#63 - Go Caving

Once we decided to go to Puerto Rico, I asked around for advice from others who had been there.

Conveniently, my friend Al, the originator of the list, had gone to Puerto Rico in 2011.  He suggested spelunking, something he had done for his list.

I sent out his blog post and link to the company, Adventuras Tierra Adentro, to the group, and eventually Laura & I decided spend one of our days on that beautiful island in a cave.

We had both skimmed Al's blog and quickly clicked around the site, but somehow the only two things that really stuck out to me as really difficult were 1) the 5:45am departure and 2) the spiders.  I had been up that early a couple times in my life before, mostly for races, and I could do it again.  And at least the spiders didn't have thick, hairy legs.  I wouldn't let them stop me from a little adventure.

What I didn't realize was that it was going to be a BIG adventure.  

We left San Juan at 5:45am and didn't return until close to 4:30pm.  Here's what I remember happening...

(I hope to add more pictures if we ever develop our disposable cameras, but most of the pictures are outside of the cave.  See Al's blog or the website for more general pics.)

Laura & I set our alarms for 4:30am so we could get up, call the cab company repeatedly (our hostess Noyda at the Coqui Del Mar said that we should keep trying because the companies don't always pick up reliably that time of the morning, but they were there), wait for the cab, and then head over to a park in Condada to wait for our group and our ride.  What actually happened was that they answered the phone within 30 seconds during Laura's first try at 4:45pm and a cab arrived 5 minutes later.  Luckily we had everything packed the night before.

We arrived at the park shortly after 5am.  And then we waited, watching the partiers heading home or still raging at the bars in Condado.  (Bars in some areas stay open until everyone leaves.)  We sleepily chit chatted, mostly about how we could have slept in longer.

Then Brian, a fellow Chicagoan and adventurer-for-the-day, joined us.  Then Tamara and Chris.  Then some others.

The van rolled up, just like Al described, with the Indiana Jones theme song blaring.  Then they rolled out a red carpet.  Then they did a whole schtick full of information and jokes.

The show continued on the bus where we introduced ourselves and learned about the trip and our guides for the hour-or-so-long ride to a bakery, where we would pick up our gear.  We had some snacks and suited up.  By the end, I had on my hiking boots, running capris, knee pads, and my rash guard with my helmet, lifejacket, and backpack ready to go as well.

It took us maybe 15-20 minutes from there, another ride full of joke-filled information.

Then we very quickly hiked down to the training area, which was very, very muddy.  We put on our helmets, learned how to clip in with our caribiners and all of that other good stuff.

We then hiked a bit further to the zip lines.

We zip lined 3 times, lower and lower into the sink hole where the river ran through the caves. 

Beautiful.

Then we repelled over the lip of the cave to the mouth.  

(That's actually me.  Thanks, Tamara!)

We then put on our lifejackets and gloves to protect us from the water and the spiders, scorpions, and cockroaches inside.  We flipped on our lights and as a group, headed into the cave, almost immediately entering calf-deep water.

Soon after, the bracelet I still held as a gift to our Adult Development class from Tara Edberg broke off my wrist.  It was a slight, blue string with a charm that said "hope."  

We saw our first bats quickly.  Then cockroaches.  Then giant spiders.  I saw one scorpion that our guide pointed out.  I love bats.  I told myself I would just have to coexist with the rest.

We were in and out of water.  Calf deep.  Thigh deep.  Waist deep...  Shoulder deep...  Then so deep we had to swim.  In murky cave water.  Weird.

Our time in the cave entailed lots of hiking, bouldering, wading, swimming, jumping into cave water, a jump into darkness, swimming through a tunnel that only had a foot or so of space between the water and the ceiling, a candle-lit lunch, more bouldering and swimming, a race through thick, deep mud, and eventually a little drift down stream back to the mouth of the cave.  It must have been 4-5 hours later.

Then we learned we would have to climb out.  Like, out, up the cliffs we had zipped and repelled down.  I'll save the description of that for the next post...

But eventually we arrived at the top exhausted and victorious.  

And somehow rallied to party in Condado that night.

Champions.