MEDIA LUNA - OASIS IN THE MOUNTAINS

by

Paul Johnston

In addition to scuba diving, some of the hobbies that I have enjoyed are caving and cave photography. Many of my cave photography trips have been to the interior of Mexico.  As an underworld creature, cavers tend to crawl around and slog through cave mud.  Therefore, in the course of a trip, we tend to get pretty grubby and nasty.  If we can find a place to melt the mud off before coming back across the border, this is great!  And if we can find a place to swim and snorkel, then this is even better!

One such watering hole is just outside the town of Mante.  We would drive down a narrow dirt road through sugar cane fields and emerge at the base of a mountain with a giant spring flowing out of a mouth of a cave.  The crystal clear water flowed into a large pond and then out to irrigation ditches feeding the farm fields. We would swim in the water to get the dirt off our bodies and camp there overnight.  The spring with the mountain backdrop is a very pretty sight.

You can snorkel across the pond, into the rushing water from the mouth of the cave, up into the cave and stop at the back wall of the cave a short distance back.  There is a skylight so that you can see while you are in the cave and see out through the vine draped entrance.  This cave was where the famous cave diver, Sheck Excely, once set a world underwater depth record of over 800 feet.  Once in the cave, you can let the water shoot you out the entrance and back out into the pond.

Many an adventure can be expanded if you meet other adventurers along the way.  This happened on this trip.  At Mante, there was a small group of cave divers from Houston, traveling in a recreational vehicle.  One of the macho male divers had his girl friend with him.  She wore flashy clothes, heels, and a fur coat.  She reminded me of Ginger on Gilligan's Island.  In striking up a conversation with them, they told us of another mystical place called Media Luna, a giant warm spring a little south of us.  Tales of the beauty of this place were spun and we soaked it in.

We decided that if we had time to go there after we had gone caving, we would try to find it.  After caving, we took our vague directions and headed for Media Luna.  It was night time and as we came to a nearby town; we asked directions. We headed through the town and followed irrigation ditches through the fields and then arrived at Media Luna, meaning half-moon.  This was the shape of the large spring.

As long as I live, I will never forget the wonderful fairy-tale impression that this spring had on me that night.  There was a full moon and a heavy coat of steam pouring from the surface of the spring into the air creating a fog layer.  There was one lone tall palm near the banks with the moon hanging from its upper-most branches.  The water from these springs are warm, around 80 or so degrees.  When you placed your hand in the water, it felt like heavenly warm bath water.  We all got on our bathing suits and went for a swim.  Swimming in this glowing fountain of youth in the full moon was something we could not believe.  As you would paddle through the water, you would push the steam around you in the chilly night air.  As I looked up into the stars before falling asleep that night, I thought this has got to be diver's heaven!

That night's memory was indelible.  We all have them.  The first time you visit a wonderful place, or experience something overwhelming, it is with you forever.  The next time you visit the same place or have a similar situation, it is never the same or as wonderful, but your memory becomes even more precious.

The next morning under full sun, things looked differently.  We were several thousand feet up in elevation with the mountains in the distant.  The warm water is crystal clear and over a 100 feet of depth in the center.  Around the crescent shape of the spring, is a very heavy thick vegetative mass of organic material lining the banks of the springs.  As you walk along the bank, you get the feeling as if you are walking on a water bed filled with jello.  On this first trip, we had no diving equipment.  I was drooling to get back.  On the banks was a large floating barge that looked like the locals were using the force of the springs to generate electrical power.  Our time was short and we had to come home, but I vowed to come back with diving equipment.

Sure enough, that time came.  I had told some of the people at the New Guild Co-op where Iwas living about this place and had about three from here go with me.  Also, I had my diver friend, Walter Helmick and another  friend, Larry Clark, who I was in the process of training go.  We rode down in "The Orange Armadillo", my 1971 four- wheel drive Chevrolet Surburban truck.  On the way down we saw a "shortcut" on the topographical map and took it through the desert.  The road's surface was like a washboard.  As you rode along, your body would rattle.  Besides being hot, the road had large humps at just the right intervals that literally shook your insides apart. We could go only about 5 miles per hour and were bouncing on the seats all the way.  The desert heat made gasoline fumes come out of the spare gas can in the back of the truck.  We had a flat in the heat of the day on our shortcut.  Naturally, diving and camping gear had to be unloaded in order to get to the spare on the inside of the truck.  Larry claims he has pictures of the group changing the tire, everyone but Walter who he says was just standing around.  We were glad to arrive.

Where we parked, some bulldozing had taken place.  So this parking area was not as beautiful as before, but the water was just the same.  I told Walter to take the Larry down to the shoreline and help him get his equipment on and I would get my equipment on at the truck and come down and do a dive with them.  As I approached the water's edge, Larry was thrashing and stumbling out of the water, cursing all the way.  He had had it and wanted no part of diving and told me in no uncertain terms.  This was a good friend of mine that did not like being in water.  I had convinced him that diving was really easy.  He went along and took diving lessons.  I had told him that a training dive in these clear waters would be a piece of cake. Before we got to Media Luna, he claims I tried to drown him!.

It seems that on one pool session, I had inadvertently given him a nearly empty tank.  As part of the training, I had him take his equipment off and leave it at the bottom of the pool and go back down and put it back on.  Well, just as he was getting into the equipment, he ran out of air and shot to the surface, scaring both of us!  To this day, he claims I tried to kill him.   Larry read this story and sent me email to correct my version of the story.  He says:

Pablo,

You also left out the part about standing on my shoulders, and not letting me streak to the surface - after I had expelled every molecule of air I had in me!

Also, I actually hit the safety and the tank grudgingly gave me about 3 more breaths of air. If you're going to tell the story, at least get it right. I gotta sign off now. I' m out of breath from telling this.

Larry

Next Message:

To: KFYI

Hey, you DID try to drown me! And anyway, you forgot about the flat tire we had on our "short Cut. " I still have some slides of that...Walter watching, while everybody else was trying to help get it fixed. And how about a mention by name? Larry

He is a dear pal.  I learned a valuable lesson, that sometimes, you have to believe what a person tells you.

Anyway, many dives were made into this clear water.  There are some giant tree trunks that are laying underwater. The water is crystal clear, if you do not stir up the bottom.  The bottom is a kind of a loam of organic material. If you stir the bottom up, it looks like giant blobs of black pepper floating in the water which will take several hours to settle back down.  Around the water's edge are shallow underwater caves going under the floating weed masses.  These caves are just under the surface and maybe 10 to 20 feet in diameter and maybe going to 20 feet in depth.  Every so often, there are skylights in the weed masses. You can swim up and poke your head out of these large holes like a gopher and see the sky and be a eye level with the grass.  The sunlight streaming down into these underwater tunnels is truly a magnificent sight to behold.  There may be several skylight in a row.

At the bottom of the spring in several places, are the openings to the springs were large quantities of water shoot from the mouth.  Special precautions have to be taken when diving at Media Luna.  One is of a decompression nature.  The water in some places is deep like the ocean, so your depth and time have to be closely monitored.  Because Media Luna is at several thousand feet above sea level, high altitude tables need to be used.  Also, because of this altitude and depending on the type of depth guage used, provisions have to be made in measuring your depth.

Over the years, several trips have been made to this location.  As this place has become more discovered, a recreational area has been developed around it. About 15 years ago, litter was beginning to be left around the spring by its visitors.  A few years ago, late one Saturday night, I saw the spring featured on a treasuring hunting adventure movie on a cable Spanish speaking television station. I hope the locals are able to keep this once pristine spring as beautiful as my wondrous memories of it are.

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