters that falls on the void; below, a big collapsed salon covered by vegetation. The diameter of the sotano is about 150m, but we will know precisely analyzing the data of the survey. After a difficult progress on a slope of debris we entered with a passage in a landslide in a room with wonderful eccentric concretions whose walls are covered with inflorescences. Beyond, across an area of beautiful pools, there is a large underground void. Unfortunately, at the end of this salon, everything closes in absorption. The cave is worth much anyway. The development shoud be estimated in 700 meters, once in Italy, returned the survey, we will be more precise.
The other days were dedicated to the approach of ridges and areas of access to remote valleys, where there are unexplored sotani identified by aerial photos. It seems a small thing, but I assure you that proceeding on that ground is sometimes almost impossibile. There are never crossed areas and, apart from the tangled vegetation, we often foundd ourselves fighting with a suffocating humidity, great slopes and long walks on infinite zones of Carren (sharp blades of limestone several meters high).
Not to mention the most real danger, that is to do unpleasant encounters with the landlord, represented here by Nauyaca, a large and aggressive viperide of lethal bite.
On the last day, as expected, we could not miss the surprise: another cave towards the east, in the valley beyond the "Grande Dolina".
A team has reached it after two hours of walking. Unfortunately it did not meet our expectations, but nonetheless we have increased our knowledge about a new area of forest.
The balance is positive: we can now say we know a vast area of jungle and, hence, the travel times to reach the most advanced explorations with new trips are widely halved.
This morning, invited by the civil protection, with a twin-engine of the team "forest fire", we flew over the ares that we have explored on foot. The flight lasted about 2 hours, we filmed and photographed from above the whole area of explored forest and further.
They took part in these explorations: Gianni Todini, Paolo Forconi, Ciccio Lo Mastro, Umberto Del Vecchio, Laura Pala, Laura Russo, Daniel Paharnicu, Pietro Cortellessa, Chiara Pulvirenti, Cecilio Lopez Tercero, Kaleb Zarate Galvez, Lucas Ruiz, Abraham Ruiz, Alberto Ruiz.
Ciccio
In the meantime came the bulk of this year's expedition. 23 people from Italy and Mexico that will begin to work in quieter and more accessibile zones. So to adjust themselves they started with a dip in the pool...tropical speleology...
Joking aside, first day dedicated to buy groceries and everything that will serve for 20 days. From tomorrow we will go up in the mountains!
The main goals: some caves seen many years ago, some left unfinished in the past years. And another very important goal for these areas, the exploration of the speleo diving group!
Stay tuned!
Leo This expedition is made possible thanks to the sponsorship of our friends: Intermatica (satellite phone), Ferrino (outdoor materials), Dolomite (trekking and mountaineering shoes), Scurion (LED lamps), Amphibious (dry bags) and a contribution in material from Mountain House (freeze-dried food for hiking and extreme environments), TTM Mobile (phone-outlimits line) and Styled (scuba lights).