From Friday,  Mar. 12 thru Friday, Mar. 19, the WKPP, along with Texas A&M
students and facility, conducted dives in several cenotes near the city of
Merida in the Mexican state of Yucatan.  George Irvine and others have
covered the specifics of the diving, so what follows will be my rambling
thoughts and impressions of the trip.

The best part of the trip was the city and the people.  Visiting the city of
Merida was a very humbling experience for me.  We Americans seem to think we
are the best at everything.  Well, let me tell you...we could learn a lot
from the people of Merida.

First, this city was spotlessly clean.  Yes, parts of it were old, and maybe
not as fancy as we Americans are used to, but everywhere, the airport, the
hotels, the restaurants, the city streets, the dive sites, etc., was clean.
Every morning on our walk to breakfast, we saw people sweeping the streets.
Everyday as we drove to the dive sites, we saw people picking up what little
trash there was from the side of the road.  Every time I left my hotel room,
there was a fellow sweeping the hall.  Beautification projects were going on
everywhere.  My favorite was the brightly painted rocks in every color of
the rainbow.  The pride of the people of Merida was inspiring.

The architecture is stunning and I spent one whole day just wandering around
looking at these magnicant buildings.  The courtyards reminded me of
something you would see in New Orleans.  Food is cheap and plentiful, and I
think most agree that the gelato and the 50 cent tacos with pineapple were
the neatest finds.  George still holds the record at 15, by the way.  The
ruins were cool, and the A&M guys braved a 4:30 wakeup call to see the
spring equinox thing 2 days early.  (I did not have an alarm clock with me
that went that early.)

Second, in a city of one million people, I felt perfectly safe.  Police were
very visible, but they did not seem to be needed.  Everybody seemed so
friendly and courteous.  We wandered the streets of downtown at midnight
without feeling the least bit threatened.  From the looks of things, most of
the local people felt the same way.  For the most part, I did not see
massive gates around houses or bars on windows.  People just seemed to go
about there business in a way that is as close to utopian as any city I have
been to.

Next, the people we met were unbelievable.  Carlos Gonzales of the Secretary
of Ecology's office was our guide throughout the trip, both for diving as
well as night life.  He is a party animal and we enjoyed teaching him many
important valuable American phrases, and he taught us Mayan and Spanish
phrases.  Carlos has been made an honorary member of the WKPP and we all
look forward to seeing him again.  His kindness was exceeded only by his
hard work.

Fernando Rosado and Roger Hashimoto of the Yucatan Speleological
Association, were extremely valuable in handling logistics.  These two guys
are the Sheck Exley's of Merida and between them hold the end of the line in
just about every cenote in the region.  Fernando donated a tremendous amount
of time and energy driving us around in his personal truck and helping us
move our gear.  Roger coordinated the gas and stored it and some of our gear
in his warehouse.  Without their help, we would not have been able to pull
this expedition off, and again, their kindness and hard work were a sight to
behold.

Roger Medina of the Department of Ecology, University of Yucatan,  was the
brains behind this event.  He was a key person in arranging permits and was
in charge of the science end of things.  It was a pleasure collecting
samples for him because he seemed so genuinely thrilled at the effort we
were making.  I hope he will take the time to post the results of the
various experiments he was conducting.

Again, the pride of the people of Merida with respect to the cenotes was
impressive.  The office of the Secretary of Ecology was amazing.  The have
catalogued some 800 cenotes in the region with a sheet for each one
describing location, features, plant and animal life, who explored it and
who is the contact for it.  They  have a map of the region with a dot on it
for each site.  The map looks like it has been shot with a shotgun there are
so many sites.  Photographs of the cenotes adorn the walls and they are
beautiful.

I had not been to Mexico for cave diving before so this was very
interesting.  This region is like a cross between Akumal and Leon sinks.
The Cavern zones and dry cave portions were more like Akumal (vadose), but
the cave systems were more like Leon sinks (phreatic).  Everything seems to
go deep, in the 150' range or so, and nothing seems to go super long due to
the amount of breakdown.  The rock is very soft and brittle.  Does that mean
these caves are older?  Man, I wish my geology was better.

The main sight we worked was the only one that required a permit (again,
thanks Roger).  The cenote was called Cenote X'lacah in the middle of an
archeological site called Dzibilchaltun.  Many scientific experiments were
conducted here, though the one we were realling wanting to do, the hydrolad,
failed to materialize due to a computer communication glitch.  An attempt to
use a new IBM laptop instead of Brett's old reliable Mac proved Bill Gates
may not be as smart as he thinks, and showed us that if it ain't broke don't
fix it.

Exploration at the sight, though very successful (we more than trippled the
previous distance of about 1300 feet to somewhere around 4200 feet at an
average depth of 170'...the survey data is still coming in) was frustrating.
Though the conduit was large, at about 2500 feet we had to start picking our
way around breakdown pile after breakdown pile.  Nonetheless, this still
makes this the longest system in the region to the best of my knowledge.

None of the other sights we dove had as much distance to them, but all were
beautiful.  My Mayan is poor, so I will let the A&M guys tell you more about
those.

Well this post has gotten long, so I will close with a few more thank you's.
To the WKPP team, George Irvine, Brent Scarabine, Bill Mee, John Rose, Ken
Sallot, Derek Hagler, Chuck Noe and, of course, the general herself, bad
tooth and all, Dawn Kernagis, thanks for a job well done.  To the A&M guys,
Brett Dobson, Michael Loeffler and David Sweetin, you guys are all right and
I'll dive with you anytime.  To Tom Illife, thanks for the invite and sorry
for all of the misunderstandings.

Jess Armantrout
WKPP expedition leader (never again!)

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