It's an Exciting World

The third day at Caves Branch we went to the Waterfall Caves, which were by far the most impressive caves based on the activity and the cave formations.  There were also apparently some leftovers of the Mayans, but they didn’t go up to that part of the cave anymore.  We were joined by April and Luke, who had both gone tubing with us and to the ATM caves over the previous two days.  They were a fun couple from NYC, and matched us quite well.

We had a decently long drive to the trail that then went through about 30 minutes of jungle to get to the caves.  The hike was very slippery and muddy, but we got to the caves quickly enough.

We went into the entrance of the cave and got to see lots of bats and spiders sitting there at the entrance.  There were both fruit bats and insect bats at the entrance to the Waterfalls Cave, with the insect bats being the small ones.

The start of the hike was really nice, as the formations were amazing.  I especially liked the overflowing pools formations.  They were beautiful, and I couldn’t get a good enough video of them since the GoPro didn’t do too well in the low light settings.   There was a large crayfish in one of the ponds, and a few fish in the cave as well.  I borrowed an image of the pools, and one video of them is ok.

Getting through the Waterfalls Cave wasn’t as bad as getting through the ATM cave since we were only knee deep for most of the time.  I really enjoyed the hiking through the cave.

Once we got to the waterfalls we had a great time climbing up them.  The climbing wasn’t hard by itself, but some parts were hard due to the amount of water pushing against you.  One of the climbs was particularly bad due to the handholds being directly inside the waterfall.

Going down the waterfalls was fun as well.  The last one was the scariest, as it was the highest jump and the smallest area that you could land in.  You could get seriously hurt if you jumped too short, too far right, or too far left.  Everyone made it down just fine.

After jumping down the waterfalls we had a great lunch.  The guides set up lunch on a big flat rock, that was perfect as a picnic table.  Next to the place we had lunch there was also a larger formation of the cascading pools; about 40 feet wide and 30 feet tall.  I couldn’t get a good video of it, but it was gorgeous.  I felt bad about hiking across it.

After getting back Steph and I cleaned up, then went to play some Hanabi with Luke and April.  We did decently well, with few mistakes, but the cards just weren’t with us enough to have a perfect game.  We did a good bit of table talk but it was all in having fun.