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The people were wonderful in Tapijulapa, a town situated near the cave. We befriended a restaurant owner who made something special for us every day. He was happy to see us at the end of the day so that he could feed us and find out what we had learned about the cave. The children were great too. Several of them guarded our gear while we worked.
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The cave puts out high levels of hydrogen sulfide, a gas that can be deadly to humans. We were there when the levels were reaching unprecedented highs.
A major symptom of hydrogen sulfide poisoning is memory loss. I took photographs that I later reviewed with great interest because I didn’t remember anything about them.
At one point my assistant almost passed out. We had to leave our gear behind and get out of the cave in a hurry because the filters on our masks had become saturated.
We did the coverage in July, and both of us suffered a lot of respiratory illnesses for several months after. And I still can’t remember some of the things I experienced in the cave. In many ways it was an awful assignment.
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We finished work late one evening and decided to join in the fiesta that was taking place in Tapijulapa. Before long we were approached by a group of dancers from the state of Chiapas. They were teenage boys wearing grotesque cow masks, beating drums, and having a good time, but I was still so affected by the gas in the cave that I wasn’t quite sure if they were real or if I was hallucinating.
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