Our zip-line adventure this morning was wonderful, as ever. The students were expecting one run and did not realize that it’s series of 8 tree platforms that we travel between. The journey took us about 2.5 hours to complete due to the size of our group but the down time on the platforms as the group caught up allowed for some amazing views and quiet reflection. Our guides, Jesus and Hector, were incredibly efficient and reassuring, and even those who began with a tad of apprehension felt confident after the second run.

After a lunch of stew chicken and rice and beans the national dish of Belize – served today with hot sauce that a few students underestimated, with comical [to me] results…), we had the afternoon to ourselves. Most of the students hiked to Crystal Cave and climbed about 300 yards down into it to see the limestone and crystal formations. They also found shards of Mayan pottery way down deep, which is not surprising – the cave system was considered the realm of the dead by the native people (the Mayan underworld), and there is copious evidence of their ancient civilization in the underground caves.

Tonight after dinner we will undertake a guided night hike, with the (perhaps vain) hope of spotting a predator of some point. The little kids (a/k/a ‘jaguar bait’) will stay at the hotel with me and the students and men will do an hour-and-a-half hike. Lions and tigers and bears … oh my!

And now, a few words from student blogger of the day, Sam Olsen:


As you already read, the zip-line was way more than we expected. I have zip-lined once before but it was nothing like this. Before, there was a clear path cut for one to fly through, but here that was not always the case. On the sixth run, you literally go through a hole that had been cut in a giant palm frond. Jesus, our guide, acted throughout as our savior, and we put our faith in him.

This entire place is a paradise. We are in a bowl of sorts, with cliff walls climbing a hundred feet in the air on some sides of us, although you would never be able to tell the jungle is so thick. You can really see why people would need a machete to get around down here. Also, the vegetation is extraordinary. There is one tree, called the give and take tree, which is covered from the top to the bottom of its trunk with poisonous spikes. At the top, there are these bushels of berries that contain the antidote to the spikes.

There is a river that flows through a cave that you are allowed to explore without a guide (we had an impromptu discussion about how different the rules were than in America). The other cave that you already heard about blew my mind. It was absolutely huge. As we climbed farther and farther in we kept discovering new, gigantic ‘rooms’ filled with flowing water. It was excruciatingly hot, so much so that by the time we were done we were all glistening in the humidity.

More later …