There was one little older asian lady who came with us who was unable to swim, so she had to wear a life jacket and grab onto the back of the tour guide every time the water was too deep, but she was a great sport and always making jokes in her broken english. The majority of the time the water varied from ankle to chest deep, which made it a fun adventure. At one point, the guide had us turn off our head lamps and put one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us and walk by feel alone as it was pitch black and I really couldn't see anything. At another time, he collected rocks from the bottome of the rived, rubbed them together and then drew on our faces with the red clay.
Our tour guide really knew his stuff too and was pointing out and describing the different formations in the caves, which were beautiful. We saw a couple really cool insects as well and he told us how they adapted to cave life. He showed us a cricket that had antennae that were about 5" long that he would use as feelers. Once we were a quarter mile in, we left the water and had to do some climbing up rocks along the side of the cave. This lead us to a couple different chambers that had pots everywhere that were used in ceremonies over a thousand years ago. There were also a couple skeletons of people who had been sacrificed to the gods. It was a little brutal, as our guide pointed out the markings from an axe on the skull in one human and discussed how the second body was axed from behind (proved by marking on the spinal cord) and then most likely the heart was removed while still beating. Crazy stuff. It was really quite an experience in both the history of Mayan culture and in caving. We were in the cave for about 3 hrs, and when I swam out to the mouth of the cave, I was struck by the beauty of the green jungle. The Mayans apparently equated leaving the temple to being born again.
History lessons through real life hands on experience. Will make for good dream fodder too.
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