5 Caves Near the Tanama River

Tom called and invited us caving. The trouble with this time of year is rain. Rain means a lot of the great wet caves are too dangerous to go into. This year has been strangely wet later than last year and there are not many dry caves we know about. Tom, however knows a lot of caves and suggested doing a cluster of caves close to one another near the Tanama River. We had seen one of them from the river level when we hiked the Tanama on a ten hour journey a few years ago but it was way up the cliff. Today we were going to get to see it. We also were not going to have a 10 hour day!  I don't know if I am out of shape (yes) or was just tired starting out (maybe) but boy was it hot. The kind of hot that makes you fatigue quickly and sends you into heat exhaustion. We walked a half hour maybe and got to the first cave. It was very nice with bright white rock and formations. It wasn't a large cave but nice none-the-less. Then we did some more walking and went into another cave. Then we went to what was basically what looked like an animal hole and it was a surprising and interesting cave. This was my favorite cave of the day because I liked the little hole we went into to get into it. Tom went feet first on his back and all of us had to do a little wiggling to get into this one! Inside had some neat rock layers and I think this was the one a crocodile fossil was found in (no crocodiles were never on the island so it had to have been brought here long ago enough to fossilize). There were a lot of coral fossils also. The cave had a little ledge that required a hand line and some balancing. (DON'T JUMP Diana - WE LOVE YOU)

Then it was off to a pass through kind of slot like cavern/cave you could see through. This one reminded me a lot of the caves on Mona Island (not formed the same way ). At this point we were hot and it was pretty buggy with mosquitoes everywhere so we went into ANOTHER cave just for lunch before heading back. The lunch spot had a terrific view of the jungle and magotes. On an island full of so many people it is amazing to me that we can go not-too-far off a road and be pretty much alone with spectacular views and adventure. This area was particularly clean without garbage or skeleton animals so indeed it was a good day! A big thanks to Tom and Diana AGAIN.