There is an half an hour walk from the visitor’s center (a.k.a. souvenir stores) to the tube landing. You’ve already seen the river crossing in the previous post. This post is about the cave entering. The hike is quite pleasant with mostly rain forest canopy over the head so it’s relatively cool. There were no mosquitos and some occasional flying bugs. But there are a lot of leave cutting ants on the ground. You must take caution to not step into their path as they pack a very strong punch if they sting you for defense.
There are two different ways to get to the cave. Some guides will take a shortcut to get there within 10-15 minutes. This usually happens if you come in a cruise and have limited time on land. We took the longer tour which includes a dry cave, some forest observation. The guide explains some stories and names of the vegetation to us- of which ones are poisonous, which ones have commercial value, and which ones can save lives with rich water resource.
At the end of the 30 minute hike we reach a pebbled landing where crystal clear green water exits a cave from the left, exposed to the sun for about 100 yards then re-enters the cave. The guide strapped all tubes together and then paddles the team into the cave. For safety reasons each guide is limited to take up to eight visitors into the cave with them. Below is a video showing how we drift into the cave