CAVERNLAS DE VENADO

May 29, 2014

Cueva Venado Costa Rica

In Costa Rica volcano's identify a fault line that cuts through the country land running parallel to both oceans on both sides of the country. The Costa Rican land is fairly new in geological history and the volcano's elevate the country like a mountain range with some volcano's more active than others. Driving through the countryside was beautiful but can get annoying with the meandering switchback roads going over the mountain range. The traffic and also get quite backed up as well as navigating through the small towns. After a four hour drive north we were able to make it to venado cave. This is a 2.5km cave system which is one of the longest caves in Costa Rica. This cave has a tourist section where they take you into the cave with helmets and lights to a certain point of the cave.

Entrance to Cueva Venado Costa Rica

This is one of the largest caves in the northern section of Costa Rica with a river running through it. The cave itself was mostly walking passage that must have been between 75 and 80 degrees inside and 80 degree water.

Passage in Venado Cave

Passage in Venado CAve Costa Rica

There were some gypsum formations, calcite formations, small waterfalls as we entered the cave. It continued into a crawl where it opened up into a room that had a nice flowstone rim stone dam with flowstones surrounding the back of the cave itself. We continued out and up into the main river passage noticing the guapa non poisonous scorpion but in Costa Rica they had more than one species of non poisonous scorpion which was interesting to see.

Adam Haydock holding a Guapa Spider in Cueva Venado Costa Rica

Furthermore this cave is estimated to be between 5 million and 20 million years old so there is a few stratified layers where sea shells are in abundance. We continue up to where water polished lava rocks and petrified wood lay on the ground and notice a tarantula hiding I between two rocks.

Petrified Wood In Cueva Venado Costa Rica

This is a first for me to see multiple non poisonous scorpions, a tarantula, and petrified wood inside a cave.

Tarantula in Cueva Venado Costa Rica

We climb over some small waterfall sections and come to a room with a window in the ceiling that is leading to the outside.

Cueva Venado Costa Rica

This cave has four entrances total and a possible connection to another cave. We start to head back out after observing the cave and make it back to the car only to find I have a tire that is so low I need to change the wheel. My luck!! Flat tire...I ended up driving off on a spare tire that was also super low but made it to Monterrey in time to get the tires filled with air.