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Sontanos, Abejas y una Vibora
by Shane Drake
From the May 2000 Flowstone
Although life is a drama of changes, it is nice to know that some things remain the same. Your family will still care about you, good friends will be there for you, and that feeling you get before you plunge into the unknown remains the same. Call it adrenaline, call it crazy, call whatever you want. For me, it's an addiction that runs deeper than I thought, and it was great to be feeding it again after a self imposed moratorium of way too long. If pits are your poison then Mexico is the mother crackhouse. For years I had wondered how I would feel looking into Golondrinas. In all honesty, I don't know what I felt. There wasn't anxiety, or nervousness, or second guessing myself. In truth, I needed to be there. Drinas is the realization of any pit bouncer's dreams, and mine were no exception. The sheer size, the squawking birds, the electricity, words cannot do it justice so I won't even try. I guess maybe I was a little more quiet that day than usual, but events in one's life of that magnitude that utterly and completely blow your mind kind of have that effect.
Equally impressive were the other pits on the agenda. Cepillo was magnificent. I would have liked to have bounced it more than once, but quarter sized blisters limited me to one trip down. Only in Mexico is a 414' pit considered a training drop, and this was the case for Santos, our guide. He made Cepillo the sight of his first rappel and climb. I think both Patrick and I invented some new terminology in Spanish getting him over the lip. On the bottom, Wendy and I discovered that the fabled "House of Bamboo" does not exist solely in song.
As for the abejas and vibora, we had to experience those at Guaguas. Upon reaching the lip, Glenn and I found that all those trips to the Mr. Yarborough's snake show in grade school paid off. "Red touches yella can kill a fella." Anyway the lure of a 666' foot drop was too much to resist, and no coral snake would stand in our way. Nor would the rumor of killer bees daunt our quest. Once again I'll attribute the misfortune we experienced to the number corresponding to the drop since the killer bees were only on the high side. They are real. They are mean, and they definitely hate gringos. After being warned by Patrick about 30' from the top, I learned the meaning of climbing quietly. I was fortunate to emerge unstung, but Gary was lacking my suerte. My first encounter with the bees was after I had detached, and they sent me scattering gear down the side of the mountain. They never were able to sting me, and I avenged Gary to some degree by killing one of the little bastages. The trip back to the vehicles was scenic since I saw a lot more of it than the rest of the group, and I got to brush up on my Huastecan.
The trip was incredible. These were just some of the highlights. The low lights occurred on the way down. Thanks to everybody for letting me go, especially Pat. Thanks for not giving up on me bud. People "find themselves" in different ways. My way of finding myself is at the bottom of a hole covered in mud, but only then am I clean. The cleanest I've been.
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