Honeymoon - Cave Tubing

After hiking the Mayan ruins, we ventured into the Cayo district of Belize for some cave tubing.  We picked up our tubes and head lamps at the entrance of the site.

Then our guide took us on a 30 minute hike through the Belizean rainforest, next to the Cave Branch River, pointing out different plants, trees, animals and insects along the way.  The scenery was beautiful and the jungle was really cool to hike through.  The guide told us about the medicinal uses of the trees, bark and plants.  He pointed out what was poisonous, what was deadly and what would heal you if you happened upon those other things.  And he even ate some termites, just to show us that you could.  He said they were minty.  Despite Ryan's obsession with survival shows, he turned down the termites.  I think lunch was filling enough.

Below is a line of ants carrying leaves.  These guys weren't messing around.

At the end of the trail, we got to the Caves Branch River and hopped on our tubes to head down through a spectacular cave system, which the ancient Mayans regarded as a sacred underworld and home to many powerful gods.  I've got to be honest with you...this was pretty freaky for me.  I do not handle dark water (or water at night) very well.  It scares the begeezus out of me.  However, sitting on the tube (mostly out of the water), with our guide up front completely in the water (splashing around and scaring all the sharks away) made me much less nervous than I thought I'd be.  I didn't cry, I didn't freak out.  I even managed to smile a few times.  :-)  I deseve a freaking medal.

Ryan and I were the caboose of our group.

The above picture is behind us, as we left the open air and entered the cave.  And below is us nearly completely swallowed within the cave.

Needless to say, it was dark.

Still dark. 

Very dark.

You can kinda see the rock formations in the pictures above.  Our headlamps were pretty weak, but we could see how large the "rooms" were inside the caves.  It was actually a much longer cave system than I expected.   We were in there a long time!  Every now and then we'd see a hole in the celing where light would peek through.  Plants were growing and it gave the place a very cool green glow. 

Did I mention it was really dark?

After about 40 minutes we saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

And then we were back outside, drifting down a jungle river.  I'm pretty sure there were crocodiles and giant anaconda and swamp monsters in there somewhere, but they didn't bother us.  Luckily.

(And speaking of scary animals eating you, make sure to tune in for an upcoming post on feeding the tarpon.)

I have to admit...it was pretty fun.