The photo is a little dark, but then again, so were the connected series of caves at Loltun (sorry, I didn’t find any decent sites to link to). These are located in the Puuc region of Yucatán, Mexico and were part of a Puuc region tour that we took last New Year. The others on the tour included Kabáh, Sayil, and Labná (I’ll save the links for posts on these sites later).

We drove up to the site (the only Mayan site on the tour with restrooms [keep that in mind]) and had to buy our own tickets. Read the small print on the signs carefully because the charge for the guide is included in the entrance fee. On the instructions of the guide, we moved quickly ahead of a huge group that was near the entrance. This turned out to be a good move because it could have been crowded in places (four members of our group were Mexican and were part of that larger group; it took them 45 more minutes to finish up).

Anyway, some of the caves were huge! There were lights placed in several areas, and virtually all of them shine in your eyes, rather than on the cave walls. Surely this can be taken care of! There are some figures on the wall in places, but they are hard to make out. I understand that not so long ago there were many very clear ones. Some stalagmites (as you may remember from your geology courses, they’re the ones from the floor up) in one room seemed to be hollow and made a kind of musical sound when hit (no hard instruments for this, please).

It turns out the caves were used as a last stand against the Spanish who were intent on controlling the area and the inhabitants. There were some large rocks piled up to close off one of the openings, but the Spanish got word that many were holed up inside. The climb up these rocks in very little light could prove challenging, so keep that in mind. I believe that climb and one other caused the delay with the other larger group.

The final large room, the one you see in the photo above, is like a scene from a movie. We understood that it was in fact used in a movie, but our guide was not sure which one. Maybe there’s an excuse to watch some potential candidates again.

One final note concerns the guide fee we had already paid that I mentioned above. As we neared the exit, our guide began to talk about how much other well-known tours cost, and that the usual fee was about $40 U.S. per family! There was one other family in our group; the father and I talked, and we decided to give the man $5 each. It was a good tour, and it took about an hour. A ten dollar tip for a job well done. Caveat emptor!