This morning, we finished packing up and left Las Cuevas to begin the second half of our trip. It was a very bittersweet goodbye, as on one hand I’m super excited to go to the reef, but on the other I really wish we could stay here longer. But as they say, all good things must come to an end.
As we were rocking back and forth on the uneven gravel road, I began thinking about the rainforest part of the trip as a whole, and what LCRS has done for me. I’ve really come to love this place and it’s helped me fall back in love with forests, hiking, and camping.
We visited the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave, which was an insane adventure. The first portion of the cave is a wet cave, so we had to swim and wade through water and climb over and under a ton of rocks. It felt a lot like the river travel we did on our DT trips.
The dry portion of the cave was filled with ancient Maya artifacts, including pots, fireplaces, and even human skulls and remains. Sadly, they also had a no cameras policy.
After the cave, we reached our lodge for the night (Tropical Education Center), and got a special night tour of the zoo!
We got to see jaguars, pumas, tapirs, and more.
There was even a wild iguana with its tail bitten off. It charged right at me and ran through my legs before it hit both Claire C. and Sam.
The highlight of the visit was being able to feed the tapirs. We gave them carrots and even petted them on the head.
Tomorrow we’ll be leaving TEC and heading out to Glover’s Reef. Stoked about the 3 hour boat ride!
Ian C