San Luis Potosi, Mexico
The Sótano de las Golondrinas, or “Cave of Swallows” is one of the greatest attractions of the Huasteca area of the state of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. It is located near the town of Aquismón in an area rife with water and lush vegetation. This giant sinkhole, with a main shaft that plunges to a depth of 370 meters (1,220 feet)f from its highest rim and a gaping elliptical mouth measuring about 49 by 62 meters (160 x 205 feet), is the product of water erosion and is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Below the level of the mouth, the cave widens substantially, forming a cavernous space of about 303 x 135 meters (995 x 400 feet) at the bottom. There is an additional narrow sinkhole at the base of the cave’s main shaft that leads down to a depth of over 500 meters.
The main shaft of the cave can be explored by experienced cavers by rappelling down into its depths and then making a time-consuming and exhausting climb back out, but it is more popularly enjoyed by BASE jumpers who launch themselves breathtakingly into the abyss, releasing parachutes that then waft them onto a relatively flat landing area at the bottom, returning to the top by extraction rope.
The cave is the home to great quantities of birds–mostly white-collared swifts and green parakeets–that every morning spiral dizzyingly out of the pit to spend their day feeding, sometimes flying great distances from the cave where they roost. Every evening, the flocks of birds return to the mouth of the cave, taking turns plunging headlong back into the hole and to their nests for the night.
More technical information on the cave can be found at http://www.wondermondo.com/Countries/NA/Mexico/SanLuisPotosi/SotanoGolondrina.htm
Wikipedia contributors, “Cave of Swallows,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cave_of_Swallows&oldid=430192825 (accessed May 27, 2011).
Photo: By Esantiago2403 (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Originally posted 2011-05-27 15:55:49.
