Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - St. Herman's Cave Hike and Swimming in the Blue Hole

We woke up early and had coffee by the pool before we woke the kids up.  We had an early breakfast and then met near the lobby for our adventure.  It really is awesome being at an adventure and dive center.  There were three vans going (up to 8 people per van, each with a guide), so we asked if we could go with Chris, Larry, Grace, and Grant, who we met first up at the pool on top of Antelope Falls, so the guides let us switch.  We got to go with Lorenzo and he was great!  He was a really safe but fast driver, and passed the other vans, so we arrived first. And were the first to do the 20 minute hike to Saint Herman's cave. 

This is looking back at the entrance to the cave once we'd entered.

Everywhere we looked the walls were sparkling from the water.  It was just magical.  The water seeps through the wall from rainfall on the surface, and is incredibly pure.  The Mayans used the water in all their religious ceremonies.

It is difficult to understand the size of this.  The cavern was enormous.

These are our friends, Grace, Larry, Grant, and Chris.  They really made our stay that much more enjoyable.  What a great family!

Being in the cave was awesome as we were crawling through tight spaces and using ropes to climb boulders.  There was clay on much of the floor, so sometimes it became very slippery… even the ropes were slippery because we had oily hands from putting on the anti-mosquito jungle juice. 

At one point we all turned our headlamps off for quite some time.  You couldn't see your hand in front of you face!  The cave was used by the Mayans for religious ceremonies.  There was quite a bit of pottery shards and a few large pieces of pottery from those ceremonies.  At one point I put my hand up for a hand hold, and grabbed a handful of shards by accident!  The great thing about this cave is that we were allowed to take our camera (unlike the Actun Tunichil Muknal), so we have some pictures!  We also saw a cave scorpion that moved really fast.  I am really glad I didn't accidentally grab one of those!

The rope in this section was a necessity as it was a really steep climb up.

We were surprised that you could just reach out and touch the Mayan pottery.

There was one section that was really low.  I started on my hands and knees, but found it easier to just sit down.  This is where we really started getting dirty, YEAH!

I really thought it was fun climbing through all of these interesting formations.

Isn't he just looking cheeky... gotta love a Brit!

And then the cave exit.  We were quite high up and then we hiked down to the mouth.

The Firths

The Didways

Our group of 8 was basically in the cave alone for the entire time with Lorenzo and he was a great guide.   Another group caught up to us just as we were exiting, so great timing!  As we exited the cave, we were swarmed by mosquitoes.  It was the most mosquitoes we had seen since we arrived.  We had to quickly stop and put on more jungle juice.

There were these beautiful orange mushrooms on the hike back.

When we reached the parking lot we were supposed to stop for lunch, but we were so hot that we asked Lorenzo if we could go to the Blue Hole first and swim before lunch.  He said sure, and gave us some freshly made ginger cookies to tide us over.  It was a great decision because we had the Blue Hole to ourselves the entire time.  Just when we were getting ready to leave for lunch the other two groups showed up.  It was also really refreshing to get cooled off after the hike. 

Our friends, the Didways...

And our family...

We walked back up the trail and on the way we saw this bike with machete attached.   So typical that David just had to take a picture.  Look for the orange handle and you can see the rest from there.

Lorenzo had lunch waiting.  I expected sandwiches for our picnic, but wow, what a nice lunch.  We had marinated chicken, rice and beans, and coleslaw.  We had pineapple squash to drink.

The ride back was really quiet as everyone was falling asleep.  The only wake up was when Lorenzo had to slam on the brakes because a car coming from the opposite direction was in our lane and he had to slam all on to avoid a head on collision!  Lorenzo handled it really well.  

When we got back to Hopkins, there were loads of people walking the streets, many of them dressed up.  They were going to the local 8th grade graduation.

And then, the typical group of kids riding their bikes...

When we got back to Hamanasi we went and sat at the pool and hung out with Jim and Kathy from D.C.  They have the 14 year old son, Chris.  We had rum punch drinks while Jason and Danika stayed in the room and read.

 Every night at dinner, the napkins were folded in a different way.  The kids loved these little polo shirts.

Dinner was not the best.  I only had 2 bites of my vegetable lasagna.  David loved his soup for an appetizer of sweet potatoes and spicy sausage with spinach.

The mango crème brulee for dessert was pretty good too. 

Jason had his brownie a la mode again.  I love the different designs on each plate!

It really is a happening place!

 It was Jim and Kathy’s last night, so we went and got our bottle of wine and shared it with them at the bar.  We had such a nice time chatting with them.  We didn’t get to bed until 11 p.m.  What a great day!