La Caverna de Venado: ¡Volando Murciélagos Batman! Y donde hay esos hay güano.

Today, clad with rubber boots, 1 plastic flashlight, 1 yellow helmet, I went spelunking in the Caves of Venado. The entry to the cave was a stream path cobbled with rocks, and not too shortly in after having to crawl a little ways, one of the girls in the group turned back as it became clear the tour was not for the claustrophobic.

The limestone cave itself was not terribly impressive: there were the standard formations (but nothing prize-winning), small waterfalls to walk through, hundreds of bats (and at one point they flew out in their random formations, making me reconsider my decision not to get a rabies vaccination), a few sea shell fossils and two crickets that I spotted. But, it was definitely a first, navigating a cave by crawling feet-first through tunnels with the barest margins of clearance to reach the next chamber, climbing twelve to thirteen feet without a line using the direction of the guide as how best to jimmey oneself up, and as the finale stumbling up a maze of rocks and waterfall sink holes to reach sunlight that never before seemed so glorious.

At last my dream from when I first watched “Goonies” is complete! (And wow, I really don´t feel the need to go spelunking ever again - probably from when one of the jokers on the tour mentioned the lovely seismatic spasticity of Central America, or when the tour guide pointed to the “vampire” bats, and then brushed by my back.)