Cave Tubing - June 13

Today was my last day in Belize and I went cave tubing. Basically, it was floating down a river on an inner tube and going through a very large and long cave.  It was beautiful!  We floated down the river in groups of eight and we each had a guide with us.  The job of the guide was to keep us from freaking out when we were in total darkness - besides the miner's lights on our heads which really don't do a heck of a lot to illuminate a place.  He also towed us down the river when the current lagged which was really sweet of him but he worked hard since all eight of us had our tubes joined together in one long line.  I wasn't able to take pictures of the caves or the rest of the river journey since I don't have a water-proof camera but I really wish I had one given how gorgeous everything was.  We spent about 90 minutes floating down the river and 30 minutes of that was in the cave.  It was just a refreshing and beautiful way to spend the morning.

After we were done on the river, we changed clothes and dashed into the nearby restaurant for lunch which turned out to be all-American food: potato salad, cole slaw, hamburgers, french fries, corn on the cob, etc.  It was all very delicious but we were a little surprised at the lack of rice & beans and chicken given that we've had them at all other meals while in this region.

After lunch we had a 75 minute bus ride back to the port where we immediately jumped onto a tender waiting for us.  Some of us had wanted to spend a few minutes poking around the shops and doing some exploring but the tenders haven't been reliable in their timetable and if we missed the last tender to the ship we were out of luck getting back before the 3:00 deadline.  Since it was already 2:00 I decided not to chance it and headed back to the ship where a much-appreciated shower was waiting for me.

We are leaving port early tonight and heading back to Florida on Friday.  We'll be back at sea while enjoying our BBQ tonight.  Everybody is super excited about the treat and are talking of little else at this point.  The things that make us happy!