Photos from Yucatan expedition

[ethanb]

In early February, I went on an expedition to the Yucatan with Advanced Diver Magazine.  The goal was to find new cenotes and cave systems, do some biology research, and hopefully find some archaeological sites.  Most of the sites involved vertical access, so the trip is a combination of diving, rope-work, and a lot of driving!  We were joined this year by Dr. Tom Iliffe from Texas A&M University, an expert in underwater cave biology, and Dr Guillermo de Anda Alanis (Memo), an archaeologist from the University of the Yucatan in Merida. 

We didn't find as many new sites this year as last year, but working with Memo was extremely educational.  We showed him some of the sites we'd discovered last year and he was very interested in studying them further.  We found several 1000+ year old Mayan Walls and a Sac Be (white road) in caves, as well as some pottery and rock art.  Hopefully some of them will yield some significant discoveries in the future.

I've put my photos online here:


During the trip, I managed to get pulled over by a motorcycle cop for allegedly running a red light and having equipment stacked so high I couldn't see out the back of the jeep ($60 bribe took care of that), parked the Jeep too far off the road and dropped two wheels into the ditch (got stuck because the rental car place had disabled 4WD by removing a linkage - I climbed under the truck and banged on the transfer case with a 4 lb weight to shift it manually), and bought bad gas that required adding two cans of octane booster before we could again use 5th or 6th gear on the highway without knocking.

Ethan