which many residents of this Indigenous Oaxacan town tenderly refer to as “child saints” or “the little ones that sprout.” Then she handed each of her six visitors — who had driven seven hours from Mexico City and paid up to $350 apiece for a healing retreat — a generously sized portion and the guests were sitting in a hut that was barely illuminated by two candles making it difficult for them to see what they were about to eat Pedro Castañeda has used mushrooms in her healing practice for years and was comfortable stepping outside as the group crunched slowly in silence One person said the fungi tasted like stale popcorn Indigenous communities in Mexico have long considered psychedelic mushrooms to be intermediaries to the spiritual world. But their growing popularity outside of Mexico has spurred a debate over who should have access to them and whether science and Indigenous medicine can or should be reconciled Some Indigenous healers are courting tourists Scientists interested in their chemical properties have been studying mushrooms in hopes of developing treatments for depression and other mental health problems And growing demand from recreational users has fueled a thriving black market Magic mushrooms have been used in Mesoamerican religious rituals since pre-Hispanic times But it wasn’t until the 1950s that a New York banker and mushroom enthusiast named R Gordon Wasson made them famous — perhaps too famous — in the Western world the fungi can only be used in Indigenous rituals or in government-approved research But a senate bill proposes making psilocybin In addition to making psilocybin available to anyone with a doctor’s prescription the bill would permit therapy that uses the actual mushroom that a government office of traditional medicine would help regulate It also calls for scientific research on Indigenous medicine and providing compensation to Indigenous people for “patents” involving their traditions The bill’s supporters say that they’re trying to protect Indigenous medicine by making sure the traditional use of magic mushrooms is enshrined into law But the prospect of expanding the availability of magic mushrooms has created friction within Indigenous communities that have used them for centuries Will the spirituality associated with this traditional medicine be lost Magic mushrooms have been used in Mesoamerican religious rituals since pre-Hispanic times A mural from the ancient city of Teotihuacán shows the Toltec rain god Tlaloc with two figures alongside him holding mushrooms that have risen from where his raindrops fell A Franciscan missionary documenting 16th century life in New Spain referred to the mushrooms as the “flesh of the gods.” But it wasn’t until the 1950s that a New York banker and mushroom enthusiast named R. Gordon Wasson made Mexico’s magic mushrooms famous — perhaps too famous — in the Western world On a trip to Huautla, in southern Mexico, he ate mushrooms with Indigenous Mazatec healer María Sabina and wrote about the experience in a 1957 article for Life magazine titled “ Seeking the Magic Mushroom.” The story inspired thousands to travel to Huautla — some seeking out Sabina The Mexican press described the foreigners as addicts and the military ultimately set up a checkpoint on the road to Huautla to try to block the outsiders In July 1970, Reuters reported: “Hundreds of hippies are braving imprisonment and fines to penetrate this mushroom paradise in the State of Oaxaca where the authorities are conducting a drive against mushroom eaters.” Alejandrina Pedro Castaneda, left, Oscar O’Farrill, center, and Ariela Milstein cleanse and meditate under the waterfall. Wasson said he felt guilty about the crowds in a New York Times op-ed published later that year A “humble out-of-the-way” town had been overrun by “a torrent of commercial exploitation of the vilest kind.” “and I fear that my responsibility is heavy In an interview toward the end of her life Sabina described how some outsiders would take the mushrooms “at whatever time and whatever place” and “don’t use them to cure themselves of a sickness.” “From the moment the foreigners arrived to search for God,” she said psilocybin was classified as a Schedule I substance in the U.S But interest in scientific research on mental health and psilocybin was rekindled in the 1990s “That plasticity enhancement may allow people to shift how their brain is functioning into a mode that’s more helpful that’s going to promote mental health,” said Greg Fonzo who co-directs the Center for Psychedelic Research & Therapy at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin Some people who ingest magic mushrooms report overwhelming feelings of joy or the presence of family Others have said they feel deeply sad or that they are having an out-of-body experience The risk of a lethal overdose is considered very low What’s more common is having a difficult experience or a “bad trip” due to anxiety who compares the bill with a birth certificate insisting the world must not forget that the Mazatecs have preserved rituals with magic mushrooms for centuries A view of Huautla on the way to the Mountain of Adoration “What we need is a record that says the Mazatecs are the custodians the Mazatecs are the ones that for millennia have defended the medicine.” But other Mazatecs in Huautla are worried about appropriation and misuse that traditions associated with Indigenous culture will be disrespected as increasing numbers of people rush to pick up their prescriptions the healer will use mushrooms to communicate with their spiritual world to inquire about a patient’s illness “It’ll be taken like an aspirin,” said Isaias Escudero Rodriguez It will no longer have the “spirituality that it carries for us.” The push to legalize magic mushrooms in Mexico dates back to the early days of the pandemic started to experience anxiety attacks that were reminiscent of the severe depression she suffered in her 20s was resolved after she took ayahuasca — a psychoactive brew made from the Amazonian Banisteriopsis caapi vine — with an Indigenous healer Lagunes researched psychedelics and introduced legislation in November to increase access to magic mushrooms while recognizing the long tradition of Indigenous medicine She hopes it opens the door for non-Indigenous Mexicans to learn from Indigenous practices The initiative has supporters at Mexico’s National Institute of Psychiatry where scientists have government permission to investigate the potential therapeutic effects of magic mushrooms a clinical psychologist in Mexico City who has advised the senator said much can be learned from traditional medicine including the importance of companionship in Mazatec mushroom ceremonies These ceremonies occur at night under the guidance of a healer with candles A patient’s family members may accompany them “is a space of care and protection so a person can explore their inner world in a context that’s safe trustworthy and ethical” — and that’s what Mexico City psychotherapist Oscar O’Farrill is trying to teach his students incorporates ancestral medicine into his treatment approach His work has led him to meet and learn from Indigenous healers across the country O’Farrill runs a master’s and doctoral degree program affiliated with the National School of Psychologists and Experts of Mexico where his approximately dozen students listen to Indigenous guest speakers talk about traditional medicine a two-story house where a large container on his kitchen counter has powder from lion’s mane Indigenous healers have led his students through ceremonies with mushrooms the smoked secretions of a Sonoran desert toad “Psychiatry in this moment can’t understand what psilocybin is if it doesn’t understand all the aspects of the customs of Indigenous people,” he said a biologist who co-founded the Mexican Society of Psilocybin in 2019 said he would have preferred that Indigenous communities were not singled out in the bill may not view illness through the prism of Western science people may believe that a person fell ill because they walked through a cave where spirits are thought to reside or broke a communal rule “They have their own traditions and their own way of seeing things and what we see is that there are few who are interested in what we’re interested in with psilocybin,” he said Huautla presents itself as a place for the mushroom-seeker Taxis decorated with images of small mushrooms speed up and down narrow mountain roads that are lined with tin-roofed houses locals wait by a bus terminal to offer the fungi to tourists but a dozen pairs of mushrooms (they’re sold by the pair) may cost $25 and a ceremony can cost $90 or more the fungi are often preserved in jars with honey A local taxi in Huautla displays mushroom cartoons. Several signs announce the home of the family of María Sabina — who died in poverty in 1985 but whose life has since been celebrated in Mexican culture. Her descendants, who live on the property where Sabina once resided, maintain a small museum filled with portraits of the healer and sell mushroom-themed crafts. Anselmo García Martínez, a farmer and a great-grandson of Sabina, says he was about 6 when he tried mushrooms for the first time during a ceremony with relatives who were accompanying a sick family member. (Many other locals say they first consumed mushrooms as children.) Like some other residents, he said he didn’t mind if mushrooms are allowed outside Indigenous rituals because the general public already has access to them through the black market. But he issued a reminder: “For us, for the Mazatecs, it’s something sacred.” But some opponents have said that the Mazatec people haven’t been properly consulted on whether the bill should move forward, reminding supporters that, for the moment, there is no infrastructure to make it happen. Santos Martínez, one of the founders of Caracol Mazateco, a civil society group focused on preserving Mazatec culture, agrees there hasn’t been enough outreach to the Mazatecs. Martinez said his experiences with magic mushrooms transformed his life. As a medical student working at a clinic in the state of Puebla, he fell into a depression after seeing patients suffer from inadequate care. He returned to his community in Huautla, where he participated in mushroom ceremonies, hoping they would help him find direction in his life. During the ceremonies he felt happy and had visions of family members, including his grandfather. “It was as if he was saying, ‘adelante, hijo,’” he said, or, “go forward, son.” Francisco Javier Hernandez García, a Huautla healer who leads mushroom ceremonies for tourists almost daily at some points of the summer, fears that mushrooms will “lose respect” if they are legalized for therapy outside of the Indigenous context. Francisco Javier Hernandez Garcia is a Huautla healer who leads mushroom ceremonies for tourists almost daily at some points in the summer. He fears mushrooms will “lose respect” if they are legalized for therapy. Like others, he spoke about mushrooms as carrying wisdom. “They sprout because they are waiting for that person,” he said, referring to the one who will eat them. “They already know who carries problems.” In mid-April, O’Farrill organized a trip for six people — including himself — to visit Pedro Castañeda for the healing retreat. Two people, a man who works for a Wall Street asset management firm and a woman training to guide people during mushroom trips, had flown in from the U.S. A mother and daughter, both psychologists, and a literary editor were from Mexico. They spent three days at the home of Pedro Castañeda, who lives with eight dogs in a house that has several floors under construction. She hosts a mushroom ceremony for locals or tourists once or twice a week and said that the “great spirit” tells her how many mushrooms to give each person. The members of O’Farrill’s group had individual therapy sessions with Pedro Castañeda in which she asked them about their insecurities. After her guests ate mushrooms, Pedro Castañeda asked several of them to sing. At one point, the editor began to suddenly cry, and the younger psychologist said she felt pain, prompting the healer to rigorously brush her with a feather in a cleansing ritual. A few minutes later, the psychologist said she was having visions of “injustice in jail.” The morning after the mushroom ceremony, the group hiked the Mountain of Adoration in Huautla to reflect and express gratitude. The next morning, the group hiked — mostly barefoot — the Mountain of Adoration, which the Mazatecs consider sacred. At the top of the mountain, which overlooked Huautla, the healer gave each person cacao beans to leave as an offering, giving thanks for the previous night. They placed them on a tower of rocks jutting out from the mountain, next to many little mounds of cacao left earlier by other visitors. Politics World & Nation California Subscribe for unlimited accessSite Map In his home in the central district of Huautla de Jimenez Don Pedro is celebrating the completion of an important agricultural task with a few drinks of aguardiente a locally-produced sugarcane-derived moonshine His wife Julia is telling a visitor about her work as a ritual healer when he feels compelled to intervene in the conversation like Don Ricardo Rocha of the neighboring village of Santa Cruz de Juárez chant and sing but don’t know anything Ricardo is sick and cannot even cure himself People come to this house from all over the world I can communicate with any government in Europe “People call from Germany to say when they will come here “Es bueno!” And he laughs and laughs.“Huautla de Jimenez” and “Sierra Mazateca” are not words that tend to evoke any recognition in the United States but in Mexico the utterance of these syllables usually produces a light bulb over the head of the Mexican with whom one is conversing whether it be a PGR policeman at a roadblock in Chihuahua or a carousing rancher in coastal Tamaulipas The light bulb quickly changes shape and resolves itself into a very familiar form self-styled “ethnomycologist,” and all-around quack R Gordon Wasson put Huautla on the map with a sensationalistic Life Magazine article describing a shamanic ceremony involving the use of hallucinogenic psyllocybin mushrooms outsiders have journeyed to the remote and forbidding Sierra Mazateca in the coffee-growing far north of Oaxaca where the state glides into Puebla and Veracruz between the Miguel Aleman lake to the east the arid Cañada to the west Today these pilgrimages continue — with most visitors searching for the opportunity to ingest the more powerful varieties of ndi shee to (little ones who spring forth) especially the derrumbes or “landslide” mushrooms in the context of a “traditional” curing ceremony overseen by a man like Pedro or his wife Julia powerful curers who often claim some sort of spiritual lineage from the famous María Sabina often influenced by the likes of Carlos Casteneda take the mushrooms for different reasons than the locals this rite is no “deviant” activity or archaic survival; it is a core component of their view of the world to discover the cause of a medical or psychological malady or other troubles; this cause is usually rooted in the malevolent ENVY felt by another towards the victim and transmuted into the form of a disease not clued into Mazatec theories of disease and witchcraft seek more general or abstract types of experiences — to “find themselves,” “find God,” or simply to enjoy the overpowering visions and sensations for purely recreational purposes María Sabina was puzzled by these motivations or her descendants still living in the shadow of the sacred neighborhood called El Fortin have adapted these centuries-old rites to the new situation Ines (who happens to be my comadre) oversees mass trips (very unusual for Mazatecs) undertaken by groups of up to 20 European therapists every summer singing and chanting in the traditional style next to her altar as assistants allay participants’ fears by sprinkling their foreheads with holy water or rubbing powdered hoja de San Pedro on their stomachs and elbows I am told that the grandchildren of María Sabina who have had the most contact with outsiders (the great curer’s most famous visitor was allegedly John Lennon) take still greater liberties with the ritual’s form holding ceremonies in brightly lit rooms (most local rituals are held in pitch blackness illuminated only from within the mind) or even outside In the old days this was out of the question; the custom was for the patient to leave some trade good such as a chicken or a bottle of aguardiente JipisRelationships with outside mushroom seekers have not always been amicable María Sabina made Wasson promise not to reveal her story Huautla — at that time an almost entirely monolingual Mazatec-speaking backwater only accessible on a barely passable dirt road that wound forever (60 kilometers in 8 hours) from Teotitlán — was inundated by bizarre foreigners These “jipis” didn’t speak the language or respect the cultural taboos surrounding the sacred mushrooms grew up from the Earth where the blood of Christ which the locals regard as a decadent and dangerous drug used by urban criminals One well-known story from this period involves the hippie who ran about the town square trying to devour a live turkey until he was vigorously restrained these outsiders did not observe the “diet,” a four day period of mandatory sexual abstinence The sight of outlandishly dressed pot-smoking foreigners fucking in their milpas was too much for Mazatec sensibilities and in 1967 and again in 1969 the town president called in the army; the hippies were shorn and deported and a roadblock kept them out of the region until 1976 Some Huautecos profited off the foreigners mostly the wealthy businessmen of the town center who already controlled the economic life of the community (and had been ashamed of the “backward” religious practices of their poorer neighbors) he describes how he learned to play a few Bob Dylan songs on his guitar and soon enjoyed the benefits of the hippie girls’ more open attitudes towards sex But María Sabina did not profit from the throngs who came to see her As a result of her notoriety she was shot by an envious neighbor and briefly jailed by overzealous police this “lord clown woman,” died in 1985 bitter that so many people — hotel and restaurant owners anthropologists — had gained so much off of her name while she remained poor She lamented that “from the moment the foreigners arrived to search for God They lost their force; the foreigners spoiled them From now on they won’t be any good” (Alvaro Estrada 1981: María Sabina: Her Life and Chants but they tend to be more discreet and culturally sensitive than their 1960s forebears While the first wave of hippies was overwhelmingly American the new pilgrims are mostly Europeans and urban Mexicans seeking to discover their heritage While the sixties crew dressed in hippie style and were anything but big spenders preferring to camp out in caves by the river the trickle of 1990s drug tourists tend to carry and spend larger sums of money and they are serviced by several respectable hotels and restaurants The nature of changeThere can be no doubt that Huautla has been changed like thousands of other tourist destinations by its unusual collision with the outside world The jury is still out on the nature of that change Some claim that the whole business of the mushrooms is a minor footnote to the broader processes of capitalist penetration and nation building that have wracked native economies and cultures all over the third world Others see the change as negative; following María Sabina’s pessimistic outlook they site the degradation of local culture and religion by a crass and commercialistic popular culture A third view suggests that the attention given to local culture by outsiders has contributed to a growing sense of ethnic pride and the images of mushrooms that decorate schools and basketball courts may be the first sign of a Mazatec revitalization movement All of these points of view are at least partially correct But one thing is certain; drug tourism is now a permanent part of Huautla’s summer landscape and economy and if the outsiders sometimes have their worldviews influenced or jarred by their mushroom experiences they have also changed the meaning of the ritual for the local people sometimes she intones the names of powerful spirits and places whose power may assist her and her patients She continues with the names of neighborhoods and cities where her benefactors live from Mexico City to Veracruz to Barcelona to Texas Notes for those of you hoping to use mushrooms in HuautlaFresh hongos are only readily available in the rainy season which usually begins in late May or early June and continues into September They may also be found after a rain during another season Some curers preserve mushrooms in honey for consumption during dry periods The efficacy of child saints preserved in this manner is debated enterprising youths may try to lure you to their cabañas or try to sell you mushrooms These cabañas are generally extremely cramped and uncomfortable And many travellers report underwhelming experiences with the mushrooms purchased in this manner Wait until you have settled in before beginning your search who lives in a humble house above the casa de la cultura Although you must pay for the child saints for yourself and the curer; real shamans will not set a fee for the ceremony You should leave some cash on the altar at the conclusion or “stay-awakes,” are a great deal of work The offering should start at about US$20 and go up from there Don’t wander in public while intoxicated Some curers have assistants or children who guide intoxicated patients to the bathroom when it is necessary Guard the “diet.” You cannot engage in heterosexual relations or offer any kind of gift (ie coffee a beer) to anyone for four days after the velada Don’t try to take any mushrooms out of the Sierra You could well be stopped and searched by police and if this happens away from Huautla you will be violating federal drug laws and find yourself in big trouble AuthorBen Feinberg is an anthropology professor at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. CV Ben wrote his dissertation on Huautla. His book, Devil’s Book of Culture: History, Mushrooms, and Caves in Southern Mexico was published by the University of Texas Press Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value" Theme: NewsUp by Themeansar Explorer Brad Wuest descending into an entrance pit in the Sistema Huautla cave system in Mexico.  The Sistema Huautla in Oaxaca is the 10th deepest cave on Earth and a explorers with a 2023 expedition to map the system have added over 700 feet to its length The deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere — the Sistema Huautla in Mexico — is even longer than originally thought Cave explorers expanded the map of Sistema Huautla a cave system in the Sierra Mazateca mountains in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca This means the known length of the cave is just over 62.7 miles (100 kilometers) — but further exploration may reveal it is even longer Sistema Huautla, the 10th-deepest  cave in the world, was first discovered in the 1960s by cavers from Austin, Texas. Since 2014, researchers have carried out annual expeditions as part of the Proyecto Espeleológico Sistema Huautla or Sistema Huautla Speleological Project (PESH) to find out more about the enormous underground labyrinth Related: Surprise discovery of world's 2nd deepest blue hole could provide window into Earth's history Sistema Huautla is 5,118 feet (1,581 m) deep — equivalent to around four Empire State buildings stacked on top of each other. There are 26 connected entrances to the cave which is estimated to be up to 15 million years old Brad Wuest refilling his water bottle from a natural waterfall inside the Sistema Huautla cave system.(Image credit: Chris Higgins)One of the explorers being lowered into an entrance to the cave system in Mexico.(Image credit: Chris Higgins)The entrance to Cueva Elysiam — a system near to Sistema Huatla that the team explored during the 2023 project (Image credit: Chris Higgins)Caver Alec Matheus in front of helictite bushes during the 2023 expedition.(Image credit: Chris Higgins)Brad Wuest making his way across a pool inside the Sistema Huautla.(Image credit: Chris Higgins)The cavers who led the most recent expedition — Tommy Shifflett and Bill Steele — said they carry out the expeditions every April because it is the driest month of the year in the region Diving during the dry season minimizes the risk of being trapped underground by flooding Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox "With teams camping deep underground with no way to contact the surface we are always keeping an eye on water levels," Steele said in the statement "This April it was wetter than normal — that hampered our exploration somewhat." In addition to mapping out Sistema Huautla the team also added 1.9 miles (3 km) to the known length of Cueva Elysium a nearby cave system separate from Sistema Huautla The information and data collected during the expeditions is shared with cave scientists in Mexico. So far, the expeditions have helped scientists learn more about how life adapts to cave environments and have photographed the paleontological remains of extinct animals The work has also been used to identify ancient climate patterns through analysis of stalagmites a type of rock formation that rises from the ground of a cave due to minerals that drip from the ceiling —World's deepest canyon is home to Asia's tallest tree - and Chinese scientists only just found it —Giant sinkhole with a forest inside found in China —Hidden passage leads explorers to deepest cave Down Under Research published in 2021 showed Sistema Huautla is a hotspot for biodiversity beetles and silverfish living in the cave system as well as a colony of common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) in one of the entrances The 2024 expedition will focus on two other caves near Sistema Huautla for exploration and surveying Lydia SmithSocial Links NavigationScience WriterLydia Smith is a health and science journalist who works for U.K She is studying for an MSc in psychology at the University of Glasgow and has an MA in English literature from King's College London La Niña is dead — what that means for this year's hurricanes and weather El Cono: The mysterious sacred 'pyramid' hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest Digital 'resurrection' of the Titanic sheds light on fateful night the ship tore apart Two cavers ascend "Son of a Pitch," a 295 feet (90 meter) shaft into Mexico's Sistema Huaulta one of the world's largest caves—and the deepest in the Western Hemisphere which rests in Oaxaca's Sotano de Agua de Carrizo The pitch is popular with expedition teams since its frequent use has helped remove loose rocks and created a relatively safe passage for more than one person at the same time To capture this image of the illuminated cave the photographer overlayed multiple photographs taken with different exposures While trapped inside Mexico's Sistema Huautla by torrential flooding cavers and scientists discovered new connections—expanding the map of the Western Hemisphere's deepest cave Katie Graham was trying to escape the cave she’d been trapped inside with her teammates for the past three days She held her breath and cautiously swam underwater through the turbid flood that was all but completely filling an underground corridor the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere Only a few inches of air existed between the water’s surface and the roof of the cave her head tilted all the way back to put herself in the best breathing position With her nose and mouth pressed to the slimy limestone roof she calmly inhaled and made a deliberate effort to move forward slowly so as not to create any waves that would disrupt the bell jar of air surrounding her face probing her feet around the pitch-black sump to feel for the next pocket of buoyancy ahead of her I came up into something really low,” says Graham 'this situation isn’t OK; I should backtrack back to camp.'” For the past three days, Katie Graham, Stephen Gladieux, Tiffany Nardico and Chase Varner had been trapped 2,199 feet (670 meters) underground The team had known a light rain was in the forecast prior to entering La Grieta one of the many distinct caverns connected to the greater Huautla system the team had assumed the portion of La Grieta in which they were traveling would be relatively dry a “high-water event” knocked Graham off her feet and swept her nearly 328 feet (100 meters) downstream The force of the flood pinned her down by her backpack and she struggled to stand up in the torrent “It took quite a bit of effort to get out of the water,” she says That’s when we knew something big was happening Hernandez was tasked with carrying most of the food for the trip and had planned to arrive hours after the rest of his crew he realized the flood had blocked all passage but maybe it was just the cave playing a trick.Fernando Hernandez"I tried to look for areas to bypass and shouted to see if I could hear them without any luck," says Hernandez but maybe it was just the cave playing a trick." Hernandez returned to the surface to inform the rest of the expedition about the situation the five cavers rationed a small bag of Clif Bar protein bars and continued to do their work in the farthest depths of La Grieta and discovered a new passage they dubbed “Powered by Bars,” which led to a chamber with a dome estimated to be 492 feet (150 meters) tall the "TAG Shaft" is one of largest chambers in Sistema Huautla TAG stands for "Tennessee/Alabama/Georgia," where several different surface entrances meet cavers pushed through a tight crack at the bottom of the shaft in a successful attempt to connect it to Sistema Huautla “There were a lot of new discoveries,” says Stephen Gladieux Katie Graham made a second effort to escape in order to catch her flight home She returned to the water-choked Skeleton Canyon and once again found herself traversing the passage with her head tilted back considered one of the best cavers in the world the remaining team members took the opportunity to exit through the watery Skeleton Canyon and up thousands and thousands of feet of rope they all crawled out of an utterly indistinct hole in the ground and into the blinding sunlight climbs over falling rocks while working his way through a canyon passage in Sotano de Agua de Carrizo You can’t tell what lies beyond a cave’s entrance by looking at it And that is one of caving’s great allures—exploring what cannot be easily seen from a safe distance or rendered in advance by technology The thrill lies in the firsthand experience of making the unknown known going not because “it’s there,” as the old mountaineering expression asserts but because you ultimately don’t know what’s there and can’t know until you take that first step into the dreadful abyss “Caving is original exploration. You gotta go to know,” says Bill Steele, one of the world’s foremost speleologists, expedition cavers, and co-founder of Proyecto Espeleologico Sistema Huautla (PESH) Every year since 2013, PESH, an official project of the National Speleological Society and the United States Deep Caving Team, has been exploring PESH has committed to 10 consecutive years of expeditions to Sistema Huautla This latest expedition concluded the fifth PESH trip—a halfway point for the ambitious project—and it was one of the most successful years yet despite the uncharacteristically wet conditions Sonia Meyer works her way through a canyon passage in Sistema Huautla the system is being explored by two separate expedition teams PESH (Proyecto Espeleologico Sistema Huautla) and Pena Colorada 2018 the 2018 PESH expedition made a significant connection between a cave named Sotano de Agua de Carrizo and Sistema Huautla deepest caves in the world even longer and more complex Sistema Huautla is now known to be 53 miles long and has 25 distinct entrances With a depth measurement of 5,118 feet (1,560 meters) from its highest known entrance to its lowest reached point System Huautla is the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere and the ninth deepest cave in the world For reference, most major caves have only one or maybe two entrances—and therefore only one or two routes through the cave system. For example, Veryovkina, in the country of Georgia, is the world’s deepest cave, at 7,231 feet (2,204 meters), but it’s a mere 7.9 miles long and has just one entrance. “Carlsbad Caverns is known for one very big chamber called the Big Room,” says Steele. “We've got at least 12 of them in this cave area. One of them is twice the size of the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium.” A member of the expedition travels through a portion of Sistema Huautla that sits behind one of Skeleton Canyon's water-filled passages. Traveling through the canyon requires stepping on thin scalpel-like blades, which can easily break under force. To capture this image of the illuminated cave, the photographer overlayed multiple photographs taken with different exposures. It’s the sheer complexity of Sistema Huautla that justifies its reputation as perhaps the world’s greatest cave. And, despite having been first explored by cavers in 1966, Sistema Huautla remains a frontier of science and adventure. “After a lifetime of exploration, we have no way to predict how much of it we've explored,” says Steele. “My gut tells me that we've probably only reached two-thirds of it, if that—maybe only half!” Steele, 69, made his first trip to Sistema Huautla in 1977. This year marks his 25th expedition to the region. He calls Sistema Huautla “the masterpiece of my contribution to speleology.” Caves become longer or deeper only through firsthand exploration—a physical connection must be made from one cave to the next. Sistema Huautla is the substructure of the Sierra Mazateca mountains, a jungle-covered range of limestone hiding a mind-boggling underworld of porous karst tunnels, waterfalls, and chambers. A lead could be the sound of water in the distance or the feeling of wind blowing through a faint crack in the wall It could be an enormous tunnel or a crack so tiny a person could barely squeeze through and later explored by a team using state of the art tools for surveying Modest excavation tactics may be used to remove mud The goal is to make that connection in order to extend the cave’s depth or length a more complete picture of the geology begins to take shape “Sistema Huautla is just the perfect storm of geology for cave development,” says Steele Around 48 species have been found in these caves that don’t live anywhere else.Bill Steele co-founder of Proyecto Espeleologico Sistema Huautla (PESH)The distinct geology of a cave is the canvas upon which all other areas of science necessarily follow: paleontology “We have made some really interesting biological discoveries because the caves are isolated from other areas and they're very old so there's a lot of unknown species here,” says Steele “Around 48 species have been found in these caves that don’t live anywhere else.” A newly discovered tarantula was recently named after Steele PESH cavers discovered some Pleistocene megafauna bones believed to be the skull of a giant ground sloth “We found a complete skull there last year and we think that there may be two of them,” says Steele “We think the entire skeletons may be there.” A team of paleontologists is scheduled to begin working on the site in 2019 One of the more interesting endemic species is alacran tartarus meaning that it’s cave-adapted: blind and with reduced pigmentation The degree to which the scorpion is poisonous is unknown New species of scorpions are always of interest to scientists because they could potentially be used to develop a more effective antivenin which could have a significant impact given that each year around 50,000 people around the world die from scorpion stings the scientist in Mexico City who is working with PESH on this scorpion the best way to learn about the lethality of the scorpion is to either collect a living sample “We’ve been told that if someone gets stung one of several international members of the expedition team rappels into an entrance of Sistema Huautla Steele was raised in southern Ohio, saw his first cave at age four, and started exploring caves in Kentucky as a Boy Scout, sparking a lifelong passion for subterranean adventures. He went on to become a national-level director of the Boy Scouts in Irving, Texas, where he now lives and is retired. He has a robust mane of bone-white hair, a scholarly white beard, and glasses. To local Mazatec people, Steele looks like “someone from Mars,” he says. Yet he speaks in a calm, unthreatening demeanor—an asset, perhaps, in communicating with people who are stalwart isolationists and inherently suspicious of foreigners tromping around their lands. The Mazatec people—an indigenous group with their own language and a regionally dispersed population of around 200,000—have long believed the caves to be entrances to the spiritual underworld. Two years ago, members of the Mazatec community asked the PESH cavers to partake in a ceremony to appease the cave spirits. “They said, 'you've been coming here for years without doing this, so you got a big catch up to do,'” recalls Steele. He was asked to buy a live turkey from a local market and meet the curandero, or shaman, at the entrance to one of the caves. Here, Steele, having by now “bonded with the turkey,” arrived to a scene in which the curandero was leading prayers and chanting in Mazatecan. Plumes of incense smoldered all around. Amy Morton, PESH expedition team member, describes the experience of sleeping underground as "a lot of vivid dreaming, a lot of water, a lot of imagining you hear voices in the water...” “I was asked throw the turkey down into a 200-foot pit,” says Steele. “I questioned three times if that was being translated correctly, because I couldn't imagine he really meant kill the turkey—but that's what he meant.” Afterward Steele says the curandero asked him if he had ever seen any cave spirits. And though Steele hadn't seen any spirits, he told the curandero that he did feel their presence. "There's been some incidents, where there should've been a fatality but it didn't happen, that seemed miraculous at the time," he says. "Not that there's a fairy godmother watching over you, but there's some things that have happened that make you think." In a dark passage in Oaxaca, Sonia Meyer sketches in a waterproof notepad and Jesse Houser uses a Disto X to shoot down a pit. The cavers use these techniques to keep track of their findings and collect data to build out the map of the system. At this point, Steele sees one of his primary roles as being an ambassador for caving and cavers—especially to the Mazatec people. This is important not just for the future of caving and science in the region, but also for gaining access to higher caves that could ultimately connect into Sistema Huautla, potentially bumping the cave up in the world rankings of deepest caves. “Things are looking really good for next year to be able to get into some incredible entrances that we haven't been allowed to go into before,” says Steele. “We’ll see where they go. They might just lead into a whole new [extension] off to the north.” greatest caves in the world."},"type":"p","style":{}},{"id":"html5","cntnt":{"mrkup":"The team had known a light rain was in the forecast prior to entering La Grieta even in a flood."},"type":"p","style":{}},{"id":"html6","cntnt":{"mrkup":"On the first evening of their trip and she struggled to stand up in the torrent."},"type":"p","style":{}},{"id":"html7","cntnt":{"mrkup":"“It took quite a bit of effort to get out of the water,” she says Our water source was increasing.”"},"type":"p","style":{}},{"id":"inline-2","cntnt":{"aspectRatio":"3x2","cmsType":"photogallery","id":"inline-2","media":[{"caption":{"credit":"Photograph by Joshua Hydeman National Geographic","text":"Cavers grab their packs and leave for a seven-day camping session inside La Grieta and a mix of highly nutritional dehydrated food Cavers grab their packs and leave for a seven-day camping session inside La Grieta one of many deep routes in Sistema Huautla the Camp 4 team marches through thick fog and brush David Tirado Hernadez examines a trickle of water coming down the wall as he rappels into the entrance of Sotano de Agua de Carrizo PESH (Proyecto Espeleologicos Sistema Huautla) cavers pay close attention to the weather; if too much rainwater enters the caves it may fill its passages and trap them inside drills a hole in the limestone rock wall to set up a series of bolts and ropes which cavers use to travel through the system Lloyd works for a mining company but is spending his vacation helping PESH explore Sistema Huautla the \"TAG Shaft\" is one of largest chambers in Sistema Huautla TAG stands for \"Tennessee/Alabama/Georgia,\" where several different surface entrances meet A member of the expedition travels through a portion of Sistema Huautla that sits behind one of Skeleton Canyon's water-filled passages Traveling through the canyon requires stepping on thin scalpel-like blades describes the experience of sleeping underground as \"a lot of vivid dreaming a lot of imagining you hear voices in the water...” Sonia Meyer sketches in a waterproof notepad and Jesse Houser uses a Disto X to shoot down a pit The cavers use these techniques to keep track of their findings and collect data to build out the map of the system This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page For die-hard cave explorers around the world Mexico has long been considered “the new frontier of caving.” Here cavers have a high likelihood of being among the first human beings ever to boldly set foot where “no one has gone before.” Maybe the best example of Mexico’s magnificent caves is the Huautla Cave System located in Oaxaca’s Sierra Mazateca Exploration began in 1965 when a group of cavers from Austin arrived at the village of Huautla de Jiménez They soon discovered three beautiful and challenging caves in the area: Sótano de San Agustin In time it became clear that these and other caves they kept finding were interconnected Numerous expeditions took place over the years and more than 65 kilometers of passages were mapped by cave explorers from all around the globe an international team of cave divers entered the cave rappelled through crashing waterfalls down chasms as tall as skyscrapers and carried out eight separate scuba dives past “the mother of all sumps” to reach a depth of -1,554 meters making Huautla the western hemisphere’s deepest cave — and now the longest of the 17 deepest caves in the world 47 speleologists from seven countries (Mexico Switzerland and Romania) participated in a six-week expedition to venture into parts of the system which had not yet been explored “We mapped and connected two caves 700 meters deep,” said veteran Huautla pioneer and Explorers Club member Bill Steele “You need a lot more than 700 meters of rope to reach that point because you have horizontal traverses to do on the way down and it takes a whole week just to put the ropes in place.” Steele helped to form PESH (Proyecto Espleleológico Sistema Huautla) a project dedicated to conducting a comprehensive speleological study of Sistema Huautla over a 10-year period I caught up with Steele just after he returned from the latest exploration of Huautla “Sistema Huautla is now 89 kilometers long,” he told me which makes it the deepest cave in the western hemisphere and the ninth deepest in the world tied for that place right now with a cave in Austria This year we added three entrances to the system “This was the sixth PESH expedition,” Steele went on The way we structure it is we have 30 people at any given time: that’s what our infrastructure on the surface can handle One thing of note this year is that at one point we had five deep underground camps going at the same time a new benchmark for exploration in Huautla These people stayed underground for a week at a time and then came out to report “Some of your readers may not realize that there is no radio in existence that works through that much rock although there are a couple of people working on that sort of thing it’s like Pony Express: the way you find out what’s going on is when somebody comes out and tells you “And years ago we decided it’s better if these people actually write out their report before heading for the surface because after climbing up so many ropes and working so hard for so long people arrive up here so tired that they forget what it was they were supposed to tell you or they can’t quite remember all the details so we now have a rule that all messages must be written down.” this year’s PESH expedition had a graduate student from Western Kentucky University who is studying karst hydrology “His name is Fernando Hernández,” Steele told me we have a collecting permit issued to us by Dr He’s described 48 different life forms that live in Sistema Huautla Eleven of these have turned out to be highly adapted troglobic creatures Iván Alarcón Durán out of Puebla and his people are looking at some remains of Pleistocene megafauna that we’ve seen in the caves They discovered the only complete skull ever found in Mexico of a Pleistocene sloth over 12,000 years old So we are really happy about what Mexican cave scientists are finding here.” The yearly presence of cave explorers in the local villages has had unexpected consequences This is just one of many anecdotes told by Bill Steele: “On the very last day of last year’s expedition a school teacher walked up and he had a USB drive in his hand He lives in the same village where we rent houses and he said: ‘This is my life’s work and I’m hoping that you can find a way to print a hundred copies of this to help children learn to read their native language ‘How am I going to do that?’ Every page in that teacher’s manuscript was in color and I looked into the cost and sort of gulped But I went to the Whole Earth Provision Company which explains what we were doing in Huautla and we found out that it is the only document in existence in those three languages that teacher knew about the brochure because he is the very one who translated it into Mazateco we did better than 100 copies: we were able to print 180 beautifully done and spiral bound so they lay flat on a desk.” I asked Bill Steele where Huautla stands in relation to the rest of the world’s caves “Carlsbad Caverns is known for one very big chamber called the Big Room but here in Huautla we’ve got at least 12 rooms just as big and one of them is twice the size of the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium a famous Swiss caver named Phillipe Rouillier approached me deep inside the cave and said I do believe this is the most magnificent cave on earth.’ Thirty-two years later — after numerous stupendous additions to the cave I hear more and more speleologists saying the same “This was my 25th Huautla expedition over 42 years I was a young man of 28 the first time I went I feel really blessed that I am able to be a part of such a significant exploration of a major geographical feature of this planet Would you like to visit the Huautla caves from your living room, without getting your clothes muddy? Have a look at the PESH page The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website ADVERTISE WITH MND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES Subscription FAQ's Privacy Policy Mexico News Daily - Property of Tavana LLC We use cookies to personalize content and ads and to analyze our traffic and improve our service The Practice + Theory series is sponsored in part by the Frances Dittmer Family Foundation The following is a version of an interview I held over several days in September 2006 with my mother one of the most distinguished representatives of the traditions of the thousand-year-old Mazatec culture which is centered in the northern mountains of the state of Oaxaca Doña Julia Julieta is a member of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers which represents a global alliance of prayer The formation of the council arose from the need to declare a solidarity among first-nation people around the world The council is deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth and the destruction of indigenous ways of life They believe the teachings of their ancestors will light a way through an uncertain future hosted by one of the Thirteen Grandmothers The hosting grandmother can share her culture If the wisdom of the grandmothers were combined humanity could be re-educated to perceive each human being in a new way with respect to both physical and spiritual health the Grandmothers visited Mazatec grandmother Julia Julieta in Oaxaca This interview brings us closer to the essence of Doña Julia Julieta’s personality “the one who knows.” She talks to us about the spiritual world as a guide and describes what she has done over the course of her life the part she has dedicated to working in ceremony with the niños santos She speaks of her experiences and those of some of her patients this interview has great value for these times when we have become desensitized to human pain when we have lost inner values such as love when it is so necessary and urgent to become aware of our responsibility as human beings toward our planet Doña Julia Julieta Casimiro was born in the city of Huautla de Jiménez the daughter of María Petra Estrada and Maclovio Casimiro Her eight brothers and sisters are Herlinda At an early age Julia Julieta began primary school where she learned how to read and write At the age of 15 she met the man who would be her husband she was married to Lucio Isaías Pineda Carrera on December 31 This is one part of the story of Doña Julia Julieta Casimiro (now a widow) a woman whose students have spread her fame as a great spiritual guide around the world She is regarded as such by all those who have received an answer to their inquiries She cures both physical and emotional diseases There are many in the society who shape a vision of the cosmos; to grow and develop as a wise woman it is important to count on the support of all family members in order to assume a position of authority in such practices She started on the path to becoming a wise woman with her marriage to Don Lucio Isaías Pineda Carrera and it is through him that she obtains her wisdom because Don Lucio’s family on his maternal side Genealogically and culturally they have been powerful shamans known throughout the entire Mazatec region Don Lucio was the son of Doña Regina Carrera Calvo and Professor Librado Pineda Quiroga Mama Julia Julieta tells us that after observing all the official rites and traditions of marriage she joined this family who gave her much of the knowledge that she would later contribute to the world It all began one day shortly after I was married during which she prayed and commended us to the Almighty After the prayers we ate the niños santos in a safe and pleasant atmosphere I saw the earth in its round shape making very slow turns I saw some big palm trees that moved from side to side and gigantic bells like the ones in the tower of the church in Huautla de Jiménez I saw how they moved and what they sounded like; they sounded like this and it was on this path that I began my way of life the whole family on her mother’s side were very good shamans and seers My mother-in-law spoke to me about her mother about her great-aunts Gregoria Calvo and Natalia Calvo and about her sisters Aurelia Carrera and Martina Carrera I believe that in order to dedicate oneself to this profession one must be very brave One’s heart must be clean for things to turn out well In truth that’s how my work has been; for that reason people believe in it because God is the one who gives me the strength to keep going The place where I live is called sonlao (on the stone) They say that a long time ago there was a stone here in the shape of a star and it always had water I believe that this place has a lot of strength; this place forms part of the center of the village and it has been a site of magnetic healing power going back to pre-Hispanic times I’m going to teach you how to make a living here so that you won’t have to work outside your home.” That’s how it started What’s very important to me is the confidence she showed in me; it turned out to be crucial because confidence gives you security in any field In the end I believe that’s how it was: a mutual commitment was made between us with rights and obligations to educate her blood In this way the reproduction of her blood would be guaranteed the commitment that a man or a woman makes to assist humanity We affirmed our ties as teacher-student and a strong bond was forged between us look after him; I love him very much.” She said he was the same as her husband Maybe that’s the reason she trusted me so much She taught me a lot about what she knew and did in the world of shamanism how to conduct the ceremony of the mushrooms; she taught me to be brave and to know how to fight when necessary She taught me how to deal with patients’ crises when they were in total ecstasy about techniques to use to take charge of situations that can get out of control unless they are handled correctly I think this work is about all the energies present at the moment with all the strength that each human being possesses a sacred time that is totally specific to the great ceremony and that turns into the setting where the ritual with the mushrooms is carried out This space and sacred time is governed by very pleasant sensations transmitted by the song and prayers of those who oversee the ceremony because this is the most important moment and the patient must benefit from it It’s the moment when the spirit finds itself at the highest point; it’s the moment of encounter with God A ceremony with a good ritual eases the relationship between man and God; God manifests himself and leads us to reflect deeply on who we are and what we want This is when it is extremely important that the guide be present It’s at this moment that she must use her entire being; she is a warrior The guide gives herself over and is committed to His work; this is the ideal moment to show her power her desire to achieve what has been proposed according to the case The work I do is good; I always invoke God and the earth the mountains—and of course the angels and saints—with songs and prayers in my maternal language The results I’ve gotten up to now speak of a whole life’s work of more than 30 years of care and service toward those who have searched me out people from Mexico City or other states in the Republic of Mexico whether from other countries or other parts of Mexico Strangers were not welcome; they were all hippies with their slogans of peace and love; they were poor you felt bad when you saw how they were treated; this was the start of the waves of people searching for one or another alternative way of perceiving reality It’s with these people that I began working steadily with my husband because it was frowned on to give niños santos to foreigners we worked against our culture and ran the risk that comes with opening your doors to those who don’t belong to your culture In 2000 I was invited by the authorities at the Anthropological Institute in Switzerland to explain my mission and its importance through conferences Since then I’ve participated in group sessions on numerous occasions Europe is the door through which one takes the first step to the United States I contributed to a book on identifying and collecting medicinal herbs native to this region with Doctor Silviano Camberos Sánchez and his family For seven years I organized the procession to the Virgin of Guadalupe That is when I became a member of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers 13 indigenous grandmothers from all over the world—North and Central America as well as Africa and Asia—met in upstate New York and agreed to form an alliance At that time they decided to work in collaboration and under the auspices of the Center for Sacred Studies 501 © 3 I’ll describe some of the problems of the patients I’ve worked with I’ve helped people with emotional problems who for years had other treatments with no results I’ll describe the case of a patient who had been depressed for a long time and who told me that she noticed an improvement after she participated in one of the ceremonies “I came to be cured because I suffer from chronic depression I saw my birth as I was passing through the birth canal.” She said because of the imposing personality and spiritual force of Mama Julia because eating the mushrooms isn’t like anything else; they have a soul as well and that’s what helps us to penetrate to other states and other realities.” The job of the guide is to stabilize the trip with the help of all that’s in the setting especially the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe I’ve learned that trips make patients both physically and emotionally stronger—I say physically because the patient’s heart was delicate; that’s what she said before her trip and that’s the reason she came to the ceremony What I experience gives me a feeling of well-being and I believe it’s worth it to have a trip On the whole I’ve concluded that traditional medicine the medicine that comes from the earth really works in today’s world where technology and science are very developed has described his experience in a conversation: It was my first experience with mushrooms and the anticipation made me very anxious and afraid I wasn’t sure what this experience would be like for me and songs to the Virgin of Guadalupe and to God Mama Julia told me to be calm and that I would simply know “After seeing colors and feeling palpitations I began to experience the memory of a past life At that moment I didn’t know what it was about I remembered having been a curan­dero who wore a bear’s head and this distinguished me from the rest of the tribe and the people respected and admired me greatly someone had taken the women and children of my tribe and the people asked me to go and find out who was kidnapping them I undertook a journey to search for the kidnappers Along the way I met a very attractive woman and immediately felt ensnared by her “She took me to her tribe and introduced me to its chief At that moment I instinctively realized it was this tribe that was kidnapping the members of my tribe using a shamanistic technique [to trap] them: many months passed before I decided to return to my people In the meantime this woman taught me many of their arts I was curious about where they kept those who had been kidnapped and for this reason I decided to stay a little longer During those months of contact with the tribe She loved me but also had a secret relationship with the chief of the tribe When he realized that I was going around investigating and that his woman was also attracted to me “One day when I was at the river bathing myself I felt a knife enter my back and I fell down I felt a great pain between my left shoulder blade and my backbone Once again I was in Mama Julia’s house with a great pain in my back Mama Julia rubbed my back and in a short time she cured me and the pain disappeared “Two years after my experience with Mama Julia We became friends and she asked me to perform a regression on her and during the regression she began to tell me her story that she was the member of a clan that kidnapped people to perform very bloody rituals on them She described someone with whom she had fallen in love although she had a relationship with the chief of the clan I was very surprised to remember and understand my trip with the mushroom Two years and three months after her regression we went with Mama Julia to close the circle between the two lives that tied us together “At this moment she and I no longer see each other but we understand many things about our present by understanding our past together.” After people working in the health profession reported their journey experinces to me I can say that I have added to the knowledge of other human beings I have inspired an interest in healing through spiritualism in other people I believe that I have created a school for all those who search for an alternative way to cure their illnesses for all of us who believe that things in the world can be better if we attempt at every moment to do things well: to show respect to love and respect our elders and listen to them with great attention The mission of all human beings who achieve consciousness is to take care of themselves and Mother Earth Jesuita Natalia Pineda Casimiro is an anthropologist For the past six years she has traveled in the mountains of northern Oaxaca to study the methods and materials used by the healers and shamans of the upper and lower Mazatec region Dec 4, 2017 6:26 PM ESTThree weeks into their expedition Chris Jewell and his team arrived at what looked like a calm a low-lying trench where water collects – and they were almost a mile beneath the surface of the Earth "When our toes were at the water's edge we knew we were in new territory," says Jewell "You're going somewhere no one else has been before." Since its discovery in 1965, Sistema Huautla a cave system tucked into Mexico's Sierra Mazateca mountains it would look like this," says veteran caver Bill Steele who has taken over a dozen trips to Huautla since the late '70s and joined in for part of this year's trip 300-foot-high chamber called Anthrodite Hall "probably the best cave on earth - lots and lots of variety." a 30-year-old software consultant and caving enthusiast from England had one objective: to go beyond that trench – called Sump 9 discovered in 1994 – and set a new record for the greatest depth ever reached in the Western Hemisphere Dive into the murky water to see where it would take them "We knew there was an opportunity to look for new passages," says Jewell "Most people reach a sump and think it's time to go home The seven-week trip began in late February The 40-person international team slogged more than a thousand pounds of gear They spent two weeks rappelling to an underground camp about a half-mile into the Earth navigating some of Huautla's 20 waterfalls as well as passages deluged with waste-filled water surging through the mountain from villages above The cavers occasionally surfaced for cooked meals and rest but the record-breaking portion of the journey began when five divers including Jewell and fellow Brit Jason Mallinson spent 10 full days underground exploring Sump 9 officially the deepest known point in the hemisphere "Things like Everest you can scout from a plane with binoculars," says Jon Lillestolen you don't know what's around the next corner Huautla definitely lives up to its legendary stature The PESH Expedition survey of Sistema Huautla added length to the already record-breaking cave as well as preparing for more explorations in 2024 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cave explorers from around the world hit a milestone during their exploration and survey of the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere The international team of 37 cavers and support staff added 222 meters to the known length of the cave system during the most recent Proyecto Espeleologico Sistema Huautla The known length of Sistema Huautla is now just over 100 kilometers or 62.27 miles Teams also added three kilometers to the Cueva Elysium a nearby but currently unconnected cave system The accomplishments were announced as part of the celebration of International Cave Week In addition to continued exploration and surveying the April 2023 PESH Expedition had several objectives including rigging 2,000 feet of rope in two other nearby caves Both caves are far deeper than any cave in the United States The rigging in these caves were left in place (although the ropes were pulled to prevent damage from seasonally rising waters) for next year's expedition The 2024 expedition will focus on these other two caves for exploration and surveying which will enable the team to add these caves to the overall cavern system have been the center of annual expeditions starting in 2014 Tommy Shifflett from Virginia and Bill Steele from Texas have planned the April expeditions from the start "We plan the expeditions in April because it's the driest month of the year in the mountains," said Steele we are always keeping an eye on water levels This April it was wetter than normal; that hampered our exploration somewhat." PESH expeditions are made possible by sponsorships of various organizations and this year the foundation of the largest cavern in Texas Natural Bridge Caverns is considered Texas' most actively explored cavern system an effort Steele has participated in with co-owners Brad and Travis Wuest "We were pleased to both support PESH and to journey to Huautla ourselves," said Brad Wuest "Discovery is at the heart of our work here at Natural Bridge Caverns and we appreciate the efforts of cavers around the world to further explore and understand these incredible natural wonders." The current surveyed depth of Sistema Huautla is 5,118 feet Cave geologists estimate the vast natural underground labyrinth is as old as 15 million years All data collected is shared with Mexican cave scientists including information on cave adapted lifeforms paleontological remains of extinct animals (which are photographed but left in the cave) and ancient climate patterns through analysis of stalagmites The 2023 expedition also achieved another significant milestone – it carried the flag of The Explorers Club an award granted to the top expeditions in the world excitement for further exploration continues to grow "We are grateful to the people of Huautla and the international community of cavers who continue to encourage us to keep exploring," said Steele "It's one of the most magnificent caves in the world and it's a privilege to uncover more of its beauty and wonders." For photos and maps, visit https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/winfegn2fzanvu1y3mf39/h?dl=0&rlkey=xcyosy0a7hggtqsuln9xqudox Contact:Winter Prosapio512-888-6570[email protected] Do not sell or share my personal information: A Deadly PassageMore than two years after the worst immigration-related disaster in American history smugglers involved in the deaths of 53 migrants are set to stand trial We spent weeks reporting in Latin America and discovered that for the families of the victims the tragedy isn’t enough to deter their own journey north Law enforcement investigating the tractor trailer in San Antonio on June 27 2022.Jordan Vonderhaar/GettyMaría Victoria Velasco Jiménez buys votive candles by the case she has kept one lit on a shelf above the microwave and mini fridge in the apartment she shares with her daughter a hilltop colonia on the southeastern edge of Mexico City The streetlights outside the apartment paint the blocky buildings in a yellow glow Stormwater courses down the center of the unpaved and rubble-strewn street Millions of lights blanket the ancient lake bed below rippling out across the hills that surround the capital the concrete walls of María Victoria’s tiny apartment are cold and austere The candle burns in a juice glass in front of a framed photo of her son The portrait shares the shelf with vases of artificial flowers and a one-foot-tall ceramic Jesus draped with rosaries Wearing a white T-shirt and sporting a fresh buzz cut Marcos Antonio looks down from a blue sky filled with puffy clouds and soaring white doves He has his mother’s high and wide cheekbones which is how old he was when the photo was taken encouraged by his friends to echarle ganas—to go for it María Victoria rode with Marcos Antonio to the bus depot on the day of his midnight departure in June 2022 and María Victoria had entrusted her son’s safety to a pair of older men from San Miguel Huautla—her hometown in Oaxaca—who had made arrangements with the same coyote and promised to look after Marcos Antonio on the journey north “My son was going to go and work so that he could buy a house Her long black hair is pulled back in a ponytail she wears a bracelet with glass evil-eye beads “How could I have imagined that he would come home dead?” Marcos Antonio was among 53 people from Mexico and Honduras who died in San Antonio in what has often been described as the worst immigration-related disaster in U.S The migrants had made their way to the border via dozens of routes others as short and uncomplicated as a full-day bus ride They had waded the Rio Grande in small groups many of them getting caught and turned back by Border Patrol agents more than once before finally crossing undetected to the U.S where they were herded into a stash house in Laredo That’s where as many as 66 of them climbed into the back of a refrigerator trailer early in the afternoon of June 27 to make the last leg of a trip that had cost their families between about $7,500 and $15,000 each That fee included passage beyond the one-hundred-mile zone that stretches into the U.S where federal Border Patrol officers operate checkpoints and patrol small towns and back roads in their signature green-and-white trucks Border Patrol agents are supported by an arsenal of technology including towers and aerostatic balloons equipped with infrared and high-resolution surveillance cameras and ground sensors that can detect foot traffic What this means for many migrants is that crossing the river is only the first step in a marathon of evasion—once they’re on the U.S where the tractor trailer was discovered in San Antonio.Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/GettyWhen Marcos Antonio and the others watched the doors of the trailer swing closed and heard the latches slam home they could not have known that the trailer’s refrigeration system was broken Temperatures soared above 100 degrees that day at about six that evening—abandoned beside the Union Pacific Railroad tracks on Quintana Road which runs parallel to Interstate 35 in an industrial area of south San Antonio—48 of the passengers were dead from heat-related injuries Five more would die at area hospitals in the days that followed one of the two men who had assured María Victoria that he would keep an eye on her son The disaster briefly dominated the news cycle But the Quintana Road incident was only the latest and most terrible in a series of similar events In 2003 authorities discovered seventy people trapped inside a semitrailer in the South Texas town of Victoria In 2017 a Walmart employee in San Antonio called the police to report a suspicious semi in the store’s parking lot Thirty-nine migrants were inside the trailer Customs and Border Protection suggests that trucking is becoming a more prominent mode of human smuggling where the Quintana Road victims first boarded that faulty trailer has the highest volume of truck crossings of any land port in the U.S.—about 2.7 million each year Seven people have been arrested and charged in the U.S for the deaths of the Quintana Road victims The remaining two are scheduled to go to trial in March before a federal judge in San Antonio The inner workings of their smuggling network will be revealed to the public during that trial much about the victims and their families has gone unreported A memorial for the victims of the Quintana Road incident in San Antonio I spent three weeks searching for relatives of the Quintana Road victims I met with sixteen families spread out across the migration routes that link Central America to the U.S from the mountain villages of western Guatemala to diverse regions of Mexico—the tropical lowlands of Oaxaca and the industrial sprawl of Ciudad Juárez I found the names of the dead and their hometowns in publicly available government documents I identified the names of the victims’ family members in Facebook posts or in local media reports I was able to get in touch with a few of them ahead of time but locating the families was mostly a matter of traveling to wherever the bodies had been repatriated and asking around saying they were fearful of drawing attention from smugglers and criminal gangs or that they were exhausted and saw no point in reopening old wounds But others welcomed me into their homes and refused to let me leave without offering a snack or a home-cooked meal—tamalitos I spent dozens of hours talking with spouses all of whom shared migration stories spanning generations I wanted to understand the forces that had driven their loved ones and millions like them to undertake the journey to the U.S I wanted to weigh the enormity of the catastrophe from the perspective of the people who had seen their hopes of a better life destroyed by an act of carelessness Those who died along with Marcos Antonio left behind families that must contend with the ravages of grief and the social and financial fallout of losing a breadwinner Many of the families drained their savings or took out loans to finance their relative’s journey Others put up agricultural plots that they rely on for subsistence All of them will endure hardships for years to come The Quintana Road tragedy was decades in the making and the stories that follow are but a small sample from the aftermath Arlet Velasco Velasco and María Victoria Velasco Jiménez in their small shared apartment.Stubble left over in a cornfield in San Miguel Huautla where climate change has disrupted the planting season.An ox and horse on a road above San Miguel Huautla.Marcos Antonio Velasco VelascoAge 18 Long before María Victoria accompanied her son to the local bus depot so that he could begin his journey north—long before she built a shrine to him in her apartment—she set off on her own migration in search of a better life She’d grown up in a Mixtec family in San Miguel Huautla in the dry and rocky hill country of northwestern Oaxaca one of nine siblings who all eventually left the village to make a life somewhere else Her father had scratched out an existence by growing beans and crafting ox yokes out of wood and leather to sell at a local market Her mother’s days were filled with caring for children sometimes there wasn’t,” María Victoria said of her childhood in their small shared apartment.At fifteen she left for Mexico City to work as a domestic servant she crouched low in her seat every time the bus approached an overpass “That’s what it’s like for someone from the pueblo That’s ignorance.” It was night when she arrived She had never seen so many cars or so much darkness lit up by so many electric lights she received a pink uniform and cooked and cared for the two young daughters of a working mother in the north of the city “It’s hard at first when you leave home,” she said she met a man at a dance during a visit back to her hometown who was also working in Mexico City at the time They became a couple and rented a house together in a colonia outside the capital Marcos Antonio was a gregarious child who knew everyone in the colonia and was always looking for work María Victoria remembers the day he helped a neighbor carry some boxes and came home with his first earnings I already bought my own drink!’” When he was about sixteen Marcos Antonio got a job butchering chickens and was proud to help support his mother He’d become violent toward her and the children María Victoria struggled to make ends meet a brother-in-law called to tell her that he had an opportunity for her al otro lado—on the other side of the border and that all she had to do was get to Nuevo Laredo the Mexican border city across from Laredo She didn’t know what the job was or even what city it was in But she decided she had no choice but to go Stubble left over in a cornfield in San Miguel Huautla where climate change has disrupted the planting season.When she told Marcos Antonio “I’ll go.” He promised to build her a house in Oaxaca near her mother and to pay for Arlet’s school María Victoria was comforted to know he’d be traveling with two family friends Marcos Antonio sent regular updates during the roughly twenty-hour bus ride to Nuevo Laredo telling María Victoria how much fun he was having The last time she heard from him was June 23 “I’ll call you once we’re on the other side,” he said María Victoria was out shopping when a black butterfly flew three circles around her The next morning she woke up nauseated and felt sick with worry her sister—the one whose husband had arranged the trip—called her about the tragedy in San Antonio “I started going crazy,” María Victoria recalled She was summoned to a government office in Mexico City where she looked at photographs of Marcos Antonio’s corpse to confirm his identity She decided to have his remains returned to her home village she dragged herself as if sleepwalking through the burial in the village cemetery which sits on a high clearing overlooking the surrounding rocky hills The grave marker she chose for him is shaped like a chapel María Victoria placed a copy of the same photo that sits by the candle in her apartment An ox and horse on a road above San Miguel Huautla.For a month and a half afterward Her monthly expenses amount only to about $200 but even that is tough to cover on her part-time income as a maid The threat of being forced out into the street is a constant concern the cooking gas ran out and I had to buy more so there wasn’t enough money for anything else,” she told me when I visited last summer share a single cement-block room and live more like sisters than mother and daughter preferring instead to cook Oaxacan dishes on a comal that sits next to a dinette at one end of the room Most of the space is taken up by their two twin beds separated by a tall dresser and piled high with stuffed animals—Scooby-Doo But the absence of a brother and a son still lingers “All of the days since he died have been sad,” María Victoria said he would have made more in three days—around $240 at $10 an hour—than his mother earns in a month She imagines the day that he would have come home to her how he would have kissed her on the forehead or he comes to me in my sleep,” María Victoria said “He comes to tell me that everything is all right.” Daniel Delfín Marroquín and Reina Florentina Coronado.Aracely's sisters and sister-in-law at their home near the town of Comitancillo in Guatemala’s western highlands.Reina cooking in her home.Aracely's nephew outside her family's home.Aracely Marroquín CoronadoAge 21 near the town of Comitancillo in Guatemala’s western highlands the maize is so tall in July that it swallows her family’s house whole Towering stalks are a source of pride in the highlands where Indigenous farmers grow the same varieties their ancestors have cultivated for centuries though the leaves on many of the plants are now streaked with yellow and brown—signs of stress from yet another season of drought which has become more common and severe in recent years because of climate change Daniel Delfín Marroquín and Reina Florentina Coronado.Aracely shared a dirt-floored room with her seven siblings in an adobe home with no running water perched on a muddy hillside her book bag and her long braid bouncing on her back Aracely would have seen smoke from her mother’s wood-fired kitchen rising from the bottomless green of the maize Aracely loved school and was a star student Reina Florentina Coronado and Daniel Delfín Marroquín but they have prioritized education for their children primary and secondary education are free in Guatemala but costs for mandatory uniforms and school supplies are prohibitive for many only about one in three kids make it to high school and she begged her mom and dad to keep her enrolled so that you don’t have to keep working,” she promised Reina cooking in her home.Aracely's nephew outside her family's home.Reina and Daniel raised pigs on scraps and corn silage to sell at a local market to bring in what little money they had Much of their food they grew for themselves “It was our dream for her too,” Reina said Aracely was about fifteen when she decided to become a teacher According to the Guatemalan news outlet Prensa Libre no new permanent teacher posts were created from 2013 to 2024 as many considered them a pathway to a middle-class life Aracely gave up the search and left home to work as a maid in San Marcos But she didn’t give up on her dream of taking care of her family she asked Reina and Daniel to help pay her way to the U.S. where she hoped to join her older sister in Worthington home to a meatpacking plant that in 2006 was the target of one of the largest immigration raids in U.S Aracely's sisters and sister-in-law at their home near the town of Comitancillo in Guatemala’s western highlands.“I don’t have a husband or a family,” she told them and I’ll earn much more over there.” Reina and Daniel agreed to pay the first installment of her coyote fee taking out a mortgage for about $10,000 on their property from a local bank which they’re still struggling to pay back Aracely was accompanied by two other women from their small town: Blanca Elizabeth Ramírez Crisóstomo Now a mural with their names and a symbolic depiction of their journey north covers a wall in the center of town Reina and Daniel say they will never again help one of their children travel north “I’ve had enough sadness and sorrow,” Reina said A busy highway cuts through the northern part of the State of Mexico Parents and siblings of Gustavo Daniel Santillán Santillán.A memorial to Gustavo at the local cemetery.Gustavo’s parents Micaela Santillán Soto and Daniel Santillán Trejo working the counter at Miscelanea Alma.Micaela showing the wallet returned to her with Gustavo's remains.Gustavo’s son Rafa.Gustavo Daniel Santillán SantillánAge 27 Miscelanea Alma—or Alma’s Corner Store—sits across from a muddy lot where rebar sprouts from columns of half-finished houses It’s a one-story building made of concrete blocks painted white and trimmed in Coca-Cola red located near a major highway and a Pemex gas station at the southern end of Santa María Ajoloapan The store’s sliding glass doors tempt passersby with views of floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with chips and refrigerators stocked with soft drinks There’s another store just like it on the same block and countless others like it throughout rural Mexico where local merchants are holding out against supermarket chains Parents and siblings of Gustavo Daniel Santillán Santillán.Micaela Santillán Soto is one of those merchants she’s short and round and tends the shop’s counter with her thin eyebrows fixed in the gaze of a shrewd trader Miscelanea Alma is much more than a business for Micaela—it’s her family’s financial anchor and the realization of a lifelong dream It’s also what allowed her to help her son wanted to pay a coyote about $7,500 to smuggle him across the U.S because she knew the migration route had grown much more dangerous in the years since her husband had made the journey north in 2001 There was the threat of cartel violence and the prospect of drowning in the Rio Grande increases in Border Patrol funding have consistently been linked to increases in migrant deaths there is no clear evidence that the intensifying militarization of the U.S side of the border since the mid-nineties has significantly reduced the number of undocumented people who make it into the U.S or had any durable effect on the number who try the border-security apparatus only pushes migrants to take bigger risks This will almost certainly remain true despite Donald Trump’s promise to close the border simply cannot place enough officers along the nearly 2,000-mile southern border to intercept every migrant employers continue to offer much higher wages than laborers can earn south of the border people will continue to risk their lives to work here Micaela agreed to front Gustavo about $2,600 enough for him to get to the border and pay the first part of his coyote fee agreed to loan Gustavo the rest upon his arrival Everything is very expensive and the salaries are very In 2022 the average monthly salary in the State of Mexico and then come back.” Her brothers had done it A memorial to Gustavo at the local cemetery.Daniel is shy and soft-spoken he was relaxing on a love seat covered with a pink-and-brown striped blanket in the living room of their home which is connected to Micaela’s store by a passage through the stock room The purple-painted walls were adorned with graduation and wedding photos a hand-carved crucifix that Gustavo had given Micaela whose hair was pinned up with a plastic panda hairclip “She keeps the whole family together.” Their daughter Alma Gustavo’s older sister and the shop’s namesake Daniel said it was hard on six-year-old Gustavo when he went north in 2001 Daniel had been working at a rebar plant and could never seem to earn enough to move Micaela and their growing family into their own home “We said that if we wanted something better “I remember when Gustavo found out I was going to the United States Daniel spent three years in Atlanta working at restaurants cleaning and washing dishes for $8 an hour he was able to build their home and the corner store for Micaela but the years away from his family took a toll Daniel decided he would do whatever it took to never have to leave his family again going north had suddenly become an obsession He had two kids to take care of and had just gone through a bad breakup with one of their mothers desperate to get on sound financial footing he took a 23-hour bus ride to Ciudad Acuña The first two times Gustavo attempted to cross the Rio Grande he got caught and was turned back by Border Patrol “Why don’t you just come home?” Micaela pleaded with him over the phone Gustavo’s parents Micaela Santillán Soto and Daniel Santillán Trejo working the counter at Miscelanea Alma.Gustavo’s son Rafa.On June 27 he called Micaela from the stash house in Laredo It was between one and two in the afternoon a trailer just showed up,” Gustavo told her “I thought they were going to put us in the bed of a truck Micaela tried to persuade him not to get in the trailer but she could hear the coyote in the background telling him it was safe that they’d be in San Antonio in three hours Those were Gustavo’s last words to his mother saw the news about the trailer on Quintana Road anxiously scanning the internet for news of survivors Alma started calling San Antonio hospitals Eight days later the family finally received confirmation from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Gustavo was dead “My daughters were out there on the patio screaming just devastated.” The house soon filled with family members and neighbors who came to offer their condolences Micaela could not make sense of why her son of all the millions of migrants who travel to and from the U.S. And there were other questions that tormented her: Why had she given Gustavo that loan Why hadn’t she tried harder to persuade him to stay Gustavo’s body was returned to Mexico in a steel coffin The first thing Micaela did was swap it out for a wooden one She took some solace in being able to give him a proper funeral she removed the frayed leather bifold with care which she said are wrinkled from being submerged in the Rio Grande She paused briefly to gaze at the photo on Gustavo’s driver’s license—his black hair is combed back and he has a hint of scruff—before putting everything back in its place and shutting the relic in its tin Micaela showing the wallet returned to her with Gustavo's remains.Micaela did not allow herself much time to grieve—she had a store to run and a family depending on her “My business doesn’t allow me to shut myself in here crying.” As time passed her sadness gave way to anger at the smugglers She doesn’t blame them for the crime of human smuggling itself—which is a valuable service that migrants depend on to access the better-paying U.S It’s the smugglers’ negligence that enrages her “You have to see to it that the trailer has air-conditioning that everything is in perfect working order,” she said “The coyote was in the wrong because he didn’t take care of his merchandise.” Micaela is not placing her hopes for justice in the American courts kneading a deflated balloon that he’d filled with flour and decorated with a smiley face Micaela and Daniel took him in after Gustavo’s death Surrounded by love in his grandparents’ busy house Rafa still struggles to cope with the loss of his father And even though Micaela’s store is successful he knows that he won’t be able to lean on his grandparents forever He enjoys taking things apart and putting them back together—“Mostly old telephones,” he said—and he dreams of becoming a mechanic with Volcán Atitlán rising in the distance Ana's community in the western highlands of Guatemala.Ana with her two young daughters.A view of Lake Atitlán.Francisco Tepaz SimajAge 23 The tiny Kaqchikel Mayan–speaking community sits at 7,400 feet high above the volcano-rimmed shores of Lake Atitlán To get there by car or bus requires an hours-long bone-rattling ride on rugged roads from one of the market towns to the north The other way is to take a water taxi from one of the lakeside tourist towns to a village called Tzununa then hoof it up steep switchbacks for about two hours which means that many people migrate to elsewhere in Guatemala or to Mexico and the U.S in her home.For Ana Miguel Miguel—who grew up in a sweltering lawless town near the Pacific coast—the seclusion of the community also meant safety and something close to salvation Ana had spent her childhood in a dirt-floored shack with walls made of dried sugarcane stalks and no door Now she sits in a plastic chair in a concrete-block room with walls painted baby blue in a house she once shared with her husband with a round face and a sad but gentle demeanor She wears a long-sleeved T-shirt with a black-and-red-checked silhouette of Texas embroidered on the front whispering in her ear and begging to play with her cellphone Ana didn’t attend a single day of school because her family didn’t have enough money She was around fifteen when she left home to pick coffee for the first time Her father—worn out from work on sugarcane and banana plantations—could not meet the family’s needs alone she traveled to farms throughout the coastal highlands laboring alongside generations of migrant workers Ana worked with pregnant women and old people with gnarled fingers and bent backs and small children who picked alongside their parents Guatemala prohibits children under fourteen from working but in a country where two-thirds of families survive on less than two dollars a day putting kids to work can mean the difference between starvation and survival Department of Labor includes Guatemalan coffee on its list of goods produced by child labor children have been found working on farms that supply beans to Nespresso and Starbucks (Nestlé Nespresso issued a statement calling child labor “unacceptable” and pledged to take “immediate action that puts the protection of child welfare first.” Starbucks asserted that they have “zero tolerance for child labor anywhere in our supply chain.” The company is currently being sued by a consumer group for “documented severe human rights and labor abuses” in Brazil Ana's community in the western highlands of Guatemala.Ana with her two young daughters.Ana and the other pickers were organized into work parties of a few dozen under the charge of a caporal she was assigned to a foreman named Francisco teaching the inexperienced how to pick more efficiently and he helped his workers shoulder the heavy but he had already been a foreman for several years “It was his personality that I liked more than anything.” They kept in touch by phone during the offseason Ana made sure to get on Francisco’s crew again She moved into the small house in Chuitzanchaj that Francisco had inherited from his father and soon Ana gave birth to their first daughter but she felt embraced by the tight-knit community the nights are cool and breezy in Chuitzanchaj There is plenty of firewood in the nearby hills Compared with the cane and sheet metal neighborhoods of Ana’s childhood home “People are humble and peaceful here,” she said Ana decided to quit traveling after María Isabel was born but Francisco stayed on the migrant circuit returning home about once a month to spend time with Ana and the girls He took out a nearly $8,000 loan to buy a parcel of land so that he could grow avocados She hoped that cultivating the crops would keep Francisco closer to home Francisco called to tell her that he and a few friends were in Mexico It was the first Ana had heard of the plan Francisco was part of a wave of roughly 230,000 Guatemalans who headed to the U.S a fivefold increase over the course of just two years equivalent to about 1 in every 75 residents according to a study published in the academic journal World Development Migration rates of Guatemalan farmers have more than doubled over the past two decades partly a result of the devastation wrought by a plague called coffee-leaf rust Francisco sounded upbeat when he told Ana to go see his father if she needed money before he could start sending wages home “You’ll see: I’m going to do my best for you,” he told her A view of Lake Atitlán.In the weeks that followed Ana’s in-laws did what they could to help her and the girls Her sister-in-law arranged a fundraiser with a local journalist who streamed a live video on Facebook and asked for donations Ana stands on the porch of her home with María Isabel on her hip She doesn’t recall receiving any money from the effort Neighbors have occasionally offered what they can A man from the bank where Francisco took out the $8,000 loan has come by a few times Francisco had put the house up as collateral and Ana is worried the bank will force her out That’s how I manage to take care of my daughters and keep them in school,” she said The girls’ backpacks hang from nails on the cement wall just inside the front door one of them decorated with characters from Frozen “Sometimes I get sick thinking about how I’m going to be able to take care of them,” she said “Sometimes I get this pain in my stomach.” Yonathan.Parents and siblings of Juan Wilmer Tulul Tepaz outside their home.Wilmer’s younger brother Eugenio.A statue in the center of Salcajá memorializes the country’s many migrants.Pascual Melvin Guachiac Sipac & Juan Wilmer Tulul TepazAge 13 & Age 14 GuatemalaPascual Melvin Guachiac Sipac & Juan Wilmer Tulul Tepaz Casimiro Guachiac Suy was working at a supermarket in the Detroit area when his son Melvin It was Casimiro’s third stint as an undocumented worker and it was the best job he’d ever had—his boss paid $13.50 an hour and put him up in an apartment He’d first traveled north as an eighteen-year-old unencumbered by the pain of leaving a family behind “I couldn’t bear the sadness of saying goodbye,” he said “Leaving your family when you don’t know if you’ll ever come back—it’s extremely painful.” a village in the forested mountains east of Quezaltenango Casimiro said that more or less everything that’s new in Tzucubal has been paid for with U.S a single-story green bungalow that is tucked back from the street with a shaded porch that shields their clothesline from the rain In 2022 Guatemalans abroad sent home about $18 billion some $2.2 billion more than the country’s exports that year multistory houses with reflective glass windows and high metal fences stand next to more humble dwellings making it clear which families have someone working up north those houses and the new pickup trucks parked behind their gates are also powerful symbols of the rewards of migration His father had been gone less than a year when Melvin started hounding his mother to let him go north and he pleaded with Melvin by phone to wait a few years working so that Melvin and Yonathan wouldn’t have to quit school and migrate like he had But Melvin had become consumed by the idea were facing a similar dilemma with their fourteen-year-old son The boys were best friends—“They were more like brothers,” Casimiro said—and had hatched a plan to migrate together both couples eventually made arrangements with a coyote Casimiro agreed to pay smugglers around $13,600 upon Melvin’s safe arrival in Houston Wilmer’s parents made similar arrangements He had two uncles in Houston who agreed to take him in Both families agreed to pay extra for what the coyote a local fixture who went by the nickname El Señor a package that would guarantee the boys a seat on a vehicle the whole way to Houston—no walking across the desert and no trailers María hardly slept the night before Melvin’s departure he was already up and bursting with excitement “What time does he get here?” he asked María over and over It was still dark outside when Melvin left home He carried only a backpack with a bar of soap and a change of clothes The boys reached the border without incident regularly updating their worried parents along the way “This is my last message,” Melvin said in a voicemail Parents and siblings of Juan Wilmer Tulul Tepaz outside their home.Casimiro had traveled about 1,300 miles from Detroit to Houston where a friend of his brother held a job at a sushi restaurant and offered him a place to stay The friend had seen the news about a trailer full of dead migrants on the restaurant television but you need to look on the internet,” he said Casimiro called El Señor’s cellphone again and again The next day Casimiro visited the Guatemalan consulate and gave officials details about Melvin’s appearance It didn’t take long for them to discover that a child matching Melvin’s description had been found among the dead One of the officials showed Casimiro photos that cleared any doubt “I started to cry right there in the consulate,” he said The consulate helped secure a passport for Casimiro so that he could fly home to be with María the boys’ remains finally arrived in Tzucubal walking alongside the coffins through maize fields to the cemetery A constant stream of visitors filled the courtyards of both homes and classmates and friends made posters and hung them all over their school “It hurts to have a person in your heart without being able to hold them in your arms,” one of them read Today those posters are the only mementos that Casimiro and María have to remember Melvin They keep the posters in an armoire in the living room of their home tucked inside of Melvin’s book bag along with his Spanish-English dictionary Almost every page is filled with notes from his natural sciences class Melvin had already realized one of Casimiro and María’s dreams for him: that he would go to school and learn to read and write well in Spanish they sat side by side on plastic chairs in the bedroom of their home Yonathan still asks where Melvin is and when he’s coming home “It’s almost like he doesn’t understand my son’s death.” keeps a drawer full of photos of his deceased brother said Eugenio often takes the photos out before school spreading them on the floor and studying them quietly “He still cries every day for Juan Wilmer,” Magdalena said The boys slept together in a small space that the family cordoned off from the entryway of their house by hanging a sheet where he washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant tending plots of maize with a long-handled hoe Sometimes his weekly earnings only get them through a handful of days who had quit school after sixth grade to work alongside his father he had attempted to soothe his mother’s fears with promises to send money home for food and for the education expenses of Eugenio and their sister “His dream was to get us out of poverty,” Magdalena said Eugenio came in from playing soccer in the courtyard with his friends who sported a small stud in his right ear and wore his hair long and mussed on top like a boy-band star When I asked if he’s ever thought about traveling north someday I told Eugenio I would be scared to travel to the border if I were his age She knows there is little chance she will dissuade him but she hopes he’ll at least wait until he’s older Eugenio has promised to wait until his sixteenth birthday This article originally appeared in the March 2025 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “A Deadly Passage.” Subscribe today Please select what you would like included for printing: Copy the text below and then paste that into your favorite email application Enter your phone number above to have directions sent via text This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Service map data © OpenStreetMap contributors got the idea that the state of Oaxaca was the right place to search for that really deep cave they had long dreamed of finding They had been studying the mountainous areas of Mexico for some time looking for just the right combination of factors: thick limestone lots of annual rainfall and a lack of surface streams which would indicate subterranean drainage Once they pinpointed Oaxaca’s Huautla area which sees 100 inches of rainfall every year they acquired stereo aerial photos and spotted large cave entrances with visible streams flowing into them They also noted that there was a newly constructed road into the area they were soon exploring three beautiful and challenging caves near Huautla: Sótano de San Agustin In time It became clear that these and other caves they kept finding were interconnected which eventually became known as Sistema Huautla More and more cavers from the United States, Mexico and around the world were attracted to Huautla, and in 2013 an international team of cave divers rappelled down chasms as tall as skyscrapers to reach a depth of 1,554 meters, making Huautla the deepest cave not only in the Americas but in the entire western hemisphere In 2022, new explorations in Huautla recorded the total length of the system to 100.7 km of passages. To get a little (nine-minute-long) taste of what it’s like to move through America’s deepest cave, watch this English-language YouTube video showing some of the most breathtaking areas of Huautla Also at the end of 2022, Bill Steele, who has been organizing expeditions to Huautla since 2014 — and has a cave tarantula from the area discovered in 2018 named after him — put together a comprehensive report on the discoveries made by scientists over the years from deep inside the labyrinth of pits and passages beneath the little town of Huautla And some of the discoveries are surprising… two of us expedition leaders rappelled into a 160-foot-deep entrance pit to recheck the cave for undiscovered additional passages Back in Texas I tracked down the name and contact information of a prominent Pleistocene paleontologist with INAH in Mexico City.” asked Steele if he could send a graduate student to see the cave an INAH paleontologist — made an incredible find While we were showing him the obvious large bones in this chamber of the cave … he saw the top portion of a large skull barely protruding out of the dirt on the floor “He began digging the soft dirt with his bare fingers Alarcón had discovered the only skull that has ever been found belonging to a Pleistocene ground sloth had only been previously identified via a mandible found in El Salvador 40 years before and there are plans to retrieve it on an upcoming expedition There are many other extinct animals to be studied in this treasure trove of ancient bones and we are consulting with and supporting the right collaborators.” Another animal that entered a Huautla cave and never exited includes Odocoileus lucasi which was adapted to steep slopes and cliffs are described by cavers Roy Jameson and Frank Binney: “was probably a natural shelter for the American mountain deer fell or perhaps were driven by predators down the entrance pitch of 40 feet “Two steep mud banks contain skid marks terminating in tracks One fully articulated and several partly articulated skeletons of the mountain deer are present along with scattered bones of at least one other individual they had tumbled down into this final chamber and were not able to get out.” Participants in the Huatla System Speleology Project (PESH) have long wondered just how old the caves are that they are exploring a technique exists for measuring the decay of uranium-234 into thorium-230 and this has proven highly successful with cave stalagmites a top researcher in the field of paleoclimatology Lachniet told him that there is no existing paleoclimate data for the part of southern Mexico where Huautla is located “asked that we bring out a sample stalagmite from deep in the cave system for him to analyze to determine the quality of the uranium isotope content One of our teams during the 2018 expedition climbed up ropes from deep in the cave system carrying a 16-inch-long stalagmite.” The scientist found the quality of the sample “really fantastic,” says Steele an even better stalagmite sample was brought out This one had a tip that was 114,000 years old and a base that was 342,000 years old told the story of the climate in this part of Mexico “I’ve rarely seen tropical stalagmites this good,” wrote Lachniet It could be the Rosetta Stone for Mexico’s paleoclimate!”  The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, since 1985. His most recent book is Outdoors in Western Mexico, Volume Three. More of his writing can be found on his blog Dec 4, 2017 6:37 PM ESTFor their upcoming expedition into Sistema Huautla, the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere, Bill Steele and Tommy Shifflett are bringing rope, and plenty of it – about 7,000 feet worth of static nylon made mostly by Pigeon Mountain Industries the two American explorers will lead a 26-person international team charged with proving that the 5,069-foot Sistema Huautla in Oaxaca with Vibram rubber outsoles and a neoprene lining Steele says they were originally designed for canyoneering "They're just beautifully designed "I can walk right up a slick mud slope like it's easy." For light, he uses a headlamp made by Switzerland-based Scurion featuring state-of-the-art LED and Swiss engineering "It's the best in the world," Steele says "which matters for such a critical piece of equipment The only light in a cave is that brought in by humans Steele, like most cavers, carries up to three backup headlamps. His backups are made by Petzl, as is his helmet. He and team wear Cordura coveralls, which have only recently become available in the U.S. from outfitters like CaveSkinZ in Austin and Lost Creek in Indiana deep canals that are wall-to-wall water and must be swum Both water and air in Huautla remain a consistent 60°F a temperature that makes camping in the cave system comfortable Steele and team expect to set up at least one underground camp maybe two depending on what they find down there He says caving best-practice is to pack your sleeping bag in a Nalgene bottle to keep it dry "The thing to remember is that it's completely different underground," Steele says Your gear has to be able to handle that." Steele learned the hard way not to use leather boots "I destroyed a pair of $100 leather boots "I was climbing ropes that were right against the wall and soon I had a flapper – which is what we call it when the toe of your sock starts coming out the front of your shoe 1. Hi Tec's Para Boots (The Netherlands) 2. Etche Securite's MIC Canyon Shoes (France) 3. Onguard's PVC Boots 6"H Lace-up (USA) Please enable JavaScript to view this page correctly A community celebrating Black voices, Black art, and Black folx. Latines learning, remembering, healing, and finding joy in our diverse stories. Beautycon is a global platform that brings together beauty enthusiasts, brands, and industry leaders to explore the latest trends, innovations, and conversations shaping the future of beauty. View this post on Instagram A post shared by ZIMMERMANN (@zimmermann) The velada is a ritual involving the consumption of mushrooms containing psilocybin a compound said to induce mystical experiences It’s a ceremony that is uniquely Mexican in one sense and truly universal in another Perhaps it was first described in English by R Gordon Wasson when he wrote about his experience taking these mushrooms in Oaxaca in 1955 and became part of the great debate on who we are and where we came from native peoples of Mexico and beyond discovered that eating certain mushrooms could allow people to see the world around them with new eyes bypassing the conditioning imposed upon us by society bypassing our lamentable tendency to take ourselves and our universe for granted those mushrooms could give people an unfiltered look at reality and remind them that they are participants in … I accepted an offer to participate in a psychotropic-mushroom velada an event organized and watched over by someone who knew how to do it right we were handed a little jar filled with three grams of finely powdered Psilocybe cubensis I’m not quite sure if “eating” is the right word to use when you are washing powder down your throat (with water or juice) and our guide invited us to think of the goals or benefits we would like to get out of this experience I looked for something that might be helpful to prepare for death — not far off if you are 80 years old I hoped that this experience might help me grow in awareness because I learned long ago that growth in awareness is the purpose of life and that awareness is the only thing we take with us from this life to the next The beautiful meditation-inspiring music that was playing eventually dominated my whole being I seemed to be going deeper and deeper into a vortex my breathing was labored and difficult — just recalling the experience brings on a similar effect even though I was wearing several layers of clothing and I was inside a sleeping bag Then a new piece of music would begin and I would think that maybe I had reached the end of all the spiraling and I would feel another strange sensation: numbness in my mouth and lips and I would be convinced that it was all over and that I was going to be headed home our guide would come by and place a hand on my shoulder a connection with the world I had left behind a reminder that I had a friend watching over me who would not let anything bad happen to me What was truly bizarre was that I would feel that reassuring hand not on the place where my eyes said I should be feeling it I think that our mind must normally monitor or meld or coordinate the two inputs of touch and sight The touch was “coming in raw,” so to speak There now seemed to be a net overhead in the area where we were all lying It looked completely real and only seemed remarkable to me because I couldn’t recall seeing it earlier in the evening before the psilocybin session began and the size of the spaces in the mesh looked too big for it to be a fish or bird net but this was hard to judge because it was several meters above my head when I stopped staring straight up and started looking around did I realize that the net was everywhere; it was not just horizontal but vertical — it was stretching this way and that I was later told that “everybody who takes the mushroom sees that net.” our guide had mentioned before we started that if we needed to go to the bathroom we just had to raise a hand and he would take us there you will be able to do that without a problem,” we were reassured after what seemed like hours and hours — an eternity of spirals — I felt that I really did have to go to the bathroom there was going to be an accident inside that sleeping bag it was only when I tried to get out of the sleeping bag that I realized I was actually in an altered state of consciousness It began when I tried to untie the strings of my sweatshirt hood The thread felt unusual; I kept sliding my fingers along it It seemed to take me a long time to undo it and untying it felt like a most interesting project … as was the act of unzipping the sleeping bag It felt like I spent ages just to get the zipper moving and I was enjoying every moment of the experience each felt like colossal and significant achievements and my guide mentioned that it was like learning to walk all over again If you want to see learning to walk in action trial-and-error process that begins long before they reach the point of standing up involving preliminary projects like sitting up and crawling it was experiencing the process in a new way as if someone else were doing the walking with me inside that body as an observer The act of walking and of climbing a few steps Entering the bathroom was almost overwhelming something like materializing inside the space station in the film 2001 A Space Odyssey I was suddenly surrounded by strange and wonderful things everything in that little room was as fascinating to me as the treasures in an exotic antique shop I could have spent hours just making faces at myself in the mirror or simply feeling the texture of the towel over and over but I knew that other people might want to use the bathroom I stepped back outside and accepted a glass of jamaica (hibiscus flower juice) from my guide … and oh — the taste of it I would have been happy to spend the rest of my life just savoring that drink But back I went — slowly — to my sleeping bag from which I watched in fascination two phenomena in the trees above me: “but it sure looks like the Great Spirit observing his handiwork He uses trees to watch over us,” I thought The other phenomenon I observed during my last moments of being in an altered state was the presence of intermittent blue lines in the sky These lines were very thin and usually long and curving They were very different from the “net” or mesh I mentioned earlier as they were irregular and disconnected like long could only be seen out of the corner of my eye But I could spot them again easily by looking somewhere else and observing them with peripheral vision Kip Thorne and a few dozen more physicists ought to get together and observe these displays of energy while under the effect of the mushroom A few theories about the nature of energy and the universe might get turned upside down This experience — which I would classify as the most important event in my life — ended after about five hours said goodbye to my guide and walked out the door into the quiet night at 1 a.m After what I felt had been an earthshaking experience I was quite surprised that I was capable of walking home by myself … and my guide assured me that people can drive home after a velada without the slightest problem All of the above happened around one year ago Most of this account was written a few days afterward and the act of writing about it brought so much back that I felt obliged to wait a year before opening my notebook again Psilocybin has already proven its value in treating depression and anxiety and I suspect that it may someday play an important role in understanding the origins and purpose of the human race The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker