Dig, if you will, a hole in the ground Mystery Cache

Location

The old Cache

Not many inhabited places on earth have antipodes that are also on land.

Singapore is one of the few places that has land under our feet. Sadly, it is almost all jungle.

All of Singapore's 'footprint' on the opposite site of the globe lies in the same country. Most of it lies in one province, with only parts protruding into another province. The only two settlements of any size (that I could determine) both lie north of a river which forms the border between the provinces, and thus in that other province.
(that Singapore even has settlements opposite it instead of just jungle is only due to extensive land reclamation projects)

The quiz below, will yield the location of one of these settlements in the format:

      A° BC.DEF
     TU° VW.XYZ

The cache is located exactly opposite this location!. (So when you have worked it out, fly there, start digging and you will, after passing the earth's core, find the cache when you reach Singapore again :-)

1. Find out the names of the two settlements. Call the longer one N_s1.
   The shorter name N_s2

2. Count the letters in the name of the second settlement to yield VW
   VW = length(N_s2)

3. You should by now know the country Singapore's footprint lies in. Call it's name N_country

   Add up the letters of the name of the country to yield: UT
   UT = sum(N_country)

4. In which century did the country's capital become the seat of a royal audiencia (administrative district) of Spain and part of the Vice-Royalty of Lima, and later the Vice-Royalty of Nueva Granada?

   In the BC^th century

5. Find out which province the two settlements lie in. The province is called after a man, whose expedition fought against fierce tribes which had women among their warriors, after which encounter the Amazon River was later named. Call this N_p1

   The middle 2 letters of the province's name, added up yield EF

6. As mentioned above, most of Singapore's footprint however lies in another province. Call it N_p2
   Find the name of this province's capital city. Call it N_capp2

   Subtract N_capp2's last letter from its first letter to get A

   A = substr(N_capp2,1,1) - substr(N_capp2,-1,1)

7. Multiply the length of N_s1 with the length of N_capp2 to yield XY

   XY = length(N_s1) * length(N_capp2)

8. Subtract the length of the name of the northern province from the length of name of the smaller settlement to yield Z:

   Z = length(N_p1) - lengh(N_s2)

9. Determine the digit sum of the length of the name of settlement 1 to determine D

   D = digitsum(length(N_s1))

You can check your answer for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.

The location info below is for the old GZ when this was a physical cache. This is no longer valid and just left here for reference/info. Do not attempt to visit the cache, it is now a virtual!

Parking

Parking is available at N 00 00.058 E 00 00.215 relative to the calculated GZ (ie, do some more math :-)

Public Transport

... is available by Bus 402 from Anson Road/Apex Twr.

GZ

I was tickled, to actually find a hole in the ground near my intended cache location, as if someone had actually started digging to get to the other side of the earth but had given up way too soon. In actual fact, I believe this (and some nearby minor installations) to be part of the infrastructure reclaimed land requires to settle and drain(?) before it can be developed, but I am no structural engineer of any sort, so don't quote me. The cache is not heavily camouflaged, just hidden moderately so that it is hopefully not stumbled upon by any workers etc. See 'Location Notes' below

Attire

• wear suitable shoes. Nothing that must not get dirty. Getting wet should also not be a problem. Large tracts of the location are swamp/wetland though GZ and approach to it can be done by dry foot (modulo the usual puddles/mud after rains)
• bring mosquito repellant
• better yet, wear long pants
• a rag, wet tissues etc for cleaning up when you get back to civilisation may be indicated too

Location notes

As mentioned above, the GZ is on reclaimed land. While this is mostly being left alone for now, there are a few works of some sort going on in this part all the time. So be careful of workers doing what they do (work, rest, sleep, etc) when you don't expect it.

At some point in the (hopefully more distant) future, this place will be developed. If you come across signs of continuous recent activity like preparation to turn the site into a building site or such, please inform me to harvest the cache and rescue any resting hitchhikers. (or rescue the cache yourself if in imminent danger)

CITO is a nice concept, and I don't want to keep you from it, but given the status of this location and the amounts of trash (both flotsam from the nearby sea and trash apparentlty left over from reclaiming work etc) it may not be practical to make a real impact here. I just ask that you don't add to the trash. Real CITO effort is likely better spent elsewhere.

Stealth is really only required when starting your approach, as there is both a police point near the parking and muggles fishing nearby which you will have to pass. After that just be wary of the unsuspected (and likely unsuspecting) workers that may be around the location (though I never saw any, I only noticed their telltale signs)

The other side of the earth

So what does the other side of the world look like? It's apparently all relatively flat (ie not mountainous) jungle in the upper Amazon basin. You could keep an eye on the Degree Confluence Project for pictures from a nearby confluence. (Currently, none of the nearby ones seems to have been visited or attempted :-(). (Excuse me if I am not providing a direct link to the confluence in question, it would be a spoiler)

Help

Help, if needed will only be given after FTF or if one week has passed without such.

Master of Mystery #23 - Praha

I have been informed that this cache is now included/referenced in a Master of Mystery #23 - Praha. I have no further affiliation with that cache or the series.

Please do not direct any queries regarding the 'Master of Mystery' cache or series (or any other cache used in those) to me, as I won't be able to help.