Belize Trip - ATM Cave and the Crystal Maidan

4 days ago Robert and I took the ATM Cave excursion. It was fabulous and exhausting (at least for me, since I've been fighting a cold). You hike for about 45 minutes, crossing a river 3 times by wading through it, to get to the entrance to the cave. At the entrance you swim about 30 feet to get into the cave (brrrrr!), then wade up the cave for about an hour or so using the headlamps on your helmets for light. There are beautiful crystaline formations in the cave as intricate stalagtites. It's like the rock is diamond-encrusted.

The cave goes back for 3 1/2 miles, but we only go back about 1/2 mile, which is the only part of the cave with Mayan artifacts. At about 1/2 mile in, you climb up onto a high shelf, take your shoes off, and walk barefoot through a crystaline cathedral. It's really the only way to describe it. It's easy to see why the Mayan's thought this place was sacred and close to the gods. There are vaulted ceilings and delicate sparkling stone sculptures. And right there, on the ground, are original Mayan pots and fire structures. Further inside are calcified bones from sacrifices, 15 in all. At the back is a complete skeleton of a young woman that sparkles from calcification.

After we came out the sun was shining (it was raining when we went in) and we ate our lunch at a small palapia. Another group came out at the same time we did, and we all vied for space in the sunshine. The walk back in the sunshine was lovely, and our guide, Orlando, even talked us into eating some tree termites he found in a nest, which really do taste like carrots when you bite into them. (I admit I wouldn't have done it if everyone else in our group of 5 hadn't tried them, but I didn't want to be the only wuss). Orlando had tricked us into tasking a horrible tasting plant on the way in. I'm sure it has great medicinal properties, but it tasted really horrible - I might opt for having worms or malaria if the cure was eating that plant. So, for the termites, we all waited until Orlando ate one before we did.