18 August: Cave Tubing!! I have no photos -_-

So as the title suggests I have no photos from today. We spent the day floating through caves and down a river in massive rubber rings and it would have been impossible to keep my iPad and camera safe from the water. Floating down a river in a rubber ring is a lot harder than it sounds, especially when you go over shallow parts of the river and have to keep your bottom and legs simultaneously off the bottom of the riverbed so neither gets scratched across. Doing this also keeps your tube moving and stops you from parking in the middle of the river... Needless to say, I did this on countless occasions. Ahh yeah the junk in my trunk can hold me firmly in place in the middle of a river haha. 

So we floated down the river and into the caves, we had helmets with head torches on and at one point, once deep inside the cave, our guide told us all to turn all our lights off and to be completely silent. It was very eery and the only sounds we could hear were the odd trickle of water and the sounds of the bats above us.

We continued on down further into the cave until we came out briefly into the sunshine, here a few of us took the opportunity to sunbathe on our rings. We also got to experience the little fish that eat your dead feet. Screw paying £20 for that again I'll just come to Central America where it's free! Anyway we moved on back into the cave and had the opportunity to dive off some cliffs inside the cave! This was so much fun, it was particularly scary because the water you were jumping into was black so you had no idea how high or how far you were jumping. It was awesome! 

The rest of the day just consisted of us paddling down and listening to our guide's tales of the Mayans who used these caves. He also pointed out a rock formation that looked like Bob Marley. 

Once finished we had lunch and packed up. We got home around 5. Oh actually I did get one photo from today....

These were two Amish men selling watermelons. Our driver told us about how there are two types of Amish people living in Belize and near San Ignacio in particular, the regular Amish as we know them and then a new kind who don't follow the traditional Amish rules and their leader; these ones also refer to themselves as Menonites (or money Knights, as our driver called them). They drive Utes and cars (they also sell them too) and they provide San Ignacio with its milk and cheese. 

So, yeah, who would have thought you'd find the Amish in Belize?!

XOXO