An early rise in Placencia, we packed our gear, minus a US$6 bottle of rum that Jes stubbornly packed with her from the northern cayes, and headed out to catch the bus to Belmopan. We caught breakfast at a local shack open early and selling bean-and-chicken-filled flour tacos with a cup of hot water that I combined with instant coffee and a lot of sugar.
We caught the bus a short while later and began our return to Dangriga, the city from which we had flown to Placencia the afteroon previous. After about an hour's wait in Dangriga we jumped another bus to Belmopan, arriving by about 11am. We had previously researched accommodation and had decided on the Hibiscus Hotel based solely on its proximity to the bus station. To our delight, when we showed up asking about accommodation, there was vacancy in a private room with a king size bed for US$60 per night.
After dropping our bags in the room we had a quick lunch in the attached restaurant, Corker's. We asked the British hotel/restaurant owners about cave-tubing (or "tube-caving" as it's known in some circles, ie Jes's circle) and tours to the A.T.M. site. Impressively, they were able to arrange a tube-caving tour for that afternoon and they'd be by to pick us up in about an hour and a half. The tour dude obviously wasn't too busy because he knocked on our hotel room door half an hour ahead of schedule. We took off a short time later and before we knew it we were hiking through the Belizean jungle donning bright yellow inner tubes on our shoulders!
We were offered helmets and life jackets, but politely declined, however, the headlamps were not optional as we were about to disappear into complete darkness inside these Mayan caves.
As we were hiking, our knowledgeable tour guide, Luis, presented us with an option to hike an additional half hour in order to tube the fifth of the five caves, as the normal route only took you to the entrance to the fourth of five. I was skeptical, especially hiking through the obviously more rugged terrain (than the tourist trail) in flip flops with mangled toes from the escapades of a couple nights prior. Nonetheless, we decided to go for it and we were glad to do it. As it turns out, our guide only gets asked to do this "more adventurous route" once every month or less. We were happy to be considered "more adventurous" and also happy to get the additional exercise after so much inactivity and gluttony on the trip and two straight travel days.
Along the way, Luis pointed out a termite nest and informed us that these little critters would be a good source of protein if we somehow found ourselves lost and rationless in this dense jungle. He added also that you would be pleasantly surprised by their minty flavour and carroty aftertaste, a notion at which I scoffed. Naturally, he challenged us to disprove his claim, a notion at which I balked. Jes however, probably grouchy with jungle-hiking-hunger was ready to chomp down on anything put in front of her, including live insects. She didn't hesitate, and plunged our guide's termite-covered finger into her mouth to feed on the crawly goodness, which she then declared as "minty!" followed by "carroty!". I felt my manhood was in jeopardy if I could not repeat the task. After some self- and hiking-party persuasion, I took a pair of the tiny bugs onto my finger and gingerly placed them into my mouth, gnawing at them at the behest of our guide who implored that they be chewed in order to achieve the full minty-carroty effect. I never did quite experience the minty flavor, but the carrot taste was in full effect; that is, if you consider that it tasted like a carrot freshly pulled from the Earth and consisting of more dirt than carrot.
We spent the next few hours lightly paddling ourselves upstream through the cave system, using flip flops as oars. We picked an extraordinary day and time for it as there was virtually no one around. We had heard, and it was confirmed by our guide, that the next three days (Tues-Thurs) would bring hoards of cruise-ship travellers through the tube-caving site, so we were more than please at how our day had worked out.
We finished up the tour and immediately continued our negotiations for touring the A.T.M. site the next day. We were more than skeptical about the "US$130, minimum US$110" quote from our guide, so we arranged for his boss to call us later to discuss the pricing. When we arrived at the hotel, we immediately looked up the pricing in our Lonely Planet book to find that we were right. They were trying to con us into some astronomical tourist price, as the quoted price in the book was US$80. Our hotel folk helped us arrange a tour through another company for a more reasonable US$85 which we were more than happy to accept and make arrangements for. Somewhat to our shegrin, we found out later that "the boss" of the tour company had called the hotel to talk to us as arranged and the hotel owner told them we'd found another company to take us out for US$65 (she had gotten confused with the price we told her we'd paid for the 5-cave-tube-caving). "The boss" said he'd match the price of US$65 (which was never offered by anyone), so who knows how low he'd go after their initial quote of twice that (US$130). The principle of it bothered me anyway, so I was glad to go with the company that offered regular rates off the hop.
We ate upstairs again for supper, despite the elevated cost. I was still feeling the effects of my Caye Caulker escapades two nights earlier, so I was still off booze for the time being. I had a simple chicken and potato dinner with veggies and a variety of hot sauces while Jes had the veggie-stuffed peppers, which were also delicious, chased with more Coco Locos than she could handle without me noticing her sudden intoxication.
We went to bed happy that the day had come together so nicely after somewhat of a lost day previous to that.
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