The next day, we went to another famous cave in the area, the Barton Creek Cave. To get there, we drove through a Mennonite village and across a bridge of well worn rocks through a river into a more jungled area in a hidden valley within the Mayan Mountains.

With many summers of canoeing experience, the guide let Paul take the helm of one of the canoes, in the photo to the left, that we took 1.5 miles deep into the cave. If you want to find the entrance at the other end, bring your dive gear, as the only way out is underwater. The only way we could see in the darkness of the cave was by using strobe lights attached to batteries in the canoes. That is how we were able to see the beautiful stalagtite (from the roof) and stalagmite (from the ground) formations of limestone and marble like the one in the photo above. Over thousands of years, the river erodes the cave through the mountain, and water seeping through the ground above carries the calcium minerals to create stalactites and stalagmites. This created a pristine view into the geologic creation of a cave.

The cave was also home to hordes of cute little bats. Of course, Randye was all too happy to shine the light on them which annoyed them quite a bit, causing them to fly around the canoes. Randye and Paul were delighted to catch a close up view of these fascinating creatures, but the other couple with us from Alabama were none too pleased.

 

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