Several years ego, our neighbor Bob showed us a mouth-watering reference in his motorist’s guide. It was a description of the fabulous cave of El Bandido Lozada and painted a vivid picture of the place with its seven entrances, perpetually full pool of cool drinking water and endless tunnels and rooms where an entire army - on horseback no less - could easily be hidden.
This better-than-Disney cave was supposed to be located near a certain San Juan, not far from the town 
of Jalisco, Nayarit. However, Neither the local librarian nor the town president had ever heard of it and we had to settle for La Caverna de la Taberna (The Cavern of the Tavern), described it the September 1987 Explorer of the NSS Southern California Grotto.
Could it be that the reference had been misplaced by a sleepy editor and the San Juan in question was actually near the state - rather than town -of Jalisco?
Long poring over our maps convinced us that San Juan de Abajo, near Puerto Vallarta, might hold the key to that legendary, yet elusive cave.
On December 16, 1988, Susy, Claudio, Jesús and I drove into dusty, sleepy San Juan and walked into a restaurant next to the deserted town square. A woman, busy, washing dishes looked up at us.
“Good afternoon, señora, would you happen to know of a cave anywhere near San Juan?” Glancing back towards an open doorway, the woman shouted out of the side of her mouth, “Oye, Pablo, someone here’s looking for the cave.”
The Cave? Shock-surprise-elation. Found it at last, and obviously we re not the first ones come looking for it!
Jauntily, we sauntered into the next room where Pablo and several buddies were deeply engaged in, a hard Game of dominoes,
Excuse us, please, but we’d appreciate directions to the cave.”
La Cueva? Si, caballeros (with a curious, glance at Susy), you’ll find it, oh, seven blocks down, one block past the church.”
Incredible the cave entrance was actually inside the town of San Juan It was so incredible, in fact, that Jesús ventured to ask ... “Hmmm, by the way, how deep is it?”
“Deep?” Bueno, ¡it’s no deeper than right here ... just the same” The seed of doubt was growing ... “This cave, is It maybe a kind of quarry?” “Quarry? No, look, the cave is the only place around here with
girls.”
At this, light bulbs began to go on in our minds, but to confirm our new, suspicions. Susy stepped up and asked, “Just what kind of place is this cave?”
Under her steady gaze, our informants began nervously to mumble to each other and finally whispered an inaudible word to Jesús.
“Caray! He exclaimed, “we didn’t mean that kind of place. We’re looking for a hole in the Ground, you know, full of bats and guano...”
What kind of impression that last remark left, I really can’t surmise, but I’d bet a bottle of tequila those farmers In San Juan de Abajo will be talking about the disgusting, Kinky preferences of Guadalajarans for many years to come.
