Caves Branch Outpost Day!!

One morning, while waiting for the Immigration Office to open in Belmopan, Dennis and I met a nice lady and her children while eating fry jacks down by the bus station.  Her name is Janice and before we left she got our phone number so she could call us later to arrange a complimentary visit to where she worked.  As it ends up she did contact us and gave us a free Cave Tubing and Zip Line package at Caves Branch Outpost.  She was great, and she actually remembered us when we arrived. 

She got us set up right away with some inner tubes and a tour guide named Israel.  That is him in the picture with the red tube and I have the orange one.  First we had to hike into the bush for about twenty minutes.

Parts of the hike in were a little interesting, but all of it was beautiful.

The whole trip is on the Caves Branch River.  This is looking down stream from the shore.  Later on we will be floating down here as we head back to the start.

The opening to the underground.  As you stand on the shore, this is looking into the caves on the right.

This is looking to the left from the starting point.  If you look closely you will see the gringa woman swimming under the cliffs.  That was me!

I had to get out so that Dennis could be in a photo also.  He had a great time and was really living on the wild side by bringing his camera on the trip in the inner tube.  The water really is as clear as it looks.

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This is the view going into the entrance.

This is turning around and looking back to where we started.

From a long way back in the dark, you can hear this water fall.   I almost felt like the opening scene to Land of the Lost.  You can imagine a huge water fall up ahead and then you find out it is only this little thing.  But it was still pretty.

This is me as we exit the cave.

It is amazing to see where we came out.  Kind of scary looking.  We spent about 45 minutes in the cave and saw a lot of beautiful rock formations.

So we just continued floating down the river back to where we started.

It was a perfect day for being on the water.  I think Israel had a peaceful time with us.  He is used to dealing with larger groups of tourists.

After we got back we were treated to a free lunch upstairs in the Tree House Restaurant.  We could see all around the area from where we were sitting.  That is Israel in the tube.

The whole parking lot area is surrounded by other tour companies.  Dennis liked this shot.

Up in the restaurant.  Not sure what the freaky looking blue man/monkey thing is, but the jaguar was pretty cool.

After a delicious lunch we were off to go zipping!  We look very adventurous and almost cool.

They start you out on shorter lines that aren't very far off the ground.  I guess they need to weed out anyone who may just freak out later.

This one was much higher up and 600 feet long.  It got really fast really quick.

The leather glove has a piece of heavier leather sewn into the palm.  When you need to slow down you just pull down on the hand in the back.  Yea, I had slow down quickly on the last line,  It was 1,000 feet long, and we were flying!  I think I actually said Woo Hoo!  Our guides were very nice and made sure everyone had a great time.

So, that was our day at Caves Branch Outpost!  We were so blessed to be able to just spend some fun time together.  The people who worked there were all very good at their jobs and very nice to us, including the guys at the front gate and the restaurant people.  We would recommend Caves Branch Outpost to everyone.  Thank you Janice and the staff!!!

Just as a little side note...We have never seen so much white skin as we did this day.  Israel told us that they get cruise ship excursions there all the time.  We spend all of our time in the village and it was really weird to see so many gringos in bathing suits.  Let's just leave it at that...

Love you guys, hope it is looking more like spring in Tennessee and in Washington!