Indiana Jones, take one

Sunday, Jan 13, 2013

I woke up as I usually did on a Sunday -- by taking a nice cold shower and having a very delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs with green peppers. After thoroughly drenching my body in sunscreen and bug spray, I made it out the door to Proworld, where, after filling our water bottles and splitting into two groups, we entered regularly sized, white air conditioned vans and embarked on our journey. 

Wow, that sounded very poetic, don't know what came over me. Don't get your hopes up that this air of sophistication will continue. 

After a lengthy discussion about birds, we arrived at a semi-military checkpoint and got a military escort (very interesting ride) to our first stop -- Rio Frio Cave at Pine Ridge (picture credit of sign  = Hunter). 

How does one begin to describe this cave? Ginormous? Magnificent? Beautiful? Or breathtaking? I don' think there are words to describe it. The first thing you see is this huge hole, which opens up to lots of rocks, and interestingly enough, a small beach. 

We spent a few mins there, just walking around and taking it in, it really was a beautiful and wonderful spot. Here are a few pictures; I probably should have brightened it up, but I'm lazy.

I was being the creeper, for once

Then we drove off back to the 'checkpoint' met some very interesting soldiers, and made our way to lunch, at a very nice place, after which we decided that we were longing for the large steps in Tikal, so we climbed down to an amazing view. We then drove thirty seconds (literally) to a swimming pool, where we were joined by our friendly Belize soldiers. 

After a very relaxing view, we got back in our vans, and made our way to The Waterfall. Yes, it requires a capital T and W because it was indescribable, like a lot of things in Belize. And, like a lot of things in Belize, it requires a very long and exhausting journey to get there -- a climb down a very steep cliff with only rocks and trees to help you along your way. But then, when you get down the hill, the price is incredible.

This is currently my wallpaper, and I think it is going to remain for a long time

The longer I stare at the first image of the waterfall reminds me of Bierstadt's The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak. Here's an image of it, if you don't remember it. I'm not sure why I am reminded of the painting -- maybe the fact that there is a waterfall in each image, or maybe the fact that it is untouched nature. 

People then jumped off the 10 ft and 35 ft (or something like that) cliff, and  managed to get some cool shots, so here a few cool ones. 

And of course, our fearless leader!

After our extraordinary climb back up, which was not as bad as we would have expected, and a quiet ride back, I retired to the comfort of a cold shower and a pillow.