On the flipside of that, I’m perfectly happy to let someone lead me through the cave. When we went to Camuy, in Puerto Rico, our tour guide said there were other caves you could explore, in the area, and you could hire guides to take you. He also said that one of the guides he knew had died from a respiratory infection he picked up in one of the caverns. Apparently bat poop is a great infectious agent.

You need to swim about 30 feet to get into the cave itself, and from there, you swim, walk, climb, and crawl about 1 km in before you get to the burial sites. It’s pretty neat seeing mayan pottery, relics, and skeletons untouched for hundreds if not thousands of years.

One interesting thing that the guide mentioned was that even though they try to preserve the cave as well as possible and the locals rely on it for tourism, the guide admitted eventually they would have to close off the caves to tours for archaeological preservation reasons.

Here are some pics…

http://picasaweb.google.com/hrsanchez/KarenAndHomeroSHoneymoonBelize2009#5423804621451073250

http://picasaweb.google.com/hrsanchez/KarenAndHomeroSHoneymoonBelize2009#5423804555295550114

http://picasaweb.google.com/hrsanchez/KarenAndHomeroSHoneymoonBelize2009#5423804518161406242

http://picasaweb.google.com/hrsanchez/KarenAndHomeroSHoneymoonBelize2009#5423804448895942674

http://picasaweb.google.com/hrsanchez/KarenAndHomeroSHoneymoonBelize2009#5423804434126032722

But that was nothing. The cave was a nice steep downhill climb. To get back up, we went through what amounted to a wide crack in the rock that angled back up the surface. To go through, we had to climb on our hands and knees half the time, and our stomachs the other half. Several times I had to stop until the person ahead of me had moved on, and I could feel the rock on my stomach and my back. Talk about feeling the panic rising up! I’m still amazed we all got through it okay.

If that had been in the US, I’m sure I’d have had to sign a form or something, at the very least.

The guides are much better trained – they are very aware of what is destructive because they know their livelihoods depend upon tourism. The guide we had did a great job of passing on consciousness about the importance of the cave and the artifacts inside. He made it a point to show us where one skull that had been broken when someone dropped their cell phone. He also appeared to have extensive training on the archeology that had been performed in the cave.

That said, it is not like a US tourist experience *at all*. In fact, it’s about as close as you can get to an Indiana Jones adventure – swimming through underground pools, one or two (rickety) ladders, and a lot of scrambling and climbing, complete with skeletons and stunning artifacts. This was, by far, the best thing we did in Belize. You come out almost in disbelief that you could do something so cool.

Carlsbad Caverns does well with its paved paths. It manages to get you into beautiful and delicate areas without damaging things further. This is one of the few caves you can enjoy with or without a guide.

Mammoth Cave was interesting for being a completely different kind of cave. Not nearly as beautiful, but a good guide can direct your attention to details you would otherwise miss.

Caves in Jamaica were some of the most exciting. Formations, rivers, bats. But the guide broke my heart when he broke a stalactite off to show us up close. He was great otherwise.

Watamo (sp?) in NZ was great with rappelling, rivers, waterfalls, and climbing. A guide lets you focus on the cave and not worry as much about getting lost and dying alone. Same with the Lost World plus help to keep from going splat on a 120 m rappel.

And various other caves and mines where guides have really made it special with history, safety, geology, etc.

It’s always amusing to have your guide say “wait here” and then dive headfirst of a cliff, bouncing off the walls down the rappel line till he dissapears into the darkness…

All the caves I visited provided their own equipment which was pretty thoroughly washed after each go, and the caves themselves seemed in good condition, and many of the caverns were so well lit by glowworms you didn’t even need to use a torch.

A couple of the people above have mentioned a variety of places as possible caves to visit. In terms of cave visits, show caves (tourist accessible ones) are usually the easiest to access and offer people a quick route to some nice formations. However for the truly awe inspiring and ultimately far more satisfying trips the more you have to work to get in the better (I may be being a snob there). In some places though this is far easier than it sounds.

Within the UK we can enter caves as long as we have appropriate landowner permissions and then once underground can proceed to explore the entire cave system (unless gated for protection by local conservation groups). Other countries, notably New Zealand that I have experienced, do not have such simple access laws, and crossing through into different areas of cave requires appropriate permission from landowners on the surface.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. The bats if driven out of their habitat, will most likely perish. Each species of bat has their own highly specialized requirements, and they’re not mix-n-max. To disturb a bat habitat can wipe out an entire colony of bats. They cannot simply move to another location. As little as 2 disturbances to a bat colony in hibernation can directly cause the loss of the entire colony of hundreds or thousand of bats. We have been and are currently loosing entire bat species at an alarming rate from loss of their very specialized habitats. And now white nose syndrome, with it’s still unknown variables is spreading like wildfire. In three years it has killed over a million bats and wiped out 6 species. Most people don’t know much about bats, and don’t realize all the things that we NEED bats for. You many not be interested in bats, but if you’re interested in caves, please be responsible and educate yourself about bats and their habitats. And if your caving in the USA you need to be able to identify white nose syndrome if you see it so you can report it, the scientist and the bats desperately need your help. PLEASE cave responsibly!

Learn all about bats at Bat Conservation International

http://www.batcon.org/

Learn about white nose syndrome

http://www.fws.gov/northeast/white_nose.html

http://www.thelostsea.com/cavetour.html

The cave in in the Miocene Venado formation, and is fairly unique among caves I’ve visited for the amount of non-limestone (mostly andesite) boulders that have washed in from the surface and gotten cemented into the cave. These boulders are all rounded suggesting that they are not the in-place substrate for the limestone (my original thought) but have been transported some distance.

Did this cave in Costa Rica allow people to bring their own equipment into the cave, or were you only allowed to use their equipment? Were cavers required to wash and sanitize clothing and shoes prior to walking to the cave?

Misidentifying and touching formations is one thing, possibly contributing to the collapse of an ecosystem is another.

Boots and helmets were handed out by the cave owners, but there was no sanitizing beyond washing with water afterwards, and you were allowed to wear in your own shoes and clothes.

As you say, if that’s actually contributing to the spread of white noise syndrome, that’s a much bigger problem than anything else.