Day 9 was amazing! We didn’t do too many things today, but the things we did were absolutely unforgettable. We had to say goodbye to Adrienne today, which was sad, but she promised to read and comment on all of our blogs 🙂

We woke up in the Belize Zoo but left early. We took a bus to the ATM Cave, which was one of the coolest places I have ever been. Sadly, cameras are not allowed in the cave, so I don’t have any photos to show you. We quickly became master spelunkers! We had to swim through the entrance of the cave to access it, and we waded through the freezing water deep into the mountain to see some ancient Mayan artifacts.

The cave was freaky at first, but once we got used to it, we loved crawling through tight spaces and ducking under the overhangs. We begged our guide to take us down the most interesting paths he could! He even made us turn off our headlamps at one point to appreciate the darkness of the cave (it was super cool). To reach the artifacts, we even had to scale a 50(ish) foot rock wall!

At the top of the wall, deep inside the cave, there were many Mayan ceramic pieces and several sets of human remains! They were amazing to see. We even got to see the famed “Crystal Maiden”, although it was recently discovered that she was actually a 16-year-old boy.

When we left the cave after several hours of adventuring, we emerged into a rainstorm in the forest! I was so excited to get the full experience of rainfall in the rainforest. We had to hike for a while and cross several rivers to get back to our bus, and we had a great time splashing and enjoying the water.

On our way to the ecolodge that we are staying in tonight, we stopped in San Ignacio to walk around. We visited a town square and an open air market. What a great city! When we got to the ecolodge, we were extremely excited to find that there are bathrooms in our rooms! We have definitely learned to appreciate the little things.

Sadly, there really weren’t any opportunities for epiphyte sightings today. However, I did give my presentation on epiphytes! Two presentations down, and one to go. Tomorrow is another travel day, but we will finally be arriving at Las Cuevas! Today was a nice tourist-y day, but our break will end as the research continues tomorrow.