Getting out

" realized immediately that my lack of inspiration was due to the oppressive heat and the crowds of arrogant tourists at Caye Caulker. Once I escaped to the cool highlands to do some camping, I was happy again. I spent the last few days based out of the tiny little town of Augestine. I'm not sure if Aguistine is classified as a ghost town, but in the last four days I didn't see a single person in town other than a few at the forest service office. I would sometimes hear trucks or music, but never actually spotted a person. Also, all the houses looked like they were probably abandoned, but the camp ground was incredible! It was an area of mowed grass and trees about the size of Lindley Park (in Bozeman). There were two concrete buildings with bunk beds, and two enormous thatched roof buildings, and running water too. I had the whole place totally to myself. The reason I chose to camp here was because it's close to three pretty cool things that I wanted to check out. >The first was a place in the river called the Rio On pools. Here the river cascades through granite rocks forming little pools for swimming. There are places where the river has carved smooth chutes through the rock that I could slip down like a waterslide. It was a great way to rejuvenate after the intense heat of the coast. Also, it's pretty high altitude so I was greeted with pine trees! It's been a while since I enjoyed their company.47" From the size of the opening I expected the cave to be about the size of a van, or maybe a bus if I was lucky. I squeezed through and was shocked to find a cavern the size of a warehouse! And this was the real deal, a limestone cave with stalactites, bats, giant cave-scorpion-critters and 1500 year old shards of Mayan pottery. After exploring the whole thing I was prepared to say goodbye when I noticed a little hole behind some columns. , another warehouse sized cavity was on the other side!
Back on the main road were two more small caves, but I wasn't too impressed because I was still high from my adventures in the last one. At the end of the road was the main attraction, the Rio Frio cave, which was more of a tunnel than a cave. The river flowed into an enormous hole in the side of a hill and out the other side. >From one enterance I could see out the other, so I never needed my light but there were some impressive formations inside. There was also a really deep part of the river about halfway through that I swam in.>Yesterday I went to the Mayan ruins of Carcol, and this place was incredible. There were only a few people there (just one other tour group) so I felt like I had the place to myself. One of the stone pyramids is still the tallest building in Belize. From the top of it I could see over the jungle treetops for miles. There were also ball courts, and intricate carvings on all the structures. Some of the pyramids had tombs and chambers that were partially broken open (no contents inside, of course).
In the past there has been some crime here, so the government of Belize has placed some tourism police and military guards at the site. I would occasionally spot some guy in the jungle with a machine gun and camouflage pants following me. Since I was one of the only people at Carcol, it was like having my own personal secret service agents.

Today I hitch-hiked back to the city of San Ignacio with the forest service. Due to the approaching Hurricane Dean, they wanted to get everybody out of Augistine. So I crammed into a tiny short-bed Nissan truck along with 3 toolboxes, a chainsaw, an M-16 rifle, two watermelons, a 40 food extension ladder, a 5 gallon tank of diesel, 11 people and their backpacks and of course, a dead chicken.