Actun Tunichil Muknal

Actun Tunichil Muknal

  All the pictures are from different groups. Pictures are not allowed anymore because people have dropped their cameras and broken artifacts. The ATM is still a working archeological site.

Today we went to the ATM it is a cave the Mayans used for sacrifices to the rain God because the water had dried up. Did you know the Mayan people are the First Nations people of Central and South America.

that is a tapir it is the national animal

Right now the caves are filled with water. I got a life jacket and you have to wear a helmet to protect your head with a light on it, the caves are pitch black because there  is nowhere for sunlight to come in. We got a lot of sand in our shoes when we crossed the 3 rivers. The water in all of them were up to my waist but there was a rope at the rivers I could use. We walked through the bush for 36 minutes. We entered the cave at a slow waterfall, I Was so happy. In the caves we walked and climbed and swam a very long way over rocks, we went in about 3.5km into the caves the cave is 5 km long.

The walls look like they have crystals in them. When the water drips down over the limestone it leaves minerals behind called calcite and stalactites grow. They look like sparkling rock icicles. They sparkle if there is water still dripping because they are still growing and sort of living but if the water stops they stop growing and sadly die and don't sparkle, they turn brown. The water that drips off the stalactite land on the ground and start to build and grow stalagmites. They look like cones and keep growing if there is dripping mineral water until they meet up with the stalactite then they look like a pole. They can keep on growing and growing and growing. They grow really slow one inch every 1 hundred years. Some of them we saw in the caves were a foot wide and more than 30 feet tall, That is crazy! How old do you think that makes them???

Some of the spots we went through were narrow you have to go in an orderly fashion. Sometimes you have to go head first and sometimes feet first and slide over the rocks or climb a little on your belly. Other times you jump down into the water. You have to be careful of the sharp rocks sticking out of the walls.

After going through a really narrow spot mom hit her head because she was looking up instead of paying attention, she kept telling me to pay attention but she wasn't listening to herself! We crawled through a really small spot into a really big cave and got to see artifacts, there were lots of pots. Most of the pots were black from the incense burning and broken. Mayans thought everything had a soul so they broke empty pots because they didn't want the evil spirits to move into the empty pot and take its soul. There were some pots that weren't broken the Mayans didn't break pots that had stuff in them because the evil spirits couldn't take over the pot because it wasn't alone. On one of the pots there was a symbol that looked like donkey kong. We got to see a lot of pots and bones. 

Our guide said that the Mayans were scared of the caves because they thought it was entrance to the underworld Xibalba. But the Mayan people really needed rain so they went in the caves and started with sacrifices like food or animals, but when the gods didn't send rain they started going further into the caves and giving blood sacrifices. They would poke their finger or other body parts and let the blood drip out. This didn't work so they sacrificed body parts like fingers and tongues and toes. After that didn't work they went even further into the caves because they were more desperate and they believed they would be closer to the gods further in the caves. The Mayan thought they were made from corn so they decided to sacrifice themselves because then they would be feeding the gods, Mmm tortillas.

We climbed a big rock, 10 feet tall and had to throw our leg over the ledge to climb up, it was a little hard but we did it! One of the caves was called the cathedral because it was so huge and really tall. There were stalagmites and stalactites touching that were 30 feet or more tall. Then we had to climb up and over more slippery rocks until we got to a small spot that looked like a dead end. But there was a ladder that took us up to a long and narrow cave that led us to the amazing crystal maiden! The crystal maiden is actually a boy that was sacrificed and his body was in a dry spot so none of the skeleton was washed away, it is all there. The skeleton shines from the mineral deposits that stuck to the skeleton. 

The skeletons were cool and some looked different. The Mayans liked to make the kings and queens family look different. On a skull one had a sloped forehead like a ski jump from putting a headband and a flat rock on their head when they were a baby, when you are a baby your head bones are soft. Another skull looked like an alien the top was bulged and the bottom was narrow they think they used a really tight head band around the ears. It is called cranial modification and the Mayans thought it was beautiful, they thought different was beautiful. That is really, really, really different from today, today people like to look all the same they think that makes them pretty.That is terrible that everyone wants to look the same. 

ski jump forehead was beautiful

everyone is the same

On our way back we went a different way where you had to go through a really long and narrow cave with water above my head. It was ok because I had a life jacket but in one spot I had to take my life jacket off so it didn't get caught on the rocks when we went through where your neck fit in the narrow part and your body was under the water between the rocks like a hallway you only fit sideways in. That was really fun! it was called the decapitation rock. Then we swam and climbed over rocks till we got to a small waterfall and pool that we swam across to the big rocks and climbed out. 

the decapitation rock

I didn't want to leave the caves when we were done I want to go back again it was SPECTACULAR!