Dark Caves , Swamps and LOST in the Jungle

Ok, so yesterday comprised of caving and getting lost in the bush. It started off normal enough. I start work a bit later on Sundays and head in for the resort's orientation which is where I start my bookings for the week. It was your typical Sunday morning; got up, started my Sunday hitch-hiking to work, realized AGAIN how dumb it is to hitch on a Sunday cause there is no traffic going NE. Just when I thought I would miss orientation, Fast Eddie stops but is going the other way. Thankfully, I convince him to change directions. After orientation, Steve, Joey (my bosses) and myself had plans to go and get this caving tour sorted - or at least started. The moral of today's story will be to stick to your plans. So, we go park by the north side's Nicho Norte bar, put on our long pants and shoes (too hot for that let me tell ya), grab our machetes (yes, that's right) and head into the bush. The first hour or so we spent clearing the path towards the caves. Then we fixed the ropes at where you propel down into the caving system. I tested climbing down with the rope and trust me its much more secure than the old one. Nice to cool off down there in the cave opening too. This particular caving system leads out into a different opening a ways further into the bush. Because we didn't bring our gear, we bushwhacked to find the opening so we could fix the ropes there as well. We went a little too far. BUT, we found more caves. Different ones - they had a HUGE entrance room and you didn't need to propel down. It wasn't part of the plan, but Joey sent me in first to investigate. Then Steve followed. Joey stayed behind. We were just gonna check out the first room. But then we got excited cause we think this is the cave that has the lake we'd heard about. We start going further in. One flashlight, no string - but we were remembering our landmarks. Like, there were these 4 little stone 'people' in one of the rooms - it was cool but kinda creepy I guess. We called the other caves the Bat Caves, but these ones were definitely the ones with the bats. Half the time I felt like I was in the Batman movie but it also reminded me of Phantom of the Opera's underground home. We went in pretty far but didn't want to chance it further since we didn't have the proper gear on us. And it seemed like we'd come to a dead end but we did find a tiny hole of water - we're pretty sure there's gotta be more openings. We heard Joey's voice in the distance so we started making our way out. We hiked a bit more only to find another cave - this one didn't really have an underground system though. So all is good and we'd had enough for the day so we start for our way back. But then we'd heard voices in the second cave as we were passing by. We stop to chat and apparently this woman knows about another cave still. Was it ever a mistake to follow her. She couldn't seem to find this cave. In the meantime, we were on our last drops of water but we managed to find mangos on the ground and they were good eatin. Nothing like peeling a mango with your teeth and eating them how they're meant to be eatin. I ate like 5. Yummy yummy. Meanwhile, Joey's instincts kick in and he heads back - I woulda gone but I thought we were following in just a few minutes anyway. To make the next 4 hours of this story short, we got lost in the bush. Bigtime. Any form of trail was long gone and we were doing some serious thick bushwacking. It was painful still. No more water either. We were all drenched in sweat. Pants were brutally hot but at least it saved my legs from being lacerated. Caribbean bushes are viscously nastly with all their wires, prickles and thorns. We even got to the point were we had no choice but to go through a jungle of poisonous Maiden's Plum but that was the least of our worries. We still had a couple hours before dark and I was thinking, man if we were in any other island we'd be having a rough night or we'd be eatin alive or shot by some tribe. Ha! Luckily we were in Cayman! We got to a knee deep swamp. As we were wading through the swamp I was really thinkin you know, they named Cayman after a type of crocodile for a reason...could they all really be extinct? Just a few days before my friend was telling me how there still had to be some here and his mom had seen one. Great. I had had enough...it was fun at first but I was tired after the caving expedition alone! Luckily there was reception so I get Joey on the phone. He said he'd pack some gatorades and bring the GPS. At this point, the others were trying to determine where we could be based on our surroundings. It didn't make sense to me but there was a plane flying and they deciphered which engines it had which meant that it was a plane going to Cayman Brac and based on the direction it was flying that meant we were......oh my! I was just happy that Joey would come and find us. After wading through yet another swamp, this time waist deep, we end up in someone's elaborate back yard. An expensive home, filled with peacocks wandering everywhere. It was maze enough to find the way out of their garden! Gatorades were waiting in their driveway and that was a sweet moment! Somehow I managed to get away with only four scrapes on my forearm but my boss was a different story. When I get a caving pic I'll post it on this blog. Goin into town dancin and still gotta have another shower so latah!