Advertisement
Published: July 29th 2006
Edit Blog Post
heath and tim
this is them just about to go into the abyss Today Rhian (who was now feeling much better after the food poisoning) Kim and Gill decided to go back to the rio prata lodge and do the snorkelling trip they didn´t do on the day before, it was exactly the same with the guide Nau who was lovely with kim and very reassuring, he still seemed to think that kims problem was that she couldn´t swim though, not just that she was scared of putting her head in the water!
Tim, Nic, Jo and me had to get up ridiculously early as we were picked up at 6am by Paulo and taken to the cave where we would be abseiling. we went for training the night before to check we were able to do it, and also went to get fitted for a wetsuit, which were at the cave waiting for us when we arrived. We were kitted up with harneses and helmets, and were to go down the cave in twos, and it was Tim and me first!! The cave has an underground river running under it, and we were to abseil down, and were then going snorkelling in the river, which was about 18degrees, which is why we
us all in the lobby of the hotel about to go out
from the left there is Jo, Rhian, Tim, Nau (snorkelling guide), Gill, Nic and Kim had wetsuits!!
it was a 200ft abseil down into the cave to reach the platform that was down there. for the first 50ft, the gap between the rocks was fairly narrow to abseil down, but after this, the cave then opens out and is absolutely massive!! was a bit strange once we had got passed the first part to then be hanging above a huge lake of water inside a cave!! although it was only when i was a couple of feet from the platform that i realised how far i had abseiled down, and how huge the abyss we had just entered was!!!
after we had reached the platform, a bag containing our wetsuits was then sent down, and Tim and i changed into these whilst waiting for Jo and Nic to descend into the cave. once they were down and changed, we were then taken on a boat trip around the lake, and were shown all the interesting features of the cave, including the skull of a pig which had been down there for years!! this took about 20 minutes, and we then went back to the platform to get our snorkel gear. Nic was actually doing
a dive in the cave but as the rest of us dont have our dive licenses, we could only snorkel, but whilst we were snorkelling, Nic did her dive.
we were given flashlights, as for parts of the cave, to be able to see far enough under the water, we had to use these, although for most of it, the light that came in through the top of the cave meant you could see really far under the water. there is one type of fish that lived in the water in the cave, which is thought to have got there from when birds who had eaten the fish elsewhere had then flown into the cave, and the fish eggs that were in the bird poo then grown into fish in the cave.
the cave also has another 200ft abyss under the water, although the majority of the part that we were snorkelling in was around 10m deep. the water level in the cave was actually a lot lower than normal, as the dry season has been really dry this year!!!
we stayed snorkelling for about 20 minutes, then got out and got dressed again ready to climb back out
kim being drawn on
we went to a bar called taboa where you can sign the walls but tim used the pen to draw on kim and she couldn´t get it off for two days!!! the cave. Tim and i were first to climb out, and it was very tiring, and took about 20minutes to do!! it took a couple of minutes to get down, but takes a lot longer to get back up as you have to keep stopping for breaks!! the view looking down into the water from hanging on the rope was amazing, we only noticed this on the way back up, on the way down i think we had been far to busy looking at the sides of the cave and all the different features on the rocks.
It was a brilliant feeling when we got out of the cave, we were both quite tired but it was good as we had just pulled ourselves 200ft up a rope out of an abyss!! we then signed the book they had at the top which had everyone who had completed it in. we then sat at the top and waited for nic and jo to come out. the guys at the top then set up a pully system, and tim and i assumed that they were using this as a way of bringing up some of the dive equipment, but no, they were actually using it to pull Nic out of the cave!! she was too exhausted after her dive to pull herself back out, as she had swallowed a bit more of the water than she perhaps should have done!!
after about an hour both nic and jo were both out, so we were then taken back to the hotel, and arrived back by 12.30.
we then went out for lunch and wandered around Bonito for the rest of the afternoon.
when the others got back from snorkelling, we all decided we would go to a fish restraunt for tea that had been recommended to us by one of the abseiling guides.
Nau (the snorkelling guide) had arranged to meet up to come out with
us all, so he came to the resturant with us, and i had to become Hannah for a second day, as it was kind of a bit too late to tell him what my actual name was by then!!!
after the meal, we then went out for a few drinks in the bars nearby!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.191s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 17; qc: 76; dbt: 0.1256s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Phil
non-member comment
Happy Birthday!
I know this blog isn't your birthday but I'm reading it on the right day! Hope you have a great birthday and will catch up in September to give your presents. Sounds amazing by the way; very jealous!