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Hello friends,
This edition of the blog is going to cover quite a bit of time and locations. We tackled the Yucatan peninsula and Belize over the last 10 days or so. We have done alot! AFter our caves and volcanoes in Guatamala, Dave and I did an epic 16 hour day of bus rides to arrive in the deeply important city of Cancun. We passed through many small villages and beautiful jungles. It was hard to appreciate these bus vistas, however, as our bodies were perpetually covered in boiling sweat. Normally bus passengers pass the time by chatting to each other about their home countries and past travels. The energy required to hold these types of conversations proved to be too much for anyone on the bus. We spent the 16 hours mostly nursing our hot water bottles in silence and readjusting our buttocks to deaden a different set of muscles. Sizzle!
Upon arriving in Cancun, we were assaulted with an endless array of All-Inclusve Resort Kingdoms. These things were massive. The only comparable monstrasity I can think of is Las Vegas. But the sheer number of resorts and elaborate gargantiun proportions made it even more impressive. We
stayed in a kitchy hostel away from the resorts that was owned by a former go-go dancer. She was quite helpful and fun. She gave us a secret tip about the biggest craziest resort in Cancun. Apparently you can get an $18 day pass and use all of the luxiourious amenities of the resort without paying the high dollar pricetag of actually staying there. What a money saver! We spent 2 full days soaking in the decadence of this lifestyle. A quarter mile long pool with more swim up bars than I could count, floating beer pong, wacky water aerobics, jet skis, beach volleyball, all you can drink and eat buffets, foam parties and more bathing beauties than I have ever seen. One particularly hilarious aesthetic choice was to allow full blown PeacockS to roam the grounds. These showoff birds fit in perfectly with the body conscious sun lovers they waddled between. There was plenty to detest about this lifestlye...in fact, most backpackers skip Cancun on their travels through central america...but everyone enjoys themselves once they are there. It is a guilty pleasure like American Idol or Spice Girls (both of which i hate).
After scrubbing the Cancun foam
from our bodies, we sought out the highly recomended Cenotos Caves. These are a system of 5000 interconnected inland freshwater caves in Mexico. I had heard of them from the Caves episode of the Planet Earth DVD series (my new travel checklist). We took a truck (not a boat) to our dive site...suited up our gear and jumped into an underwater cave. We were each equipped with a flashlight and our divemaster had to have 2 tanks in case something went wrong. Since we were not "Cave Certified" divers, we had to stay within 120 ft of visable "daylight" at all times. If this sounds less intense than full blown cave diving, it did not comprimise the adventure at all. We swam through massive chambers of delicate stalactites that were illuminated by precise lazer beams of sunlight that would warp in the water if you looked at them from different depths. We swam through some bizarre Haloclines. These are where freshwater and saltwater meet to create a seemingly impossible set of 2 distinct walls of water. Half of it is perfectly clear and the other is a thick shiney blur comparable to that weird face creature in the movie Abyss.
You can literally move your face in and out of the blur for quite a trippy effect. Sometimes we would descend further and further into the cave until the light was all but gone. The rangers have put guide wires along the ground and ceiling to assist the confused cave diver to the exit in case of an air emergency. These dives were quite a unique and beautiful experience.
Lucky for me, my traveling companions do not tire of Scuba Diving easily. Our next 3 or 4 days were consumed with some brilliant diving in Belize. This is the only English speaking country in Latin America. This land was actually governed by England until the very recent 1981 when they became independent. It has a distinctly Caribbean feel and is composed of mainly chilled out Cayes and islands. Our 1st stop was at the more backpacker friendly Caye Caulker. Yet another wonderful budget priced hotel on the beach. This one let me use WiFi iPhone in a hammock with a beer and ocean view. I was almost overwhelmed with relaxation. Our 1st dive was to the ultra famous Blue Hole. This is a perfectly circlular hole in the middle
of the ocean that is 300 ft across and almost 500 feet deep. It is filled with deep blue colored water and massive ice age stalactites. The max depth a recreational diver can go is 140 feet. Lucky for us, this is where the massive stalactites begin to emerge. Unfortunatly for us, we consume air 6 times faster than normal at this depth. That means we only have around 8-10 minutes down there! Which means the faster you can get down there, the more time you have to explore. We were seperated into makeshift speed groups at the surface. The head divemaster wants 4 or 5 people who will not have any equalizing problems with their ears or underweighted people to drop at light speed with him. I decide I am up for the challenge and he gives us the descend command. We drop like a bag of rocks down into this bottomless blue pit. The massive vertical wall in front of us is blazing past our face. It felt like jumping off of a cliff and falling in slow motion. We watch our dive computers count up to the highest number they will ever show...140...and we level out. He
extends his arm to the majectic formations for us to explore at will. They were of course beautiful, but some bonus magic came from knowing how long ago these structures were formed. They came about like any other rock formations in a dry cave by droplets of water slowly inching the limestone rocks towards the ground. But when they were flooded millions of years ago, their growth was essentially frozen in time. We were seeing them exactly how they looked so long ago. Awesome! Ever vigilant about air, we begin our gradual ascent. Lucky for us, we are surrounded by massive sharks! They used to "chum" this area with bloody fish to get the sharks excited for the tourists. Although this no longer happens, the sharks are still quite friendly. Although I was skeptical of this macho dive at first, I can firmly saw it was worth it.
We did another 4 super beautiful reef dives with eels, turtles, barracuda, eagle rays, reef sharks and 100's of variety of colorful fish and coral. Some of the best dives I have ever done. I am hoping my video does it justice. Finally we did the famous whale shark dives in
Placencia. During the full moons of April, May and June...huge schools of snapper spawn in this area. This attracts many large creatures of the sea including hammerheads sharks, bull sharks, dolphins...and the super massive Whale Sharks. This is an open ocean dive, meaning there is no frame of reference like a reef, ground, wall, etc. We have to rely on our depth gauge and other divers to avoid getting Vertigo. This is where you think you are staying still but in reality are plunging deep or rocketing up (both bad). The area is quite protected and each dive boat only gets 90 minutes in "the zone". Our boat must wait a few lazy hours bouncing outside the reef until the other boats clear out. This strict waiting line kinda felt like a Hollywood club on the ocean! The energy skyrocketed once we got out there. The boat was equipped with a sonar to search for large swarms of fish. These would be the schooling fish that the big guys want to eat. We stop...plunge into the blue and begin swimming. It was yet another peculiar experience to be surround by perfect blue in all directions. My eyes kept tricking me
into thinking I saw something, when nothing was there. One of the tricks to attract the sharks is to get all the divers in a circle and shake our regulators. This would cause a whirlpool of air bubbles that resembled a fish spawn. After 30 minutes of swimming and a few diver created whirl pools...something huge emerged from the distance. A Whale Shark! It looked like a powerful submarine emerging out of the endless blue abyss. It seemed to exert no effort at all to move deceivingly fast past us. It swam directly at me and I had to paddle down to avoid touching it. It was literally within arms reach (although touching these guys will get you a $10,000 fine). This was a spectacular sight to see. Upon surfacing, we find out this was a "small" juvenile whale shark of only 19 feet. The big ones are 30-40 feet. Wowzers. I attempted to go again the next day but came up empty handed. 1 out of 4 dives aint bad though.
Today marked the end of my travel group. Dave, Scott, Marina, Katie and Carrie have all gone our seperate ways. My mom is arriving within the hour
and we will travel Belize and Costa Rica for the next 2 weeks.
p.s. - I still cherish all of your comments and think of you often. and remember, the comment competition is still on!
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Jenny
non-member comment
Blue Hole?
Wait, that picture "Blue Hole from Above" - what exactly am I looking at? It looks like a picture taken from space, but I'm pretty sure that's one adventure you guys HAVEN'T done on this trip... It's a beautiful picture even though I have no clue what it is. I'm so glad you got to see a whale shark! I remember you talking about really wanting to time it to see them, so glad that worked out. Say hi to mom from your blog friends and have fun being treated to some parent travel time after all the roughing it you guys have been doing. Cheers!