Following the Dream

Christian June 17th, 2008

    After waiting outside of the travel agency for about an hour or so, our shuttle to San Ignacio finally arrived.  It was a bumpy ride to the border of Belize.  The border crossing was easy and we crossed into yet another country.  Once in Belize, it was only about a 45 minute ride to the town of San Ignacio.  We headed to our first choice place and got a room with tv and a private bath, although the bathroom doors consisted of saloon style swinging doors.  Once settled in, we headed out for some much needed food and to book our tour.  The tour that we chose to do here is one that takes you deep inside an ancient Mayan Cave.  The cave is named Actun Tunichil Muknal or ATM for short.  We were told it was an all day affair, so we went to bed early that night.

    We awoke and got ready for our adventure.  The adventure started off with an hour van ride which was spent half on asphault and half on a bumpy dirt road.  When we got to the trail head, our guide noticed another group so he made sure we were on our way quickly to beat them to the cave.  The next part of the trip was spent hiking briskly through the jungle.  We even had to cross three streams that were knee deep.  The rocks in the stream were super slippery so you had to watch your step.  I almost fell into the water a few times.  When we got to the campsite near the cave, our guide let us know that the nature bathroom was now open.  Also we had a quick minute to eat some of the lunch that they had given us before entering the cave for three hours.

     We left the campsite and climbed down some rocks to the cave entrance into another stream that was coming out of the cave.  I tripped on a rock and bit it hard right into the water.  I did a face plant before even entering the dark and slippery cave, slamming my knees and elbows into the rocky creekbed.  Great, this is starting out awesome.  I shook it off and we were on our way.  We were told that at points we would have to wade through chest high water, but this was soon proven false at the entry point for the cave.  We had to swim to get into the cave, since the water was too deep.  This was no easy task with hiking boots on and holding a camera above the water.  Once inside we were given a safety speech on how to be careful, that the rocks are slippery and what not to touch in the cave.  I thought it was a little late for this seeing how I already fell once.  After the safety talk, we were on our way.

    We walked through the pitch dark cave using our helmet lights to guide us.  We would wade through water that went sometimes up to our ankles and other times up to our chest.  I was in the back of the group, so I freqently looked back into the black abyss and took it all in.  When the group would stop, you could hear the sound of water slowly dripping echoing in the cave.  We would stop now and again and take a look at different formations.  They were amazing, some of them sparkled when we shined our lights on them.  At one point when we stopped, a little fish nibbled on my leg and kind of freaked me out.  We continued on.

   The path was getting more difficult, we had to climb through narrow spaces.  Then we arrived to a spot where we had to climb up twenty feet or so.  Once we reached the top, our guide instructed us to take off our shoes and only wear our socks.  This is to preserve this part of the cave.  He let us know that we would be seeing artifacts in this part of the cave.  Where we were sitting there was a top from a ceramic pot used by the Mayans.  We walked for a little bit, and came to an area with tons of cerimonial pots. 

It was unbelieable that over 1000 years ago, Mayans were carrying these same pots into the cave for cerimonies.  As we continued on the path in the cave, we saw some bones.  There were two sets of bones, one was in better shape than the other.  Our guide pointed out that these were probably sacrifices.  The bones were all clustered apart.  As we walked a little deeper, the cave opened up at one point into a huge room.  When our guide shined his huge light up, you could really see how amazing it looked. 

After a few more crawl throughs, we ended up at a ladder.  Since it was metal, I am guessing that the Mayans did not bring this one here.  Although it might as well have been that old.  Everytime someone would climb it, it would make loud banging noises, as if it was going to break.  Once we all had made it up the ladder, we we able to see the cave’s prize pocessions.  The first was the remains of a teenage boy.  By the way the bones were laying, it is said that both his arms and legs were broken and tied together behind his back as he was left kneeling facing the cave wall.  This was said to be a sacrifice, and I must say it was a bit disturbing.  The second and last finale for the cave was the crystal maiden.  It is the remains of a girl, whose bones are still in tact in a lying down face up position.  It is said that she was also a sacrifice victim.  The bones have been affected by the natural processes of the cave and now sparkle when light hits them.  It was difficult to fathom their lives, 1000 years ago.

     After soaking it all in for a few minutes, we headed out of the cave.  It was a long trip, but we made it out back into the light alive.  Then it was back through the jungle, crossing the streams.  Once back to the van, Casey and I were both almost completely dry.  To be nice, we put a towel on the seat of the van.  Our guide didn’t seemed satisfied with this.  He kept telling us that this van is their “Bread and Butter” and that we should change into dry clothes.  We were both thinking, we are dry and we have a towel down, what more could he want.  Well it turns out that his “bread and butter” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.  The driver changed a flat, and then we tried to move forward, the van would not move.  After them contemplating the situation, and not doing much of anything but gunning the gas, having only one of the back wheels on the rear wheel drive van spinnning, we suggested that the wheel that was not moving might be the problem.  They called over a couple of other guys that were nearby and took off the wheel and spent a good 45 minutes fixing their “bread and butter”.  We were excited when the other guys did get the wheel to turn and we were on our way.  At first, our driver stopped to talk to someone every 5 minutes that he saw on the side of the road.  The english guys in front of us were not very happy about this, and voiced their opinion and we were on our way.  We did finally make it back to the hotel after an 8 hour day and got ready for our trip to the beach the next day.

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