The Crystal Cave

Hola.

After a temporary hiatus, it's briefly back to blog business but because brevity befits a blogger, behold a brief bulletin below.

The Crystal Cave caused a certain correspondent to create confusing comparisons contrary to common convention.

Developments devoid of descriptions developed during the deep down delving.

Each expedient excavator eagerly examined the earthly environment eagerly.

Fantastic formations forever fixed for future factions.

Great guides generously gave guidance.

However, humans happen to have hunger hindering errrr... hinvestigation?

That's enough of that.

We were lucky enough to get a lift from Loly - the wonderful proprietress of the Casa Chihuahua hostel which we stayed the night in. Especially lucky because we would have had a real job making our way there on public transport. The cave is 2 hours away by car - a lot more by bus - which would have meant getting up much earlier than the 7:30am we managed.

We were lucky to have her along because she was able to guide us through the preliminary health check and took us for a look around the museum while we waited for some other tourists to show up.

Once we were up to full strength (19) we were equipped with hard hats and lights (except for me - I got my helmet last and obviously got the duff one without a light) and we boarded our minibus which would take us into the very bowels of the earth.

As drove though the mouth of the San Francisco tunnel I was reminded of the phrase that one google search later I know is from Dante's 'Divine Comedy': "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". As we descended into the mine the bright sunshine gradually faded and the temperature rose accordingly as we passed descending miners, abandoned equipment and piles of rubble.

We worked our way down and down until we came to a rather incongruous Alice-in-Wonderland-esque door in the middle of a tunnel. We stepped out of the minibus into an oven-like atmosphere: 95F and 90% humidity. As we passed through the mysterious portal, we it was like stepping inside a sauna it was so hot! The cave itself was illuminated with strip lights so we gradually stepped into the lit area - it was like approaching some kind of shrine.

The cave itself was awe-inspiring. Massive crystals criss-crossed the cavern piercing the opposite wall of the cave like giant needles. There was a viewing platform behind sheeted glass which protects the crystals from clumsy - or inconsiderate - tourists giving the impression of standing in a small greenhouse. Up against the glass, the temperature was a whopping 130F - almost as hot as a sauna!

It was difficult to stay any more than a couple of minutes because of the intense heat but the view was incredible. Stepping out of the enclosed area into the 95 degree heat again was strangely refreshing. As the rest of the group emerged I managed to get back in to snap a few pictures. The ones from right in front of the glass didn't really come out as anything more than blurs due to the humidity - but the ones from further back seemed a little better. There are quite a few better pictures on the internet anyway, so I figure it's better to steal those.

Loly drove us back to Chihuahua so we could catch a bus up to El Paso. Unfortunately we just missed one at 2:30 so we got the next bus to Ciudad Juarez and thence to Seattle.