Sunday, March 23, 2014
San Jose Succotz, Cayo, Belize
Crystal Cave this morning, I ended up waking up at 5:30 this morning to get ready for it and had a shower in the outdoor showers which were surprisingly very warm considering the time of morning. What I didn't realize is that my use of the shower reduced all the pressure from the shower of the person in the next stall to me so all they had was the occasional drop of water.
Breakfast over and done with we headed out to the Crystal Cave (known as Mountain Cow) on the way collecting a married couple from the States to do the caving with us. Thomas and Peter got a bit close on the ride to the caves spending most of the trip up in the van sleeping.
Our expedition took us through narrow passages to magnificent cathedral-like caverns, some of these caverns were huge. We picked our way along rock faces and slid down mud ramps, viewed stalactites & stalagmites, massive crystal formations, charcoal and ash, pottery, relics, and even an actual skull remain of a Mayan sacrificial victim.
It took us about 3:30 to 4 hours to travel all the way into the cave and see as much of the caves as possible before we turned around and headed back to the surface, which only took us about an hour to get out.
Unfortunately for me I spit my shorts climbing up one of the walls half way through, so then s pent the next 2:30 hours with my shorts hanging open down the middle. Good thing for everyone that I had decided to wear shorts and underwear instead of just swimmers for this tour.
Thomas was on his usual game during the walk into the caves pulling out random one liners like "If you're a real gentleman you will walk in front of the woman, because then you won't be staring at her butt". Sometimes you wish you could just record everything that comes out of that guys mouth.
Once we had finished the caving we all came out messy, covered in dirt and sweat, well... most of us, Sabrina just looked as clean as ever except the occasional spot of dirt. If I hadn't seen her down there, I would swear she hadn't got past the entrance into the caves.
We had spent a little longer in the Caves than we initially hoped, therefore we ended up missing going for a swim after our caving at Blue Hole, so instead we decided we would go swimming at pool at the hotel that we had picked up the two Americans from. My god, it was so nice to be able to swim in the warm water after spending the entire day on our feet and backsides.