Don Rafael was hard at work when we drove up to his little shop, which is the only place you can buy a refresco along the long, dusty dirt road linking La Estrella, Jalisco, and the iron mines of Navidad.
"Don Rafael, remember that cave-near-a-river you told us about? Think we could find it if you give us some directions?"
"Nope."
"Er, any chance you could show us where it is?"
"Sure, anytime."
"oh... well, er, how about today?"
"Busy today."
"Tomorrow, then?"
"Busy tomorrow, también"
Since Don Rafael himself had told us that one could easily spend all day wandering inside the cave-by-a-river, none of us was ready to give up so easily. After another hour of chit-chat with a lunch break in between we finally talked him into "taking us partway..."
The river in question is the Pihuamo, a two-hour brisk hike down into a wide, lonely canyon said to be the home of animales de uña: pumas, mountain lions, etc. Shade trees dot the shallow river which sometimes cuts through beautiful, massive chunks of limestone.
Although the heat was stifling and it felt like our brains were frying, we fairly flew down the hillside and headed upriver. Halfway up a high cliff, we spotted what looks like a large cave possibly accessible by a very long (and precise) rappel from the top. This, however, was not the cave-by-a-river Don Rafa had in mind. His cave turned out to have a small, easy-to-miss entrance, which was a bit of a let-down until we stepped inside...
It's been a long time since we've seen a cave in Jalisco anything like this: a smooth borehole 4-5 meters in diameter that reminded us of a subway tunnel. Near the entrance, the passage was covered with a thick layer of dried mud, top to bottom. The floor was cracked into a million little pieces and a few steps ahead stalactite "hands" reached down from the ceiling.
Because we had taken Don Rafa away from his work (naturally, he hadn't stopped at halfway), we gave ourselves only ten minutes to see what we could see. Just a few steps away we came upon a high-ceilinged room and so many beautiful stalactites that we knew without a doubt this cave was special.
At one point, Luis Rojas stepped into a side passage and WHAP! suddenly flew backward, falling to the floor. I figured he had walked right into a low ceiling, but it turned out he had been hit head-on by a very large bat in a very big hurry and obviously not echo-locating. This love tap suggested the name KIROPTERAN KISS KAVE (or K3) for this cavern, which appears to have no local name {Note: this cave is also refered to as C. Chocolate, and appeas in the survey as such}.
Ten delightful minutes in the cave were followed by a long, hot, dusty trek back up the hill and a quick departure for a place called Fatima Bridge, which we heard might have a good spot to camp. Considering the lumpy, rocky, sloping place where we had reluctantly slept on our Pozo Fortin trip, most of us were willing to try just about anyplace. Claudio Chilomer, however, announced that he would not dream of camping other than on a genuine BEACH...
A half an hour later (after fording the river several times) we pulled up on a wide stretch of sand next to a dam in the river. All of us gaped at this ideal campsite in awe and wonder except Claudio, who gave us a smug look that said, "Don't we Brazilians know it all!"
No sooner did we put up our tents and light a fire than a short, intense fellow appeared right out of the darkness. "I heard you're looking for caves," he announced. Now, we had just driven a half hour from Don Rafa's place and knew he had no electricity, much less a telephone. So how did...?
Anyhow, our nocturnal visitor casually remarked that his cave was even more spectacular than K3, that he'd be happy to show it to us next morning and that if we happened to possess a metal-detector, we could probably find treasure galore inside. The next day he took us to a cave which in the rainy season is the mouth of a mighty river that roars down an impressive waterfall just below. Once again, we had only minutes for a quick look inside, which was all we needed to reach water and a long, muddy downslope that would need a handline (at least) for safe negotiating. This very promising cave got the name TINDARAPOS which is the local name for canclos (cave-dwelling relatives of the vinegaroons).
The following weekend Luis Rojas and I were back in the area with the intention of camping alongside the Pihuamo River and getting a better look at K3. When we reached the stream, we found Don Rafael watching over several busy women and scurrying kids. It was Laundry Day! When we told him where we were going, he warned us to be careful. Upstream several armed men were "poisoning" the river with lime. This, said Don Rafa, was illegal and something he disapproved of. "They're after crayfish, but this way they kill everything else in the river, including the baby crayfish." Having seen Mexican "justice" in operation on too many occasions, I could understand why no one would bother going to the authorities about this. In the face of crime or government indifference there's not much people can do except aguantar (suffer)... or start a revolution, Chiapas style.
We invited Don Rafa to join us for breakfast and a short cave tour the next morning. He warned us that it could be dangerous to head upriver at this moment, but we decided to take the chance.
After a short walk, we came upon several men and boys stuffing dead crayfish into gunny sacks. Dead minnows floated in the cloudy-white water where the lime had been dumped. We smiled and waved howdy-do hypocritically and passed by without getting shot at.
We filled our canteens at a cool spring and proceeded to K3 where we stored our backpacks just inside the entrance. Soon we were in the side passage where Rojas had received the Chiropteran Kiss. 
This petered out after about 20 meters, but inside we came upon a Chinche Osicona, a two-inch-long bloodsucking "bedbug" that carries Chagas disease. Further on we found two ferocious-looking Arañas Lobo (Wolf Spiders) whose bite is said to cause painful swelling.
Leaving behind this delightful menagerie, we returned to the main passage which led us to several rooms bristling with countless, shimmering brown stalactites. Many of these were within arm's reach and we were amazed not to find any of them broken.
Not far along we gazed up at a balcony which looks like the mouth of an upper passage through which muddy water pours into the cave during the rainy season. It was also home to a good-sized colony of bats. We called this The MUDFALL and speculated on how one might get up the slippery wall. The next rooms we came to were either filled with breakdown or great heaps of fine sand. In one place we found deposits of iron "dust" and what look like layers of iron oxide not surprising since this area is famous for its iron mines.
After 300 meters or so, we stood at the opening to a very large room filled with lots of chunky breakdown. We both stopped and looked at each other: "Do you hear what I hear?"
The sound reaching our ears was so much like the voices of people laughing, shouting and playing in a swimming pool, that we really expected to find a balneario at the other end of the room. We actually set out looking for these people whom we named Los Duendes (the Goblins) but what we found were two streams of water on both side of the room, each heading off in the opposite direction, apparently fed by a spring rising up from beneath the breakdown. Were our "voices" generated by the gurgling stream on the right or were they real voices floating above the wider "river" heading off to the left? There was no way we were going to find out that day. The small stream would require scuba gear for exploration while the bigger, deeper one would require swimming and/or rafting.
As we hadn't come prepared for water sports and the hour was late, we determined to leave El Salón de los Duendes for next time and headed back to the entrance where a couple of conveniently located stalactites made it easy for us to pitch our tents. Tents inside a cave? With vampire bats fluttering by at regular intervals (not to mention the other critters we had seen), we figured it would be a good idea. Luis Rojas, who had been suffering from insomnia for weeks, finally got a good sleep which was suddenly interrupted in what seemed like the middle of the night...
ANYBODY IN THERE???? came a loud voice booming through the cave. Was it the river-poisoners come back to finish us off or the midnight hunters we had been told might cause us trouble if we slept outside? We prudently declined to respond and a minute later heard "the voice" again, this time right outside our tents: "Here I am for my tour... let's go!"
Don Rafa? I reached for my flashlight and looked at my watch. It was 6:30 AM! Nevertheless, there was Don Rafael smiling at us and opening a big thermos full of hot te de canela (cinnamon tea). My body was aching for several hours more sleep, so I count myself lucky that Rojas who had slept much better than I crawled out of his tent, partook of the "coffee" and took Don Rafa on an (all-too-short) tour of the cave. {Note: this cave is also refered to as C. Chocolate}
After breakfast, Don Rafa offered to show us yet another cave, just a little ways further up the river. "We call this one La Salitre," he said, gesturing toward what looked like a large, open-air stage plunked down right at the river's edge. 
On drawing closer, we could see that this "platform" was a big shelter cave with plenty of exposed stalactites and columns.
To our surprise, the real cave entrance turned out to be a narrow slot "backstage"... the kind of passage you'd swear was going to peter out to nothing in five meters or less. Only in this case, the further back you go, the bigger and better it gets. After several spectacular, pure white flowstone cascades, we knew we were in yet another unforgettable cave. Sidestepping two nasty-smelling pools of gooey black vampire guano, we came to a large room with a very high ceiling. All sorts of pesky little bugs had suddenly appeared in the light of my carbide lamp which was cremating at least ten per second. "Luis," I said, "these bugs seem just like the "eyeball-biters" in Cold Dunk Cave. I wonder if that means we'll find the same kind of ..."
"Bats like these?" quipped Rojas, who was on one knee before a wall lined with cute little bats that made no attempt to fly away, no matter how close we got. 
This resulted in a field day for bat photography, a great opportunity, except for having to swallow an occasional bug every time you opened your mouth.
The friendly Bat Hotel led into a large, weird room with a dirt floor that ended abruptly in a straight ten-meter drop. A narrow, slippery, dirt "bridge" (less than a meter wide) connects to a sort of dirt island which terminates in another, similar, pitch. As far as we could see, the lower level may continue on in several directions. To the right and slightly above us, there was a small room full of pretty formations and a natural basin of sorts into which water was falling heavily from up above. Rojas proved that the Baptismal Fountian would be reached by a short, but risky traverse. The temperature and humidity in this curious place was sky-high. All in all, it looked like an ideal setting for a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
We turned back, discussing the sort of rigging we'd need to reach the lower level. Suddenly Rojas indicated a wide crack on the right: "We didn't check this out." It was agreed we'd have a quick look only, for once again we were keeping Don Rafa waiting. The crack sloped steeply downward and there below us we imagined we could see a smooth, greenish surface. Was it possible? Yes, the crack took us down to a point right above a beautiful underground lake. And there in the water, blissfully ignoring our piercing lights, appeared to be swimming two large trout!
We pinched ourselves to see if the pea-soup atmosphere we were breathing might not contain something more than high humidity (and no doubt suspended droplets of bat urine)... but the fish didn't go away. Since they didn't look blind or albino, we could only surmise that the lake is fed by the Pihuamo River. A future rafting trip ought to tell us a lot more ... and could provide us supper as well!
It seemed to us we had been in the cave only ten minutes, but Don Rafa said it had been an hour and a half. As we trudged our way back up the hill, we surmised that the three river caves we'd seen plus Fortin Pit up above, might all be connected.
"Oh, that reminds me," broke in Don Rafa, "there are a whole lot more sotanos I've been meaning to show you, on a hill not too far from my house."
By: John Pint - (Published in the AMCS Newsletter, No.22, 1997)
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