Today's Stories: Tony Revell Bagshawe: Interview. Pretty women, droughts and noisy cavers. Gallery: Cueva del Aire. We added this gallery today from this cave, including shots of the infamous cave monster and other interesting pictures. It's well worth a look

Pretty women, droughts and noisy cavers.
Back to Caxhuacan to explore Cueva del Aire some more; Yippee! Having recruited Charlie and Marcus to the team, and coerced our Mexican friend, Gustavo, to accompany us, Jonathan and Pete set off back to Caxhuacan.

The journey started out uneventful, until we were dropped off at the Caxhuacan turn. It was here that we met Anageli (and her mother). When Mama asked us if we would like to sit on the rock next to the Muchacha (young lady), it was a race between Jonathan and Pete, with Jonathan winning by a fraction of a second (more due to a better comprehension of Spanish than raw speed!)

This is where the people of Caxhuacan come to wash their clothes, a sure sign of the poor water-supply for this town.

An hour of amusing small talk followed, where we discovered that Anageli was 17, single, very pretty and interested in us. Not allowing ourselves to be too distracted, we told her we were going caving as soon as we arrived at the town, and would therefore not be able to spend the evening with her (her mother was very well-natured, and just laughed throughout the proceedings). Unperturbed by this minor setback Anageli, arranged to meet us the following evening at 7pm.

	Jonathan inside Cueva del Aire

We rushed off to Cueva del Aire with all thoughts of Anageli behind us (well, most anyway). It was a late start and already dark as we arrived at the cave, having lost Charlie en route, and finding him after shouting his name as loud as possible. As we entered the cave, Gustavo expressed his reservations at the rather small entrance. Charlie was a little out of sorts, suffering from a bout of 'Chichi's Revenge', contracted in the polluted stream-way, so he rested once we were a little bit inside the cave, leaving the rest of us to proceed.

About 100M in, there are two ways on; Jonathan went through the bedding plane crawls, while the other three went down in the fossil stream direction. The ways join at survey station 25, the furthest point of our explorations to date. Jonathan, having waited for 10 minutes, decided to check out the way on. After 170M of easy (running) passage he came to a 2M climb down into a stream. A very excited caver then raced upstream for 100M, then downstream for 100M before his conscience kicked in and he returned to find the others. They had been having a competition about whom could squeeze under the most squalid boulder (or something), so had missed the fun. It was time to exit, as we did not want to return too late to Odie's house where we were staying.

Surveying he cave is strenous and accurate work.

The next day we were off, knowing that we were exploring a very exciting cave system. Charlie and Pete went ahead to the stream-way intending to survey upstream, while Jonathan, Marcus and Gustavo surveyed from station 25 to the stream-way. Having reached the drop to the stream, Jonathan added up the survey length: 170.9M. Not bad, only 90cm different from the original guess of 170M! Downstream was fun. It was a really interesting passage with collapsed bedding planes, deep pools to traverse around, a small boulder-choke, some interesting side passages, traverses and cascades - in fact everything a caver could ask for, except a cold beer! Charlie and Pete caught up, just as Jonathan and Gustavo finished marking the route back through the boulder-choke, and the team explored boldly on! After a final side passage, Charlie and Marcus headed out; Charlie still not fully recovered from 'Chichi's Revenge' and Marcus denying anything to do with being on time for the date with Anageli!

The remaining three were 'just going to do a couple more survey legs'. Down a narrow slot (which would have been impossible after a few more plates full of Odie's Frijoles,) around a pool to a narrow bedding plane. 'Does it continue somewhere else' said Gustavo. Oh no, the cave seems to end! Jonathan found a wider section of the bedding and managed about 80M of flat out crawl through flood prone passage before returning. The cave does continue but is flood prone and needs stable weather to explore further. We took loads of photos on the way back, with Pete losing his cool with the flash guns (which were more interested in electrocuting him than lighting up photographs,) and Jonathan losing his cool with Pete and Gustavo, wondering what all the fuss was about.

	This is the entrance to Cueva del Aire. As you can see, it's a very tight squeeze.

But disaster, we were late for out date with Anageli! Charlie, as cool as a cucumber, said 'she was here at 7pm sharp, but then went.' Aargh! All the sense of achievement from the caving trip whipped out in one sentence! Luckily she came back at 8, accompanied by some of her friends.

The next day Marcus, Gustavo, Pete and Charlie went to check out Cueva Secan, whilst Jonathan plotted the previous day's work in order to produce a report for the Presidente Municipal. It became apparent that the up-stream passage, surveyed by Charlie and Pete, was higher than the cave entrance, giving the exciting possibility of using the stream as a desperately needed water supply for the town.

After a short wait, where Pete and Jonathan were regaled by a bevy of beautiful young ladies (the emphasise, you understand, is on young), the intrepid duo accompanied by Gustavo (on the off chance that an interpreter was needed) were ushered into the Presedente's office. Jonathan launched into a description of the cave and outlined the possibilities of producing a water supply for the town, to which the Presedente replied to Gustavo 'can you say that again in proper Spanish, I cannot understand a word he is saying!' After some initial discussions (bolloking to put it in the vernacular) about noise near the cave entrance late at night, the Presedente became very interested in the cave as a water supply and suggested that a gate should be installed to control access. Jonathan then explained that gating caves is a Welsh disease and should not be encouraged in Mexico, as although artificially introduced, has a tendency to get out of control and proliferate wildly.

'Anageli does not know we are here tonight, and we do not know where she lives!' lamented Pete. 'I know' piped up Gustavo, our Mexican hero. Off we rushed, asking a teenage boy on the way.

'She is my sister' he said, so off we rushed to be greeted by the beautiful apparition herself.

'Pasele, pasele' she said with a big smile, ushering us into her house. We drank coffee (with the obligatory 17 spoons of sugar per cup) and chatted to her, her brother and father for a pleasant hour, before returning to Casa Odie for a good night's sleep, knowing that we had spent the evening with the prettiest girl in town!