Cave Tubeing

Today was another early morning. We got up at 6, ate breakfast, and then boarded the boat for shore once again. Today, we were headed out to do some cave tubing. After dropping a couple off at the airport, we headed up to Cave River Resort, where we boarded the old bus once again. This time, instead of repelling gear, we took along inter tubes. We took a short hike through the orchard, and then got into a slow moving river and started paddling upstream. It wasn't long before we reached the mouth of a large cave system.

 

 

 

Our goal was to tube and hike deep into the cave, exploring and examining Myan artifacts. The river was higher than normal, and the current was stronger. However, Sarah's mom and dad, Seth and Mai,. and Sarah and I were able to make our way into the mouth of the cave, where we saw stalagmites and stalagmites, and large columns. It was a large cave, with lots of things to see. The ceiling must have been 30 to 40 feet up, and the river may have been up to 5 feet or deeper in places.

We traveled upstream past where you could see light from the exit. We were shown brain suckers--strands of sticky web that would attach to passing bugs. We also saw a scorpion spider--very creepy. We saw fruit bats, but were told there were also vampire bats, centipedes and millipedes that made their home in the cave.


 

We had to climb up onto a ledge to get into one of the chambers. There, we were shown a carving of a Myan fertility god. Our guide told us about how the Myans would come and make a sacrifice to the fertility god, and believed that by the time the woman reached the entrance of the cave, she was already pregnant. However, she had to sacrifice her first child to the god, or it would die of sickness, and she would never be able to get pregnant again. If she did sacrifice the child, she would have as many children as she wanted. Archaeologist dug for the bones of the children in the room next to a stalagmite that was carved to look like a pregnant woman, but found none. Another chamber, deeper in the cave, contained several bones from human sacrifices, and this is where the archaeologist believe the children were buried.

 

We went back and ate a nice lunch next to the underground river, and then boarded the tubes to float back out of the cave and into the jungle.

We purchased some cheese at the resort, and then headed back to our island. We had to pick up a few other people at the airport, and the planes were late, so we stopped to watch some children perform a tribal dance, and for some unknown reason they decided to pull me into it. They all had cool masks and shells, and I just had bare feet. Somehow I managed to make it through the ordeal--I wish I could say my pride was still in tact, but I am sure they were laughing at me behind those masks. We picked the late arrivals up from the airport and headed for the docks. The crossing was the roughest yet, but we made it and had another great meal. It was our last night on the island, and we were a little sad that we were leaving. However, tomorrow we will be heading to la isla bonita--San Pedro.