With a really heavy, front loaded course, today was planned for an off day to explore the rainforest and allow for some down time. I guess we have an active group, as we all agreed that we wanted to go on a cave expedition. So, after another wonderful breakfast from our hosts at Jaguar Creek (special thanks to Fermin Oliveira and everyone here who makes it such a wonderful place to stay), we ventured to our neighbor Caves Branch (www.cavesbranch.com) where we were led on a tour of a magnificent cave system. We learned about a number of rituals led by the Ancient Maya people throughout the caves. It was an awesome feeling knowing that we were underneath the earth, or more specifically, under about 150 feet of limestone with the rainforest on top of that. I cannot imagine many other places in the world where you can have this same experience.
Afterwards, we returned to our launch point at the river and found some of our students jumping off a 25 foot cliff into a deep section of the river. All of us jumped at the chance to jump. What an exhilarating feeling jumping off, trusting that you weren’t going to crash into the ground because the students before you didn’t. The feeling of flying through the air was amazing. It seemed to take so long between the time that I jumped until the time that my feet splashed loudly in the water.
From there, we returned back to Jaguar Creek. It’s the first day we returned in the middle of the afternoon, instead of dusk or into the early evening. So, of course, we decided to rest up and recuperate, right? Well, not really. Instead, we went to Blue Hole National Park (the other blue hole in Belize). The park is down the road from Jaguar Creek and is a natural swimming hole and deep blue in color. So, we of course climbed up cliff next to it and jumped again.
Throughout this trip, we have probably put close to 1,000 miles on each of our two diesel vans, and the irony of leading a trip on sustainability is not lost on us, as we use many hydrocarbons to view all of these beautiful areas. My hope is that we are making a difference in the way that stories are told, not only in the lives of our students and those they will touch, but also in supporting the places like the Belize Zoo, Friends for Conservation and Development, The Nature Conservancy and others who are doing this great work.
That’s it for today. I may try to post some new pictures tonight, but that may be what’s crashing our Internet, so I’m going to wait and see.
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