So last week Sunday was one of those long time promised events that finally came to happen. My neighbor (and owner of my house) Pablo, has been telling me for a while about this cave that is about a 2 mile or so bike ride and a bit of a hike away from our village. He is gone a lot, though, for work so we were waiting for a day when the two of us were both home and not busy to go out and do some exploring. It seems like everytime we decide to go, he ends up being wrong, I get sick or have to go to some meeting, or we can't find an extra bicycle or something. He said his wife would come, which took a lot of convincing on my part I think, and his oldest son Reynaldo ended up coming along as well. It turned out to be quite a day of fun.
We set off about 9am. I was riding a bike I had borrowed from a neighbor, Reynaldo had his, and Pablo was riding a bike with his wife sitting on the crossbar. We road a mile or so up the main road, and then turned off onto a gravel/dirt "road" for another mile or so (thankfully it is dry season:) before heading straight into the bush as far as we could go on bike. At that point we left the bikes under a tree and headed out following Pablo with his machete. Apparently it has been a while since anyone has gone back here, because he was cleaning us a trail as we went along. We got to the river and crossed on a fallen tree that made me a bit nervous. It was a slight bit rotten. It wasn't far before we reached the cave. It was beautiful! Safaria and Reynaldo had never been in a cave before. For a bit of background a lot of Mayan people are scared of caves. The older generations believe it is a place where you will find evil spirits and the like. Safaria was a bit nervous, but once we were walking through she seemed to really enjoy it. There were a lot of beautiful formations and so many bats. The floor was this really soft dirt that sunk in as you walked a bit, so the whole way through we could see the tracks of gibnuts and other animals that run through to find water or a place to eat whatever they had drug in from the forest.
After about an hour of exploring the cave and a bit of rest we set off straight uphill. We had about a 30-40 minute hike/climb straight up the hill. I am pretty sure I spent a lot of times on all fours it was so steep and covered with dried leaves to add to the slipperyness. There was absolutely no trail left anymore and we got a bit off to the steeper side (thankfully we came down a better way), but we made it to the top. The view was amazing. You could see all the way back to where our village is. We spent some time at the top relaxing, talking and having lunch before we journeyed back down.
On the way up I was watching the whole time for snakes, but never saw one. At one point I hear Safaria who was in the back right behind me say "k'anchi" and we all turned around really quick. Apparently Pablo, Reynaldo, then me had all stepped over a snake without even noticing it. Safaria was scared if she yelled it would bite her, so she jumped over it and then yelled. It was sleeping underneath a log we had all walked over. It was the biggest tommygoff I have seen yet. Usually I see them about 1ft long, but this was 6ft. Freaked me out for the rest of the hike, but thankfully we didn't find anything else, just lots of ticks.
The way down was hilarious. It was so steep I think Safaria and I spent a decent amount of time sliding down the hill on our backsides. Not really intentionally, but it went a lot faster that way, hehe. As we rode back into the village the really hot and dry day suddenly got black and turned into a really hard storm. We made perfect timing, and we inside about 5 minutes before the rains started. It was raining and blowing so hard my house flooded a bit :(, but it dried out quickly. It was definitely a fun time to remember. So was laughing about our inability to walk normally downhill for the next two days because of sore muscles. :)
