Saturday, December 13, 2003

Black Water Rafting (2 of 2)

The water flowed through the cave pretty slow, and it wasn't very deep.  I was the last in our train, and I had the sneaking suspicion that our guide was just walking through the water, towing us by the first guy's tube.  We just relaxed and watched the pretty glowworms.  For the first part, I even kept my glasses on.

Then there was this little jump which we all had to go over individually (and backwards) and at that point, my glasses got tucked into my wetsuit.  (And when I went over it, my tube and me went under water for a few seconds, and I came up coughing, and hoping I hadn't swallowed any of the organisms growing in that icky cave water.)  The glowworms were out of focus from then on, and actually looked equally impressive as little blurry dots as they did as little clear ones. 

A few times, we broke the train up and turned to face forwards, and propelled ourselves through the cave individually -- by pushing off the cave walls or paddling with our hands.  There was one really cool bit where we went through a very low, very narrow section of cave, and it made me feel all explorery to push myself through there. 

At the end, there was a big drop, and the company had installed a waterslide, so we just slid down it.  Then we hiked out of the cave back to the van.  They drove us back to base camp, where they had warm showers, hot tomato soup, and nice warm toast waiting for us.  A nice touch.

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