Into the underworld we go!

Pooks Hill--we stayed in cabana's and the whole place was built on Mayan ruins.

Well today was an exciting day! We woke early to be prepared for our day of tubing deep into a cave that is thousands of years old and was once used by the Mayans for religious purposes. Our day was started off right with a good breakfast of eggs, rice, and beans. I must say, Pooks Hill Resort has some of the best food and atmosphere we have experienced from a hotel the whole trip. As soon as breakfast was finished we headed out for the base camp of our cave tubing tour. Within the next two hours we were paddling up a calmly flowing river and into the cave! The entrance to the cave seem daunting at first but once we got in it was amazing!

The group just before entering the cave!

It had huge open spaces like rooms in a mansion, with stalagtites (formations hanging from the ceiling) that sparkled like chandeliers.

Almost as soon as we entered the cave our guide found a spider for us. Oh boy! He let me pick it up and hold it. It happens to be a perfectly harmless and blind spider known as the scorpion spider. It lives in caves in Central America and feasts on the crickets that live in the caves.

Adam holding the Scorpion Spider!

As we tubed/walked deeper into the cave, we came to places where we climbed the rocks and came to smaller chambers. Some of them had to have been 50 feet above the river!

We learned that the ancient Mayans would go into these high chambers to perform blood sacrifice rituals and we found ancient fire pits with bits of broken pottery all over the chambers. This is also the only Mayan cave in the world that has a carving of one of their gods. that was cool to see. We ate lunch inside the cave. Then at the end of the tour we came to a deep spot in the river. The guides let us jump off of a 20 foot cliff into the river! That was quite the adrenaline rush. Some people even took it a step further and jumped from about ten feet higher from the tree branches!

Ben jumping into the river from the tree

Now we are back at Pooks Hill chillin in the hammocks, looking for tarantulas, and staring at the wonderful night's stars. It gets so dark here you can practically seen the whole universe shining down upon you. It is just plain beautiful. I never want to leave.