BLUE HOLE & ST HERMAN’S CAVE
Today we rode the bus 12 miles to the NW to the St Hermans/Blue Hole National Park. and hiked down to the cenote. I was not impressed at first but on further exploration discovered the cenote had 2 sides and on the 2nd it looked like the water went into a small cave. We put on our bathing suits and entered the water and swam under the lip of rock and the cavern opened up inside to a huge stalactite cavernous bowl with bats and beautiful acoustics and lots of dark nooks and crannies to swim into and explore. It was a super sweet swim spot and the Colleen and the girls and I had huge fun splashing around in it. It was super beautiful to be back in the deepest darkest recess of the cave and to peer out the small crack to the bright jungle daylight beyond. After we got out we kep telling everyone who hike down how cool it was but no one else put on a swim suit and went it.
We then hiked for half an hour through the jungle to the other park entrance where St Herman’s Cave is. The big tour here is to tube through the cave and as we walked to the cave’s mouth we kept encountering people with tubes returning from their float. We were the only ones without tubes.
The cave mouth was a big hole in the base of a steep ridge with stone steps descending into it and a cool wind blowing out of it. A path led 200 yards into the cave with a stream to our left. Past 200 yards you could only go with a guide and an inner tube and we stopped their and watched a constellation of headlamps float towards us on the stream. Tourism in Belize is centered around these pricey tours which are about US$100 a person, everything is a tour and catered to the people with money who come here for a week and shuttle between the airport, the resort and the tours in private vans. They see Belize out a tinted window as they drive through. This shuts out most of Belize as the common folk are reduced to working for the corporate resorts. There need to be more locally owned stuff like Castillo Beach but the people with $$$ would never stay there. Backpacking options are few because of this set up and it is unfortunate. We have met few fellow travelers in our 3 weeks here and talking story with fellow travelers is one of the things I like best about traveling.
We caught a local bus back to the vicinity of our campsite and bought some ‘Christ Cream” from a local dairy with a missionary bent of helping the locals achieve their full potential in christ. The ice cream was not very good and we walked 1.5 miles back down the highway to Hummingbird Haven and took a nice cool swim in the creek and spent the remainder of the day on that 3rd floor balcony reading and relaxing and enjoying the jungle-licious view. Candi, our Mayan host made us tortillas for dinner and we listened to our nightly podcast from Outside Magazine about the Science of Survival. Tonights episode took us through what happens when one is stung 1000 times by African Killer Bees.
BACK TO HUMMINGBIRD HAVEN
Awoke to a misty morning and was told by Candi that the buses would be crowded today because it is a Friday and that the 9:30am bus would be our best bet. We packed up and were ready in plenty of time and even had time to dry the tent. We walked up the highway and waited 1/2 hour for the bus which took us to Belomopan and then on to Belize City. Jakobi spilleda yogurt everywhere and I got shit from the bathroom attendant at the bus stop when I went in a took some paper towels without paying the BZ$1 bathroom fee. Our bus into Belize City was Express and we were there before noon.
