With nothing but a large flashlight connected to a battery we entered the cave. John paddled the canoe, I held the flashlight. We travelled one kilometer into the cave and back. We were the first people of the day to enter the cave and so we got to see lots of the bats. I have been claustrophobic throughout my life, but somewhere in the not so distant past I must have lost my fear of enclosed places because I didn’t feel at all nervous. At times the stalactites were so close to the water we needed to lie down parallel with the canoe to keep from hitting them. We had no back up flashlight and at times the maneuvering of the canoe between the walls of the cave and the stalactites was a tight fight. At the beginning of the trip John told me he’d have no trouble finding his way out if the light failed. At the end of the trip I told him he ought to have had a back up battery because there was no way he could have found his way out without light. He told me he wasn’t worried because the battery was new, that there had been times when he almost didn’t make it out because the battery was old and was running out of power. I think he takes foolish chances, but then again, I was along for the ride, so what does that say about me?
The road up and back was rough, rutted and part of it ran through a very large orange grove. The man who owned the property beside the cave was a Canadian who had found his piece of paradise here in the backwoods of Belize.
We were in Omish country and we passed many a horse and buggy on our way. They were on their way to market.
When we returned to St. Ignazio, the very small, not so pretty town where Midas Resort is located, I searched for a larger guiding office where I might hook up with a party interested in going to Pine Ridge Mountain.
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