Mexico Dec 2008 Day 5: Rio Sécreto

---

This morning we awoke late, got some coffee/breakfast and headed to Rio Sécreto. The Rio Sécreto tour lasts around 3 hrs or so. It starts with a bumpy ride through the jungle to the entrance of the cave. There, you shower (to wash off pollutants), don a helmet with an attached LED light and a wet suit. Then you enter the cave filled with limestone stalactites and stalagmites. We were only 4 tourists with the guide. The cave is infinitely labyrinthine, the path is unlit and if there was no guide you could get lost.

Rio Sécreto was recently discovered in 2006 or so and claims to be the largest freshwater cave discovery. The tour is unique because you walk, wade, crouch, swim your way into the caverns. The water is so pure you can drink it. There are little catfish in the water. Its not very commercialized. You cannot carry a camera and the only annoying part was that they try to rip you off with the photographs, priced at $25 each.

Throughout the trip, you see amazing limestone formations. At one point, the guide turned off all LED lights and we held hands and floated at a spot where the water was deep. True cave darkness, it was so black you couldn't see your hand an inch in front of your face and after a while, since we were floating, it was creepy and seemed to lose perspective.

Returned to restaurant, rested and headed back to the Playa shopping area. Tried our bargaining skills and did a little bit of shopping. Picked up a large porcerlain frog. Spent about half hour packaging it with newspaper and makeshift cartons as we were worried it wouldn't reach back in one piece.

When we got back to the car, we had a parking ticket. Couldn't understand the Spanish. Took it to the hotel conceirge and they told us the cops had taken one of the license plates. The fine was about $80 USD for tourists and $45 for Mexicans (quite steep). I handed the ticket with $50 to the bellboy who lives there and he promised to pay off the ticket for us. As I found out the next day, he was quite honest and returned back $30 since the fine was just $20. Left him a huge tip. Later during the trip, we noticed that 3 out of 4 of the tourist cars were missing license plates. Seems to be a revenue generating scam.

---