LA CUEVE DE CHOCOLATE

Photo Gallery

QUESTION: What are Luis and Vicente waiting for? (behind them: entrance to Cueva Chocolate)

ANSWER: "I'll be there in a couple hours, guys!"    Nobody can drag Claudio Chilomer away from a river, especially the beautiful Pihuamo!

Horizontal stripes in a side passage where we found...

...this wolf spider and...

a blood-sucking chinche hocicona (Triatoma infestans).

"Mmm, They almost look like they're covered with GUANO!"

You have to crawl over a "sandbar" along the way.  On the floor we found a lot of black powder that a magnet proved to be something like iron filings (Remember, there's a great iron mine up in the hills above).

A big, dripping column just at the entrance to the Hall of the Goblins

Susy in a spot where the cave narrows.

It's Claudio stuck in another swimming pool. Water bubbling out of this hole may be responsible for the "goblins' voices" we thought we heard.

Thanks to the wolf spider and the chinche hocicona, we decided to pitch our tents inside the cave. Good thing we did, as all night long we could hear vampire bats whizzing above us.

Early in the morning, while it was still dark outside, Don Rafa scared us right out of our sleeping bags with his wake-up call, ready for his first visit to this cave.

"What? Don't take that picture! Lemme go put on my makeup!"