Chapter 11

Sunday

Today was a day off since all the local workers and the film crew were off duty except two cooks. After breakfast, I took Drs. Cooper and Gonzalez aside and showed them one of the wooden statues.

“You carved one?” Dr. Cooper asked.

“Not exactly,” I replied, and demonstrated how I’d “made” the statue using the decomposed remains of one that I’d gathered earlier this morning.

“If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t believe it,” Cooper commented as Dr. Gonzalez was busy crossing himself. I gave them the seven statues to use as models.

That afternoon, one of the site’s trucks drove up near where I was resting and sketching. I looked up just in time to brace myself as the woman whose baby I had healed rushed to me and hugged me. Her husband, carrying their now five-month-old, followed at a more sedate pace. As soon as the baby saw me, he started reaching for me. At least he didn’t snort snot all over my shirt this time when I held him. He chattered happily in baby babble for over a minute, although I have no idea what he was trying to tell me. Then, he stopped and looked around for his mother, reaching for her when he found her.

“Again, thank you for healing Hector,” the father told me as he reached to shake my hand. “He is such a happy baby, and has brought much joy to our lives,” he added emotionally.

Tim and I spent three more days in Montabala making sure they had all the footage of us they needed for the documentary. We were both happy to be out of there, even though we’d be filmed for the cenote documentary, too. At least we’d actually be doing something when we were filmed there. Besides, we’d be the ones doing the majority of the filming, documenting one of the better-known Yucatan cenotes.

Our gear was loaded into a civilian version of the big truck the Mexican Army had at the site, the one Tim called a deuce and a half.

Monday

We said our farewells at breakfast and left for Il Kil cenote. “At least we don’t have to ride in the back of the truck,” Tim joked. The NGS had provided a car and driver for us. They also had a film crew already at Il Kil who had camp set up, even Tim’s and my tents.

Cenote Il Kil is near Chichen Itza, so the drive took us about an hour. When we reached the highway, we turned west instead of east like when we went to the Cancun airport.

Not knowing much about cenotes except for what they are and how they’re formed, I was surprised to find that Il Kil was a major tourist attraction. A large parking lot was provided for visitors. The walkways were lined with vendors selling all sorts of tourist stuff. They even rented bright orange life preservers to people who weren’t confident about their swimming ability.

To reach the cenote, we had to follow the wide, rock-paved steps and sloped paved walkways that made our decent of twenty-five meters easier--I think. The tunnels the walkway went through might have been partially natural, but had definitely been carved from the limestone, and had frequent curved arches. There were places on the way down where you could look over a short rock wall and see the water below you.

While the steps and sloped walkways made the walk down to the water easier, the walkways were already wet from so many swimmers using them. There were dressing rooms and lockers available, as well as showers since everyone was expected to shower before entering the water.

Our descent down to the water was slow for the safety of the camera crew. This crew was different from the one at Montabala. I couldn’t believe how many people it took. There were two cameras and two guys with boom microphones. We had a director, a supervisor for each camera/sound crew, someone for each camera who ran around with a light meter, and three guys who seemed to be gofers for the director.

One camera crew had preceded us and filmed us making our way towards them through the tunnel. The other crew followed us. We didn’t have our tanks today. This was just a chance for Tim and me to acquaint ourselves with the cenote and the filming procedures. I did bring my two video and two still cameras, although Tim and I each had our own gofer, and they carried the cameras for us. Tim didn’t have his own cameras, so I let him use my old ones.

With gofers to carry our stuff and two camera crews filming everything we said and did, we felt a bit like movie stars. Almost everyone we passed looked at us to see if they could recognize us. Tim and I stopped to take the obligatory shower.

“Now I know why famous people hate the paparazzi,” I teased Tim.

“No shit,” he laughed.

Even before we reached the water, we could hear someone warning everyone that our crews would be filming for a television documentary. If they stayed, there was a chance they’d be in the documentary, so they needed to leave if they didn’t want to be filmed. I guess they didn’t need signed releases in Mexico like they would in the States.

Only two people left. Everyone else was even more curious about us now.

The tunnel opened to a wide deck a meter or so above the water, almost like the deck at a swimming pool. More stone steps led partway around the water, rising in elevation to give the more daring divers and jumpers a bit of a thrill. I don’t think the highest point was even five meters above the water.

From down here, the top of the cliff was nearly invisible, overgrown with lush tropical plants that hung down three meters or more. Some vines hung all the way to the water, as did dozens of tree roots that looked like brown ropes from a distance. One wall of the cliff had vines that had rooted and continued growing downward. In two places, waterfalls that looked more like a heavy spray from a shower head cascaded into the cenote. One came over the lip of the cliff, while the second came through a second, much smaller opening.

Twenty people were standing on or milling about the landing. Three were at various elevations on the diving platform, working up the courage to jump. Nine people were in the water paddling around, three of those wearing the orange life preservers.

“Jump in, dive in, or use the ladders?” Tim asked as we looked around.

“Surely, you jest,” I retorted. “I’m part fish. If I wasn’t surfing, scuba diving, or sketching when I was younger, I spent my summers at the rec center’s pool. I learned to dive to impress the girls,” I told him with a grin.

I didn’t tell him, but I still used the pool at the college several times a week. The diving coach for the swim team had tried to recruit me. I explained that I didn’t have enough time to practice as much as I’d need to.

I braved the small crowd of tourists and climbed the steps up to the diving area.

Tim headed for one of the two sturdy wooden ladders that reached the water from the walkway. While one crew filmed him, the other followed me to the highest diving level. After looking over the edge to make sure it was safe, I stepped back, took three short running steps, did a small hop at the end, and bounced off the edge. Since I didn’t have much room to get up a head of steam before starting the dive, I settled for a “full out.” That’s a forward two-and-a-half somersault with one twist. The twist comes at the end of the dive. A “full in” would start with the twist before the two-and-a-half somersaults.

The dive would only have a low degree of difficulty rating in a competition, but I was still pleased that I’d nailed it when I broke the surface of the water. I’d had plenty of time to finish my somersaults and twist, so I was vertically aligned when I hit the water. “Yes!” I hissed when I resurfaced, pumping my fist in the air to a round of polite applause from everyone watching.

“Showoff,” Tim hollered at me from across the cenote. I just grinned in reply.

We swam back over to the ladders and retrieved our fins, masks, and snorkels from our two gofers. Once those were in place, we each grabbed a video camera.

Tim had researched over a hundred known cenotes and sent his notes to the director who chose the five we’d do. Il Kil and Dos Ojos are two of the most widely recognized, although there are many other well-known cenotes.

Il Kil had the lush tropical scenery surrounding the rim and hanging down into the water, but nothing in the way of spectacular views of underwater stalactites, stalagmites, or other geological features. They chose this one to give the audience a better idea of what a cenote was, a body of water in a limestone cave or sinkhole.

People in Florida are experiencing the unexpected development of something similar when sinkholes suddenly open. Usually, the porous limestone beneath the ground has been eroded over years, decades, or centuries by naturally acidic surface water.

At first, the “overburden,” or the soil above the limestone, filters into the openings. That, however, can cause slight depressions at the surface, perhaps as little as a fraction of an inch. Those depressions capture more rainwater than before. That extra water filters down through the soil, becoming acidic in the process, and eats away more limestone, creating a vicious circle until the grand collapse.

However, that’s not always the cause, and there isn’t always a shallow depression to give away the formation of a cavern belowground. Still, the end result is a hole in the limestone and the overburden falling into it.

Since the Yucatan has no rivers, any rain that doesn’t evaporate sinks into the ground, eventually reaching the aquifer. That aquifer flows through the limestone that underlies so much of the Yucatan peninsula. In extended periods of drought, the water levels in the aquifer drop.

Believe it or not, the water pressure in a full aquifer helps to support the surface soil and prevents sinkholes from forming. When the water level drops, gaps open above the now lower water level where the limestone has been eroded and sinkholes can occur.

Overuse of the aquifer’s water via wells to provide water for drinking and irrigation also causes a drop in the aquifer’s level.

Anyway, that’s how cenotes develop. I’d never heard of the other three cenotes they’d chosen to film, probably because they hadn’t been developed commercially like Il Kil and Dos Ojos.

The Dos Ojos Cenote has two cenotes with an extensive cave network connecting them, one you can scuba dive through. Where Il Kil would only take a couple of days to explore, Dos Ojos could take a week, depending on how thoroughly the NGS wanted it documented.

From the water, Tim and I filmed what was above the waterline, including the spectators, the vegetation, and the small waterfalls. Next, we filmed the edges of the cenote down to about six meters. There was nothing about the edges that would differentiate them from the edges of any other cenotes.

We had decided to wait until tomorrow to make the dive to the bottom of the cenote, more than a hundred meters down. It would be the deepest dive that I’d ever made and would have to be a short dive.

Despite playing in the water for almost two hours, we had plenty of time before dark to charge the batteries for our diving equipment. The film crew had been here since Monday and already had all the background shots they needed. The support crew even had lunch prepared for us when we finally climbed out of the water.

Friday

Tim and I ate breakfast and started our dive at eight this morning, wanting to start before the crowds arrived. This time, the gofers were much appreciated as they helped lug our gear down the steps and ramps to the water. I thought that filming us carting everything from our campsite down to the water was a bit of overkill, but what do I know about making a television special?

“I think we’ll be done here tomorrow,” Tim commented when we surfaced at the end of our dive. I agreed, and we told the director.

The director looked thoughtful for several seconds before asking, “Do you think we can finish Dos Ojos?”

I looked to Tim for an answer because he was the one who had investigated and chosen it.

“Probably not as thoroughly as I’d like. A thorough documentation could take a month,” he finally replied.

Within an hour, a phone call had been made. We received permission and the advance team was on the way.

Saturday

As Tim predicted, we finished exploring and documenting the cenote today. The director had reviewed our footage from yesterday and was sure that what we filmed today would be more than he needed. Aside from the beauty of the place and how easy it would make explaining what a cenote was, Il Kil was actually pretty boring. There was nothing to research or discover.

I’d spent time last night and tonight sketching the way the cenote looked when the Maya used it, complete with ladders so they could reach the water from the surface. The director was excited when he saw them and asked if they could use them in the documentary. When I agreed, he wondered if I could paint the scenes.

“It depends on when you need them by. I have a commitment to finish ten paintings for Montabala before they open and another four for the UNAM museum. I’m only halfway finished with the first ten, and it’s taken two months. I can probably have one painting of each cenote finished by summer, but they’ll be acrylic instead of oil.”

He thought that acrylic would be fine. They didn’t plan to keep or display the paintings, just include them in the documentary.

I continued to meet Amy for dream sex every night.

We finished filming Dos Ojos with a day to spare. As Tim predicted, we could have spent a month there documenting every facet. Heck, parts were still unexplored. To help speed things up, we hired one of their guides to show us the most impressive sights in the cave complex. We filmed the snorkeling area and the bat cave, although those were far from exciting. The rest of the cave we filmed was lit only by the lights from our cameras and flashlights.

To speed up the filming even more, Tim filmed from the center to the left and I filmed to the right, but we both covered things the guide pointed out.

Thursday

When we flew home, Tim was heading back to Greece to continue exploring and documenting an ancient shipwreck, yet another NGS sponsored site. I let him hang onto the cameras I’d loaned him. They were better that what he had, and I still had my newer, expensive cameras. I didn’t expect to use them before Christmas when we continued working on the cenote documentary.

I was surprised to find Ray and four students waiting for me at the airport. By the time I cleared customs, so had my equipment, and they had everything loaded into one of the school’s pickup trucks. Ray drove me to where my truck was parked, and I met the guys with my gear at my house. They even carted everything into the bedroom I used for storage.

Amy was at the house and began stripping me the second the guys were gone, and the door was closed. I’d tipped the four guys and even gave them enough to stop for pizza on the way home.

After Amy finally finished with me, we ate our own dinner. Then we picked up where we left off before dinner. When we were too exhausted to continue, we cuddled, went to sleep, and enjoyed dream sex.

Friday

I was surprised when I awoke well before the sun was up, but not surprised that I felt well-rested. Looking at the clock, it was only 4:33. Sneaking out of bed, I dressed and headed for my studio. I made sure the “curtains” covered the windows to mute the bright lights, so I didn’t bother any of the neighbors.

By the time I quit Sunday night, I had two more of the ten paintings finished and one nearly finished.

Three weeks later

I gave Amy a kiss this morning, right before she boarded her flight home for Christmas. I had another hour to kill before my flight left for San Diego.

My parents were excited to see me when I reached the baggage claim. Thank goodness that my gear was already en route to Mexico via Fed-Ex, compliments of the NGS. They would store it at Montabala until I arrived. Included in the gear headed for Montabala were the crated paintings for Montabala and the UNAM museum. They still needed to dry for a few months before they could be varnished, but they were finished and dry to the touch.

I had an enjoyable time visiting my family and had to explain more about all the projects I’d been involved in and was still involved in. Mom worried that my busy schedule would affect my grades. I explained that my schedule seemed to fit the time I had available, almost as if someone were scheduling things for me. I’d already explained about the Tribunal. Besides, I still had a 4.0 GPA since starting college, including the just-concluded semester.

They were excited to see all the pictures I had of my house. Mom asked who the cute girl in several of the pictures was.

“That’s Amy, my girlfriend until she earns her Master’s degree in May and heads back to Oregon.”

“Just like that, she’s leaving?” Mom asked.

“We both knew going in that it would happen. Besides, my wife has already been chosen for me.”

“Chosen?” my sister gasped, requiring me to explain about the visit with the Tribunal when they told me about it.

“And you’re okay with them choosing?” she asked.

“Everything they’ve asked me to do has turned out well, if not spectacularly. What I’m able to do and the renown I’m gaining are all due to their help and guidance. I have no reason to believe that the woman they have chosen as my wife will be anything less. If anything, they’ll probably do a better job than I would have,” I laughed.

My Christmas presents were simple. I gave everyone five of the common Double Eagles. They could keep them or sell them, and the one-hundred-dollar face value of the gift was well below the fifteen-thousand-dollar federal threshold where they would have to pay taxes on it. I set up a college fund for my niece.

I did take one day to go surfing, renting a board since mine was in the storage room of my house. By the time I returned the board, I’d realized that my passion for surfing had been supplanted by diving, archaeology, and art. It was still a passion, and I’d loved every minute I spent riding the storm-generated waves today.

I hoped the realization didn’t mean that the wife that had been chosen for me wouldn’t like me surfing.

Aside from the paintings for Montabala and the UNAM museum, I have completed three acrylic paintings for the cenote documentary. One more was nearly finished and the fifth one was half-finished.

Dad drove me to the airport when my vacation was over. I boarded a pre-dawn flight to Cancun. I’d been surprised when the NGS bought my ticket, more so when I saw that I was in first class.

I immediately recognized Greg from Montabala when I reached the luggage carousel in the Cancun airport. He waved and led me to a waiting car, which took us to a waiting helicopter, and a Mexican Army helicopter at that.

“The captain offered the use of the helicopter,” Greg explained as we boarded. The pilot and co-pilot both grinned and waved. I could see that they remembered me.

By the time we were buckled in, the whine of the helicopter’s engine had risen enough that I knew we were about to take off, and we did. Less than an hour later, the chopper settled to the ground in Montabala. The view during the overflight of the site had been spectacular.