my birthday in Belize

For my 31st birthday Grant and I decided to go to Belize for vacation. We wanted to do something a little more exciting than lying on the beach.

Grant found a web site for a lodge called Caves Branch (www.cavesbranch.com), situated 10 miles outside of Belmopan, in Central Belize. The lodge is located on 58,000 acres under a 100-foot rain forest canopy. The estate has a river as well as numerous caves.

After reading about the trips we could take we decided to stay there for 4 days. How could we resist such advertising as "We now invite you to join us on some of the most adventurous and conscience altering expeditions that few will ever have the opportunity to experience" and the warning on the web site which read "Ian Anderson's CAVES BRANCH Adventure Co. & Jungle Lodge is neither a "Sightseeing" business nor a "Resort"! All of our expeditions can be strenuous and designed for the "adventurous spirit". Our accommodations are located in the heart of the "Jungle".

Day 1, Arrival
We arrived in the evening, just in time for a great dinner. We met the other guests, who for the most part were a sorry lot. Boring with no personality are the kindest words I can come up with to describe them. After attempting conversation Grant and I retired to our cabana, which had no electricity.

Just after the sun set it started raining so we went out in our bathing suits to cool off. The jungle was full of cantaloupe-sized frogs that hop all over the place, scaring the shit out of me until I realized what they were. In addition the howler monkeys were going crazy all night as they don’t like the rain (of course, I can tune out any noise after living in Athens for a year). We found one hand sized flying cockroach in our cabana. He was a rather unpleasant fellow and he made noise all night. Amazing something so small can be so obnoxious.

Day 2, River Cave Expedition
After breakfast the next day everyone piled into a van and we were driven to the orange groves owned by Caves Branch. We drove through them until we came to an overgrown entrance hole that had been hacked into the jungle.

We were given our tubes and a headlamp and we were off. We floated for 200 yards down a river until we reached the cave entrance. We turned on our headlamps and went into the cave. The River Cave Expedition is described in the brochure as follows:

This time combine cave tubing and cave exploration to explore this incredible river cave system where ancient Maya Ceremonial centers, pottery, artifacts, altars, obsidian blood letting blades, jade and the actual footprints of the Shaman and priests dated to 400 A.D. are still seen. Spectacular crystal formations over 5,000,000 years old cast eerie shadows into the black abyss as you explore and experience the most sacred area of the ancient Maya. A living museum where the past can still be experienced in its historical and natural location. Massive cathedral size chambers with walls of river sculptured rock dwarf explorers as we pass on foot and inner tube. Imagine the experience as we float through a cathedral and you turn off our lights … leaving you with the sensation of floating in timelessness.

This description leaves out a few of the cooler aspects of the trip. The cave was a series of large caverns connected together by the river. We floated in the river until we reached a chamber, where we would pull our tubes out of the water to go exploring. There were many shards of pottery left in the cave. One of the few whole pots was found on a sacrificial altar. Here’s how it was used: the pot would be filled with some poor sacrificee's blood and then a hole would be smashed into the bottom of the pot to allow the spirit of the victim to go free.

Surprisingly, the brochure fails to mention itty bitty titty city. This is a small cavern with a few stalactites hanging from the ceiling. One of the visitors (male, obviously) dubbed the place itty bitty titty city because of the perceived close resemblance to breasts (but really, don't men think EVERYTHING looks like tits). His wife must have been so proud. Grant is pictured here, declaring himself the mayor of itty bitty titty city.

We did a few easy rock scrambles around the cave. This was when I first came in contact with the cave mud, which is both the color and consistency of peanut butter. Twenty washings later, my white t-shirts are still stained. It would collect up on our boots until we were tracking around about twenty pounds of the stuff. One good feature of the mud is its moisturizing properties. My hands looked great when we finally left the Caves Branch Lodge.
The coolest thing in the cave was an altar for the goddess of fertility. There was a face carved into a stalagmite of the fertility goddess. The queen of the Mayan city would go to this alter if she was having a problem getting pregnant. In addition to the face there were also two figures carved into stalagmites that, if you moved your light over them, cast a huge shadow of two people having sex. Those Mayans may have had a few bad habits, like sacrificing people, but they also had a great sense of humor.

Day 2, Waterfall Cave Expedition
The River Cave Expedition was a nice warm up for me to see how my knee would handle the great outdoors. As I didn't encounter any problems we decided to try the Waterfall Cave Expedition for our second trip. The night before our trip, 3 guides did their best to discourage me from attempting it as it is their most arduous one day trip and it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to rescue someone if anything happens. Of course, the more they discouraged me the more I wanted to do it.

However, I have to admit to scaring the shit out of this silly couple from Minnesota who wanted to do the trip with us. Most of the people at Caves Branch were hardly specimens of great physical fitness and I didn't want to be slowed down by some betty who actually showed up for dinner the first night in high heeled flip flops.

The Waterfall Cave trip is described as:
Waterfalls .. waterfalls .. and more waterfalls. Hundreds of feet under the limestone mountain ridge above, explore this river cave with a total of six waterfalls that must be challenged and conquered before days end. No cave tubing today. Spectacular crystal formations loom above and ancient Maya ceremonial centers are hidden in side chambers as you explore this mist shrouded kingdom. At the end of the day, a three kilometer hike through the forest where a driver will be waiting to bring you back to the lodge. This expedition has a very high difficulty level and all participants must be fit and agile.

This trip would not be a good idea for anyone who has a fear of water, heights, or the dark. We strapped on our lights and headed into the cave. At first we were walking alongside the cave river, and then we reached a point where we were in the water, first up to our knees and then gradually to our waists. We got to the first waterfall, which was about 25 feet in height. Water was gushing down into a 7 foot long round pool. The pool was about 3 feet deep on the sides and then dropped into a dark hole at the center. We were strapped into our Swiss seats and then clipped into a rope. The rope was to prevent us from taking a digger as we climbed up the waterfall. Grant went up first and then I followed. It was kind of strange climbing in the dark. Also, you couldn't look up for handholds as you end up with a face full of water.

At the top of this waterfall was a series of small pools. We had to balance walking along the rims of the pools. Then we climbed over some rocks and found ourselves in knee deep water. That's when one of the guides had the unfortunate inspiration to point out the snake. It was a 1 foot water snake apparently hanging out at the bottom of the river. When the guide started walking towards it I admit I yelled "what are you doing????" in a rather loud and panicky voice.

Apparently immune to my not so subtle hysteria he said "I want to see if it's alive" to which I responded "it's going to bite you!!!!!!!" in an even more hysterical voice. NOTE TO THE READER: I hate snakes!!!

My brain, normally unable to even remember my telephone number, then managed to retrieve every fact I know about water snakes based on a show I saw about them on Discovery. One fact in particular that I remembered had to do with the viciousness of these snakes and how poisonous they were. I distinctly recalled the narrator stating that a diver had a better chance of dying from a water snake attack than a shark attack. And here we were, miles from nowhere, confronted by this horrible serpent that would surely go for ME first since I have a bum leg and can't run as fast as everyone else. "Don't worry it's dead, and anyway it's just a baby snake," the guide assured me, and then he told me that cave water snakes are very docile and don't attack people.

Well, he did what men always do when confronted by female hysteria. He lied.

In any case, for the rest of the trip, every time a branch or other flotsam came floating my way, I was positive it was a big water snake. This provided some unsettling moments especially when we were going through a part of the cave where we had to swim down a long narrow tunnel. That's when I began to perform a calculation to figure out how big an adult snake would be if the baby snake was only a foot long. As my math skills aren't that good the number I arrived at was "huge". This translated, from the metric measurement of huge (they use metrics in Central America) to the English measurement of "bigger than me, possibly bigger even than Jaws". Luckily the crystal caverns and other waterfall climbs were distracting enough that I didn't spend the whole trip looking for the mother of all water snakes about to bite my leg off.
It should be noted that we set a new speed record for getting through the cave and both guides were very impressed with our climbing skills. The two hour hike back to the car through the jungle was also good preparation for the next day's trip.

Day 3, the Black Hole
This trip is the one that sold me on Caves Branch. Described as:
It's now tried and tested and the results .. SPECTACULAR, INCREDIBLE, A RUSH LIKE NO OTHER !!!

The “Mother of all Caves” .. Actun Loch Tunich ! This expedition starts off with a vigorous hike into the foothills of the Maya Mountains. The edge of the Actun Loch Tunich sink hole sits over 300 feet above the basin below, 200 feet above the rainforest canopy that grows out from the sink hole basin. Our fully trained caving guides then rig a system of rappelling ropes for your decent to the basin below. The first 10 feet provides the adrenaline, the next 200 feet provides an unforgettable experience and sights to behold, the last 100 feet takes you down through the rainforest canopy. But before you start it all .. you might just throw up! The sink hole is not actually black, but you can't see the bottom from where you start. Once you're at the bottom, the question is .. How do we get you out??? Then a return hike out of the foothills and a well deserved cold beer at camp. There is the Actun Loch Tunich river cave .. but no cave tubing. This expedition is not for the faint of heart and all participants must be relatively fit.
How could I resist when they expressly mentioned beer in the description?

A Canadian by the name of Kevin joined us on this little adventure. I was immediately wary of him as he was 1. Canadian 2. Not in great shape 3. Sporting a strange hairdo of little braids sticking out of his head with colorful rubber bands around the tips of each braid. Note to male readers: this is NOT a good look if you are balding as much as Kevin. It turned out he made me look like the epitome of grace. Only 1 hour into the jungle trek he had already taken numerous diggers over branches, down muddy paths, over rocks and he proved himself completely incompetent at carrying a back sack full of 40 pounds of climbing ropes (lucky Grant got to carry it the whole trip).

For some strange reason, I have a brush with death every time I go on vacation with Grant. It should be no surprise that the brush with death occurred as I was rappelling into a sinkhole 300 feet off the ground.

When it came time for the rappel Grant went first, followed by Kevin. This was done to either get the incompetent idiot down the line as quickly as possible or because the guide did not want to be stuck at the top of the cliff by himself with Kevin, who was discussing his work with a not for profit organization that was trying to gene splice the rain forest. In any case, Kevin did not even manage to take his first step off the cliff. He fell before reaching the edge, which is how he came to be dangling head first 300 feet off the ground. My immediate reaction was to say "stupid Canadian" (note to readers: don't ask me to join your support group). It took the guide quite a few minutes to get him right side up and then down the line. Little did I know that I soon would be in a situation far worse.

Having read many books on man made disasters, such as the deaths on Everest in 1996 and the sinking of the Titanic, I am well aware that most disasters are caused by a series of little errors, compounded by hubris. I admit to being a little cocky when it was my turn to go down. The guide gave me the rappelling device, which looked like a U with four bars running across it, called a rappel rack.

The rope loops over the round part of the "U" and is then wound in and out among the bars with the ends of the U being held in the left hand while the right hand feeds the rope through. The concept of the device is that each bar acts like a brake on the rope to keep you from going down too fast. If you want to release the brakes on the rope you have to spread the bars so the rope can feed through.

The guide let me thread the rack even though I was unfamiliar with the device (mistake 1). He then turned it over because he thought I was holding the rack upside down when in fact I had accidentally threaded it backwards (mistake 2). I then headed towards the edge of the cliff before making sure the guide had me belayed into his rope (this would prevent me from falling to my death should my rappel rack fail or should I lose control of the rope - a belay means someone else is hooked to me that can stop me from falling) - mistake 3.

I was standing at the edge of the cliff sitting as far back as possible in my harness but I could not get moving. I later found out that I did not weigh enough for the rappel rack to work properly and that I should have only had two brakes set, as opposed to all five and that is why I had so much trouble with the device. In any case, since I have already interrupted myself, I should also mention the poison tree, which is central to my near death experience.

The poison tree is found only in Belize. It has the same properties as poison oak. Touching the bark or root of this tree results in a severe and unseemly rash that takes up to two weeks to go away. It happened that there was a poison tree growing at the edge of the cliff right where we were supposed to rappel off. To protect us tourists the guides decided to throw a plastic tarp over the exposed roots, which dangled down the cliff face (mistake 4).

Combine mud caked boots from our jungle trek with plastic on an uneven surface and a fall is sure to result. As I was very focused on the rack and my harness, I did not notice the plastic sheet as I neared the cliff edge. Furthermore, I had completely spread the bars in the rack so there was absolutely no braking power in the rack (this was so I could get my line moving so I could start rappelling down). My foot hit the plastic, I slipped, and then found myself free falling for 10 feet down the cliff face. Actually, I guess I wasn't free falling because I was scraping away a large portion of the cliff limestone with my forehead, my left knee, and my feet. After bouncing off the limestone wall a few times I managed to get both my hands around the rope above my head. It took another 10 feet to arrest my fall because I was wearing gloves that were too big for me and I couldn't get a good handle on the rope. Finally I came to a stop and looked up at the guide. His face was white as a sheet. He asked if I was okay. I wasn't worried at the time because I figured if I hadn't stopped my fall he would have via the belay. (Theatrical pause). Unbelievably, he hadn't clipped in to my rope yet. Had I not stopped my fall, he would not have been able to as he wasn't clipped into my line and I would have free fallen 300 feet into a sink hole.

The story loses some of its drama when it was pointed out to me later, by Grant, that I was also belayed in to the guide below, so the ground guide could have arrested my fall. I usually leave that part out, as it tends to ruin the story. At the time of my fall Grant couldn't see what was going on as the jungle canopy blocked all but the last 100 visual feet of the rappel. He said they heard a loud thud and then a bunch of rocks started falling. "Here comes Franki", he supposedly quipped.

After my fall the rest of the rappel down was a drawn out trip from hell. The harness was too tight so once my full weight was in it, it constricted my sides so that I could barely breathe. I had to forcibly hold the bars apart with my fingers because the rope wasn't feeding through. At times I became stuck and would dangle mid-air trying with both hands to force the rope through the rack. The last ten feet my thumb became stuck between two of the brakes and the nail was crushed into a blackened mess as I couldn't free it until my legs were on terra firma. At that point I could see why both throwing up and alcohol were mentioned in the write up for the black hole. On the bright side of things, the harness so constricted my waist that I look really skinny in all the pictures.

Brushing off my near death experience I soldiered on to the cave where were saw a few nice crystal chambers and got so much cave mud caked on our boots that I felt like Jimmy Hoffa with his cement blocks about to be pitched into the river. Kevin managed to almost kill himself a few times and then was so wiped out that we didn't have to listen to any of his new age prattle on the 3 hour jungle hike back to the car. Since I had almost died I felt a renewed interest in helping people, which is why I told Kevin that he was too bald to wear braids. You didn't really think I would be able to keep my mouth shut about that, did you?

When we returned to Caves Branch Lodge that afternoon, it was only to pick up our stuff. We were headed to St. George's Caye, for the second half of our adventure vacation.
We were staying at St. George's Lodge (www.gooddiving.com). The brochure describes it as:
St. George's Lodge, Belize, is located on St. George's Caye which sits just eight miles from Belize City. Our location is perfect for short boat trips to some of the best diving locations in Belize. This is a peaceful island which has a permanent population of only about 20 people. This island also is noted for having the first permanent settlement in Belize (beginning in 1650).

The island is only 1.5 miles long and about a quarter of a mile wide. The lodge is run by Fred Good (a Berkeley MBA) and Fran (nurse and earth mother). Amazingly, almost all of the guests staying there were from San Francisco. Most of them were friends from college, and two of them had married each other at the lodge the year before. All of the friends decided to return to the lodge every year to celebrate the wedding anniversary.

For the most part, these people were ridiculous twits who led such boring lives that you would fall asleep listening to them even if they were talking about sex (which they did – of course, they talked about a lot of things they knew nothing about). Two of the women, Robin and Jennifer, were so mean to me that even Grant noticed. I decided to deal with their bitchiness by drinking as much as possible to distract myself. Also, the last night Grant left a little surprise for Jennifer in her wetsuit.

The sole purpose of going to a place like St. George's Lodge was to dive. We would ride out to a dive spot at about 9 in the morning, dive for an hour, return to land for lunch, and then go out again in the afternoon. For some reason this simple routine is quite exhausting and most nights everyone was asleep by 9 or 10.

I discovered a very interesting allergy while diving here. There is a special air mix called Nitrox that you have to be certified to use while diving. Nitrox allows the diver to stay down longer and to dive deeper, while protecting from the bends. In addition most people feel a lot less tired when using Nitrox. Because of all these great benefits Grant and I decided to do our nitrox certification at the lodge.


The first dive we went to about 130 feet. I started feeling very sick, as if I had suddenly gotten a bad hangover. By the time we returned to the surface of the water I was completely disoriented and having trouble with my coordination. This was not a good situation considering we were in three foot wave chop and the boat was pounding around in the water like a pissed off fish on a line.

Somehow I managed to get back on the boat and after drinking some water back at the lodge I felt better. That afternoon, the same thing happened. I figured I was just tired and that I would feel better the next day.

The next morning, the dive went even worse than the two dives the previous day. At about 120 feet I began to get tunnel vision. I swam up to about 80 feet where my situation improved so I continued the dive. Then, at the end of the dive, I realized after I swam up to the boat that I had no idea how to get my dive fins off. To make matters worse I had a tremendous headache and couldn't really stand up straight.

It turns out I am allergic to Nitrox. Yes, I am ALLERGIC TO AIR. This reaction usually happens in divers with low body fat (and believe me, there aren't too many divers out there with low body fat). The rest of the trip I used normal air and I was fine.

The most exciting event of our dives occurred on the second day, on the afternoon dive. Grant and I were swimming through a canyon at about 45 feet when suddenly a ray appeared in front of us. The wing span was over six feet. As we had been instructed by Fran, we settled down on the sandy bottom, getting below the ray in a non-threatening position. The ray came within about 1 foot of us and settled on the bottom as well. We touched its wings and it kept raising its head up and showing its mouth to us. I thought this was some kind of animal posturing but it turns out he was just trying to throw up the shell from a lobster he had eaten. Then one of the idiot divers swam over the top of the ray and tried to grab a wing. The ray was gone in a flash.
Figure 16: Grant makes friends with a hermit crab, eaten minutes later by a seagullIn addition to rays we also saw squids, puffer fish, tons of lobsters, nudibranches, and other cool ocean life. Unfortunately, no sharks L were to be found anywhere.


One final, interesting note about the island. When returning from our afternoon dive we saw a macaw in a tree next to the lodge. I asked Fran about the bird. It turns out the macaw was a stray that Fran had taken in to raise. The bird was ill tempered to say the least. After dealing with numerous attacks on cats, dogs, guests, stereo speakers, chairs, carpets, house cleaners, cooks, and even walls Fran relegated the bird to its own home on the island. It was allowed outside for only a few hours every day, and only in one tree from which it couldn't fly or gain entrance to the lodge. This poor psycho bird that can't get along with anyone now living out its years in solitary confinement was named "Franki". No comments from the peanut gallery, please.

After a short visit in Belize City we were on our way home. I would highly recommend Belize to anyone taking a trip for either diving or eco-adventuring. It was a great country and we had a great time.