SE 6 - Loteria puzzle (formerly Starry Night) Traditional Cache
Team Gently: This location is good for a cache or that can take getting wet during the rain. But we aren’t making any use out of it; so... archiving.
SE 6 - Loteria puzzle (formerly Starry Night)
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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[A note from DG]
After getting more and more elaborate about hiding caches underneath giant fake rocks from Fakerock.com, etc., I wanted to try an experiment in going the opposite direction.
The experiment:
What would a "muggle" do if he saw a painted wooden box, sitting in plain sight, perhaps under a tree, but with no attempt to hide its wooden boxiness? He's free to open it, either solve or skip a puzzle, and sign a logbook. There are no goodies to trade, so not much he can steal.
Will he steal or vandalize the box anyway? Or will he leave it alone? How many muggles will come upon this box before it finally meets the one who destroys it?
That's the social experiment here. I'll stick out (at least) five of these boxes and see what happens.
What you're looking for:
A dark wooden box -- basically out in plain view.
Inside the wooden box is a Lock & Lock box containing:
- a logbook locked with a red padlock,
- a puzzle you can solve to get the combination for the padlock,
- a note telling anyone who stumbles onto the box that he/she is free to solve the puzzle and sign the logbook,
- an envelope containing the combination to the padlock, in case anyone wants to sign the logbook without solving a puzzle, and
- a pen.
The Loteria puzzle:
Loteria is a Mexican version of American Bingo, except that the designs on the cards are about a million times cooler -- http://www.google.com/search?q=loteria+cards -- cool enough that I decided to make a puzzle out of them.
The puzzle consists of 21 picture tiles and a grid with words on it. Figure out what to do with the tiles and you'll figure out the 4-letter combination to the padlock.
No Spanish required:
You don't need to speak a single word of Spanish to solve this puzzle... IF you're smart enough :-)
It was hard to find a native Californian puzzle tester who knew absolutely zero Spanish. Everyone seems to know "cat," or "house," or can count to three.
But I finally found a friend from work who told me that he knew exactly ONE word of Spanish -- a word he had googled to figure out which bathroom he should use in a Mexican restaurant -- a word that he misremembered as "hembro," rather than "hombre" :-)
And sure enough, he was able to solve this puzzle. Fairly quickly, and without any googling!
Other notes:
Please don't leave any goodies inside the box. Despite the audacity of this experiment, I don't really want to tempt fate more than I already am.
While you're here, you should definitely check out our Stencil & Grid puzzle -- the first in this puzzle series.
If you want to test-drive the Loteria puzzle, or the Stencil & Grid puzzle, before you drive out, feel free to email, and I'll send you a link to a simulation that conveys the puzzle pretty accurately.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pna'g svther bhg gur Fcnavfu? Abgvpr gung gurer ner n qvssrerag ahzore bs gvyrf va rnpu pngrtbel. Gurer ner gjb "vafrpgbf," rgp.
Pna'g hafpenzoyr gur jbeqf? Gurer'f n pyhr ba rnpu gvyr gb uryc lbh trg gur evtug frdhrapr.
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
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