Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Today we arrived in Belize City, Belize. Yesterday Corey got to take Luke swimming with the dolphins which he loved by the way. So today I am going on a tour called Raiders of the Lost Mayan Caves. I am not usually the most adventurous person. Up until now I've been parasailing for about 8 minutes on a Disney Cruise once last year. So I decided it was time for a change. Hence the Raiders tour.

We were supposed to meet in the Stardust Theater at 9:15 am to go. We wound up leaving the theater around 9:30 am to go to the tender to get ashore. After a 25 tender ride to shore we met our guide, Marsha. We finally boarded the bus around 10:30am. It was a very nice school bus with air conditioning. Then we started on the first part of the adventure, the drive to the caves. Those of you who have been driving in a central american country will know what I am talking about it. There are six traffic lights in the entire country. Stop signs are kinda like a suggestion. Speed limits aren't even noticed. Driving here is like driving in Guatemala it would make the most seasoned New York driver scared for there life. The first 50 minutes of the ride is on a nice two lane paved road, the Western Highway. After that it is onto a dirt and stone road for the next 30 minutes. I felt like Tigger going bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. After that we stop off at a place at the entrance to the caves for chicken kabobs with baked beans. They really loved baked beans in Belize. Also they have about a thousand varieties of hot sauce here.

After lunch, we go to get our gear. Full harnesses for our bodies, along with gloves and a miners hat with light. We wearing this gear is definitely a picture I will upload later. Then we begin our 15 minutes walk through the rainforest. Aside from the vegetation and hearing animals we never saw any animals during the walk. But considering that we were climbing up hills and over trees and boulderings the size of ponys it was good there no animals. At the end of the hike we got a little glass of water and arrived at the entrance to the cave. I've never been into a cave before in my life. The only thing I know about caves is things I've seen in horror movies. Our helmet lights got switched on and in we went. We played telephone in our group to relay message from the front of the line to the back with safety notices. Things like watch your head, its wet here, watch your back. Eventually messages got shortended to back, head, and wet. Usually after the person in front of you hit there head. Which I will admit I did a few times myself. We saw broken pots, a Mayan fertility cave, stalgamites and stalgatites, basically different types of rocks. We then reach an area were we have to climb down using a special type of ladder that was invented during WW2 for cave transfer of ammunitions. Basically big steel looking staples, stapled into the wall as ladders. This was fun since you had to climb down without seeing were you were going. This lead into a cave filled with minature bats.

After the caves which took about thirty minutes. We made it the first zip line. I have never been ziplining before so this was going to be fun. However, the first zipline we were required to brake ourselves. I did not do so good at that. Basically you lean back and lift up your feet. With one hand you hold onto harness and the only one you keep it open in a C-shape above the braking cord. It was very difficult not to try to hold on and brake early. Also you have to keep your hand band your head or you start spinning. So halfway through the line while I'm spinning and stopping early I thought maybe ziplining wasn't such a good idea. But eventually after going hand over hand the last 10 feet I made it to the end.

After that it was on the rope bridges. Theres are two bridges to get across two bigs caves. I would guess maybe thirty or forty feet across. Maybe 20 to 30 feet in the air. Basically its a balancing act with your hands on the rails. Made it across both of those good. Didn't even fall once.

Finally the last zipline, this one was much steeper and much faster. But since we didn't have to brake it went much better. Just pick up your legs and hold onto you reach the bottom.

After that back to the bus for the return trip to the pier and the ship. By the time I got back to the Pier it was 4:20 pm. The last tender left at 4:30pm. as you would expect when I got on a line for the last tender it looked as if half the ship was trying to make that tender. I finall made it on tender at 5:00pm. There were at least 2 tenders after mine. However, because of the bad tendering experience they gave us free rum punch the next day. So I consider it a win whenever there are free drinks on a cruise.

Talk to ya tomorrow.