Day 11, Thursday, March 5, 2009: Blue Creek, Caving

Today we had cave hiking planned. At 8:30, we set out in two groups to explore two different caves. One by land and the other by water. The caving by land involved some spelunking and both teachers and students enjoyed the challenge. The caving by land involved climbing through a rocky area to the cave mouth where they removed their outer clothing to reveal bathing suits and swam into the cave mouth. At 12:00, we had lunch and then at 1:30, the groups switched so that all would have the chance to explore both caves.

- Linda H.


Wet Cave

During our stay at Blue Creek we went into two different cave systems, a wet cave and a dry cave. This entry will be about the wet cave exploration. We started off the journey by doing a 10-minute hike to the cave, from which water was pouring out among the rocks. We changed out of our hiking gear and into our swimming gear and put on our lifejackets. We jumped into the water, which was fairly cold. Our guide, William, told us that we had to climb up 3 small waterfalls throughout the cave. The depth of the water in the cave would go from 2 feet to unknown depths where no one could touch the bottom. In between the first waterfall and the second, most of our group decided to head back to the entrance because a couple were scared and others were getting very cold. William, 4 students, and I remained and decided to continue to the end of the cave. It was an arduous task climbing up the waterfalls, but it was very satisfying once we accomplished the swim. The current was very difficult to swim against when near the waterfalls, so we had to try and find corners to hold onto. All the walls and rocks were covered in a thick layer of slime, which turned out to be very dangerous because we were in constant danger of falling when walking up the waterfalls or across rocks in the water. During this whole adventure in the cave we were surrounded by darkness because we only had two lights with us and they were both very weak. When we reached the end of the cave we were greeted by a large waterfall. This made us very happy and we swam around underneath it for a couple of minutes until our guide told us to head back. It was very fun going back because we got to slide down all the waterfalls even though I ended up slamming into lots of rocks on the way down. When we got to the beginning of the cave we dried off and went back to camp for lunch.

- Mata M.

Dry Cave

It started with a hike up a half of a mountain and that is where we saw the cave opening. We entered the cave and saw a tiny little hole that we had to squeeze in to. Once we were in the real cave it got really cool; there were tons of stalagmites and stalactites. First the tour guide showed us some ancient pottery that the Mayans made in the cave. Then we went deeper into the cave, turned of all of our flashlights, and listened to the cave sounds. At the farthest point we could go, he showed us the places that the jaguars sleep, and they looked like holes with a cleaned out smooth area in the back of them. It was a great experience and I want to try something like it again.

- Matt H.