This Cave Has A Secret Underground Waterfall Inside… And I Built It

I want to share with you some of the secrets of creating this amazing underground aquatic paradise just the sound of that an underground aquatic paradise it's just it's hard to even imagine but you're looking at it right here all right we are in the middle of construction back here in southern Africa and what we're doing right now is we're trying to disguise that incredible dome you saw me talking about it in the cenote vlog that beautiful steel structure that the fabricators created absolutely spectacular work of art but now we got to bury it it's going to disappear no one will ever ever see it again so what we want to do though is we want to cover it in a series of these big massive pieces of stone which is going to blend into all the other thousands and I mean thousands of tons of rock that we've already set on the project but now we have to start layering in these veins of stone so we're choosing very specific pieces and actually it looks like we might need to restrap that a little bit but we're choosing very specific pieces that are kind of thin skins almost so it's going to look like a big piece of monolithic rock jutting out of a mountainside but actually it's just almost a stone veneer and when I say a stone veneer it's about 14 feet long and it weighs I don't even know how many thousands and thousands of pounds but a massive piece of rock but in the overall scale of things it's actually very very small so what I want to do right now we have the location above the waterfall where it's going to go so what I want to do is I'm going to go down below as they lift it up and we're going to carefully position it at the right angle that's going to pick up all the different striations that we've already placed in this amazing project so I am standing in the upper pool that is feeding the main waterfall this are those massive stones that are 25 feet tall they go all the way to the bottom of that plunge pool massive massive chunks of rock that are 100 tons I'm talking 100 ton rocks and we have mirror images of each other so this upper pool is going to feed that waterfall while we were gone the team has been incredibly busy we set that beautiful dome structure then on top of that what they did they came in and they infilled the area in between all of the steel eye beams with reinforced concrete that's going to give us the structural integrity that we need to hold up these massive stones that are going to sit on top of it as well as trees we're going to have trees growing out from the roof of this structure so they were very concerned about that so they came in with a waterproofing system they painted everything on then they flame on this other material so this creates a very durable waterproof material that's going to stop any water intrusion not that it's going to hurt anything they don't get a lot of rain here so it's very very dry and also if the cave is weeping water it's not going to hurt anything but we don't want to compromise the structure so we want to try to keep water out as much as possible the other thing that the team has done once this dome was in place it wasn't physically attached wasn't bolted directly to the concrete walls so what they did they came in with a series of concrete blocks and they built up a secondary wall and then the steel structures behind it and they infilled everything in between with concrete to lock everything in place and attach it directly to those massive wall systems so this is the irrigation system or part of the irrigation system we have a dozen different lines coming inside of this dome structure so even though it's going to be in a shaded situation it's going to be much cooler still really really dry here in southern africa so we have to make sure that we have plenty of moisture inside of the dome structure the cenote to create that damp moist feel because that's the goal of this entire thing you have these beautiful tropical plants and the only way to make that sustainable is through irrigation but what i love about this is talking with the plumbers today we're actually drawing water from our pond so this is going to be recirculated pond water that's going to be nutrient rich from all the incredible fish that are living inside of the system which is going to feed all of the plants in here that water is going to be captured by the plants any excess water is going to get channeled into a series of drains it's going to go into a underground sump system it's going to get pumped right back into the pond so we are recirculating we're saving every drop of water on the property because down here southern africa water is the most amazing and important assets that they can have here and unfortunately it comes in very small amounts so we want to try to protect it as much as possible recycling using that nutrient rich water and i tell you what those plants are going to be thanking us for all right so we got sean and jay up on the dome right now so what i want to do is just kind of get some eyes because this is the main viewing area so our main view is coming from that direction towards the waterfall so i want to make sure that everything lines up if you're a rock person you're a water feature person you have to get the view from the main viewing area not right in front of you very very difficult to set stone right in front of it you got to step back look at everything from all the different angles to make sure that it works especially in a situation like this it's a heavy heavy stone it's got to be a perfect position otherwise we don't want to compromise anything so i want to take the necessary time to actually pull this off effectively so we had a huge huge task in front of us so building this cenote this underground cavern we wanted it lush but we also wanted to have a lot of rock inside of it so it's kind of that balancing point what we needed to do was create this big concrete structure this was going to be structurally sound because we were going to bury it and i'm talking millions pounds of soil and rock and water and plants and everything on top of it so it had to be this bomb-proof shelter big steel dome on top of it but now it's really really harsh so we have to make it disappear there's only so much soil we could bring on the inside so we're going to set these rocks and again just a handful of rocks i wanted to come in with these big veins of rock coming through just to create a really pronounced structural visual element and then in between that i wanted to have lush vegetation so we did a combination of things one of the things that we did was mound up soil so we could actually change the elevations as we walk in it's going to be flat we're going to have our pool of water then we're going to have it mounded up a little bit and then these big veins of rock coming down so we can get some plantings in there but now we have that dome coming across and we have a vertical wall so we have sections that are going to be anywhere from six feet three to six feet it varied a little bit so what i wanted to do was come in with a living wall system so working with andre working with jason working with patrick coming up with a plan to actually create and just make all that stuff disappear what i love about this design not only is it going to change the coldness of just all that stone it's going to warm it up a little bit you're going to have a nice contrast between the browns and the greens and everything but through the process of evaporative transpiration or the process of transpiration we are going to have all of these plants growing through the process of photosynthesis they're going to transpire they're going to be putting water vapor into the atmosphere so when you walk into the cenote it should feel completely and i mean completely different than the surrounding outside harsh dry deserty type of a ecological system so we wanted to have high moisture so the only way to do that is have a waterfall on the inside but have lots of plants so as as those plants are growing they're just going to pump moisture into the atmosphere and then it's going to just kind of work on itself so i wanted to create a cool place because again being out here midday you can't sit outside in the open you're going to be sitting in the shade you're going to be out of those elements so by creating this beautiful basically an indoor garden of eden it's just going to be incredible this little hidden oasis so the only way to pull that off working with our local contact here he found these locally i don't know how local but uh they had to get them shipped in we have many many pallets but what we have basically here we have these beautiful little pre-made panels and you can see on the back they have holes in them to mount them to concrete and on the front side we have this other panel and this is going to mate right up to it so you're going to drill through that you can mount it directly to the concrete now that's part one the other thing you can see you got these channels coming down so what we have is we have water being distributed from the top and it's going to flow down through each one of these little channels now each one of these channels when we snap this together and screw that into place i'm gonna have to lay it down i won't be able to hold it i do not have those screws with me so we put that in place if i can get it there close enough then we'll get these little pots this tiny little thing be 5 000 we have 5 000 of these little pots then you have to have 5 000 little wicks that are going to get matched right inside of there so what happens so this is going to get snapped directly into here you have that wick over on that side and what you see this little wick is going to mate itself up to the inside of that channel so now when we have water coming through it's going to saturate that and what's going to happen because as the as the plant is growing it's going to suck up that moisture it's going to draw more of that stuff in through that little wick those plants all 5 000 of them are planted on the wall are going to start to grow but the best best part of all this the irrigation water is recirculated from our wetland filtration system so all the water from our pond all the fish waste all those little beautiful micronutrients that plants need for anything growing actually needs is actually going to be pulled out of the pond it's going to irrigate it's going to drip itself through these walls the plants are going to explode with growth and then there's a drainage system so down at the very very bottom you can see that opens up so there's a channel drain down at the bottom so as the water flushes through any excess water that's not actually utilized by the plants it's not just going to dump into the ground we're going to capture it we're going to put it into a small tank we're going to put it back into the pond this is sustainability at its finest so we're creating a air purifying system with all the plants we're creating a natural humidifier we're creating a visual as well as a sound changing environment because when you have all rock when you have all these hard surfaces people are inside they're talking or if you have that big waterfall it actually will become uncomfortably uncomfortably loud noisy so what we want to do we want to dampen that and the best way to do it vegetation so at the nursery stocking area and there's a few options we had for the species to go up through the dome so there's that hole in the dome roof which is going to be absolutely awesome tree wise we had to try and get the tallest thing we could now the tallest thing we could hear at the nursery is eight meters or so 24 25 feet which is this one now i've spent a bit of time looking at them these are big root balls we have dug that hole already for it and they're five feet by five feet by three feet three and a half feet deep this height now will have about a meter and a half coming out of the top of the dome what i like about this particular one this one here already has that lean that we want and you can see how it comes up and then moves up straight again so it's just i think it's going to take really well if you come on side view here you can see it that's actually how we have to plant it because the of the dome is probably in line with pretty much this straight up so we want it to come out and come up into the into the opening and out through the top this has got that perfect arc to it and i think it's going to work really well it's a shelter species so it's a local species south african species these are brought up from tree farms anyway i think this is the one for it and i hope this one goes in because it's the best option i want to know how to measure a tree okay so it's pretty straightforward you get a stick you need a tape measure or mark or paste it out but you just hold the stick like this and you want the bottom of the bottom of your hand doesn't matter where you hold it but the bottom of your hand or the top of your hand there at the base of the tree you can see that there like that and then you the top of it so you want to get it so it's on the top of the sticks equal to the top the crown of the tree at the top and then you just rotate it using the same axis and your eye and you find that spot over there which i've identified as a little patch of grass and you go over to it and if you paste that out that'll give you how tall that tree is so this is where i was uh coming up with i turn the stick over we have one two seven eight meters so that's a pretty simple way you could do with all sorts of things work out how tall something is a building or whatever you had to pull the tree how do you feel about it same precursor this is something i've been talking about this for eight months to get this in place and finally this tree is going in so awesome what do you think patrick oh yeah i've been waiting i've been waiting i nearly wasn't going to come back i couldn't come back and i was just so disappointed exactly this that i was going to get to get it see and work on this tree coming in so really happy tonight we're in the final inning of this massive massive project in southern africa i mean we are right down to it week and a half of work left finishing details lots of stuff happening 500 ton crane showed up today we were trying to get in a few more big big boulders we cut out a ledge to place some of these big boulders and then we're doing a large planting bed but some of these big boulders are going at the entry to the grotto so that beautiful cenote that we're creating which by the way is unbelievable it's going to blow your mind i'm telling you right now but we need to finish it off the proper way we have these massive massive boulders going in at the entry because i want to make it look like a real cave you're walking through the mountains you find this little canyon you weave your way through the canyon and it opens up into this doorway lush vegetation on each side the doorway gets a little bit smaller you kind of get a little bit claustrophobic and all of a sudden you come around and it opens up into this massive cenote waterfall cascading down green lush environment in the middle of a desert it's unbelievable but now here we are it's dark sun's been down for an hour hour and a half or so we have to get that crane moved tonight because i got to get those rocks in i was hoping to have them in tonight we were planning on staying late tonight now we're going to be staying late for multiple nights because this entire ledge has got to be removed we got to pick up the entire crane not pick it up we have to shuffle it over but the crane weighs 500 tons it can't just pick up and drive we have to take all the big counterweights off in order for him to safely do that even though we're only moving at 30 feet it's a massive massive undertaking it's going to take us into the early morning hours at this point hopefully by tomorrow we're going to be able to get some of those big giant boulders in place because it's the only thing that's really going to make this project be one of a kind we were just talking with our trusty guide effin who has been taking us around showing us some different things here on the property came up this very unique path he's very familiar with this area and he wanted to show me this amazing piece of artwork very very subtle but you can kind of make it out here this is a giraffe that has been carved into the stone now this is basalt rocks very very hard very very dense so they chose the appropriate rock to carve into he's telling me there's more on the property but they are off limits i can't even go to see them but he wanted to take me out here to check this thing out absolutely stunning i mean just we wet the rock down so you can see it is very subtle you can see the head of the giraffe got the horns over here long neck got the legs coming down just unbelievable they actually had a team from one of the local universities that came out many many years ago they wanted to date some of these and they went from 700 years old to up to 27 000 years old unbelievable how long people have been living on this very very property absolutely spectacular and to me this is priceless this is really really cool uh the first plant like this that we are installing on this project which is really awesome because i have been looking at them for over a year my very first visit coming here i saw them in the surrounding mountainsides and i just fell in love with them it's a unique tree it's called a copus tree lives in these rocky craggy areas i mean there's no roots on that thing it's all water so it just anchors itself in between these rocks and it grows in these massive canyons and things which is exactly what we built biomimicry at its finest creating a unique environment finding the right plants what i love about this they are very very difficult to transplant but these ones were found at a lower elevation normally we don't have access to them there's no way we can get equipment up to those higher elevations these ones thankfully we found three of them at a lower elevation we extracted them carefully because we want to create something that the world has never seen that's going to be a part check out the incredible diversity of plants that we have sourced for this amazing cenote project this is one of three indoor greenhouse systems that we have set everything up in now what we have to do is we have to take all these plants pull them apart get them inside the wall to make this entire cenote come alive we're in the entrance into this incredible cave system and this is an important part so these little details you cannot forget about the entry is just as important as the main cenote is itself and april i'm lucky i caught you because you got like how many left 15 or 20 out of 5000 yes i'm lucky i caught you but this looks phenomenal tell us your process we went over everything up above kind of talking about how the wick works how everything goes but what do you i mean you're and then just tucking settling it down into the pot yep making sure that it's best faces forward and perfect off we go excellent i tell you what this looks phenomenal i mean it's unbelievable this is a very very difficult space and we talked about it earlier because of the there's a little light coming in but it gets pretty dark most of the time so i know talking with andre he was a so what's your guess which one do you think is going to do the best in this spot i think these are going to do pretty well they've got a very nice dark leaf so they uh generally do better than like these are variegated so they don't photosynthesize as much because they've got the the ferns yeah yeah yeah it makes sense do quite well okay excellent we are down to the last hopefully a couple hours i actually don't know we have a lot of stuff to do clearly dark stars are coming up actually quite beautiful we are unloading yet another tree patrick is going crazy he has access to this massive nursery loaded with incredible plants i'm super stoked as well because as you can see we have been putting in these amazing the cobas the moringa the palms i mean it's just insane it's over the top so we have to keep it going we're right at the end we're pulling ourself out the aussie team is leaving tomorrow morning packing up and heading out they want to come back here to get a couple pictures so we're going to push through tonight make sure it all happens got to get a palm tree and we have to get the trees offloaded off of the crane trucks because the crane trucks want to leave that they have these trees on them so it's not like we can even do it tomorrow morning so we got to pull those things off we're digging holes we're dropping in the last few big boulders we have been pushing we had the big d9 dozer going pushing just massive quantities of soil regrading everything sean frost is over there cutting a customized log seat just over the top crazy stuff we're all everybody's tired it's been an incredibly long week it's been a long six months paul shared with me some pictures from back in march of 2024 for my very first visit on saint patrick's day i was here in southern africa now here it is may 25th 2025 after all the planning the logistics the shipments coordinating the rocks getting the big cranes on site the heavy equipment all the teammates the cac is coming in from around the world all collaborating together right here in southern africa to create something the world never seen when i told our client we were going to build a mountain he kind of looked at me a little bit and said a mountain i said a mountain i want to recreate the surrounding countryside that you have here in this beautiful valley you got these massive ridge lines we need to bring it right up in front of everybody so you could truly appreciate it as well as block everything out on top of that we're going to create a waterfall cascading from the very top of this mountain and a cenote buried in the heart the past few days have been unbelievable started out actually months ago with a concrete foundation we slowly started burying it building up more and more soil i'm 30 plus feet above the original grade the amount of soil that we had to bring in here is absolutely unbelievable i actually don't even have the final count at this time so i'm waiting to get that actually from the heavy equipment operators the tonnages of stone 5 000 plus tons of stone massive rocks the rocks that you're looking at in front of you weigh upwards of 150 to 200 000 pounds massive slabs of stone exactly what we're finding in the surrounding mountainside what i think was really unique about this particular project is we have multiple viewing areas it's highly interactive actually i'm standing i'm gonna hop down i'm standing on the edge of a polaris track that he could drive his side by side up here with his friends and family like he's going through a mountain pass so this is highly viewable so when we're looking at things normally in a normal backyard you might have one or two views this is 360 degrees this feature starts at a lake system 600 feet from me the elevation changes the amount of stone the carving of everything careful orchestration of all the different trees these beautiful moringa trees heavy native vegetation meant to mimic that natural area around us then once you drive your way around the other side you're going to come into that beautiful lush valley which is the heart of everything you're going to cross multiple bridges you're going to be looking at these cascading waterfalls you're going to have this riparian system loaded with tropical vegetation because it's going to be a tropical paradise like you have never seen i want to share with you some of the secrets of creating this amazing underground aquatic paradise just the sound of that an underground aquatic paradise it's just it's hard to even imagine but you're looking at it right here with the construction using these massive concrete walls i forget how many how tall they were 15 feet tall we had to have a structural capacity to hold all the soil on top we set a beautiful absolutely gorgeous steel dome on top with a hole in the middle so we could have this beautiful selfless tree growing all the way up to the sky we've then added in layers of different types of boulders that are mimicking the natural geology that i've been trying to do since the very beginning of the project tucked in between those boulders we have pockets of different types of vegetation and lush soil structure so we could keep these beautiful tree ferns and rubber trees and ficus plants that are going to creep and grow and get bigger and bigger and bigger and this is going to turn into a jurassic world it is just going to be insane in a few years we have planting pockets up on top where the vegetation is going to hang down from the ceiling we have that opening above that brings in shafts of light that changes throughout the day it illuminates certain areas and that's going to move from the south side to the north side as the sun tracks back and forth throughout our sky when i tell you when i design and build water creatures you have to be a jack of all trades you have to be an ecologist you have to understand geology you have to understand geography biology chemistry engineering physics art you name it we do it and it's because we're taking all these disciplines together to create these amazing living breathing ecosystems creating water the way nature intended is a gift using nature as our teacher doesn't get any better it's so simple yet so so very effective and we could create these beautiful systems that are sustainable and what i love about this cenote all the water in our entire water feature the fish waste that is generated inside the feature from them feeding on aquatic insects as well as the fish food that fish waste is going to be broken down and it's going to turn into a usable food form we're using it for irrigation for our green wall system so all the water is going to be recirculated through the green wall it's going to be recaptured into a pumping system it's going to go back into the pond so when i talk about sustainability this is doing it our customer has given us the opportunity to push the envelope and create something very unique we wanted to be very sustainable about it so creating this living breathing environment that is good for nature as well as our soul just awesome