This was our last day on our little excursions o we packed
up and left for the caves full of GLOW WORMS! I was pretty excited for this
little adventure because I researched this particular event during our prep
class back at BYU in the fall.
This was no ordinary caving adventure because we were going to be in wet suits, floating in inter tubes, climbing through tiny cracks, jumping off water falls, and most importantly actually seeing these glow worms. It was probably one of the coolest things that we have done in this country.
So here’s how it worked and what exactly happened. We went
down to this building where we got to put on wet suit socks, overalls and then
jackets. This was actually kind of gross because I couldn’t help but think of
how many other people wore those wetsuits too. Well you really couldn’t help it
because you could smell it. Anyways, as soon as we got our wetsuits on we got
some awesome manly boots and to top it off helmets with headlights on them. I
was really grateful for these helmets because I did smack my head a couple of
times.
We finally got all our gear on and headed down to where we
got our inter tubes. We were told to find a tube that was the perfect size for
our butts to fit through.
We then had a go with practicing jumping backwards down into
the water since we were going to have to jump down waterfalls! It was kind of
freaky because we had to stand with our backs to the water, hold the tubes
behind us and jump backwards and land our tubes! Holy cow the water was
absolutely freezing! You could really feel it when you jumped off and you went
all the way under basically and then especially when you popped back up.
*My favorite picture of all time. Yes, this is Ramona our Director. Funny right?
Our practice run was over and we headed down for the real
adventure. My gosh was I excited. We had probably been in the actual cave for
about 5 minutes when we had to take our practice into full force and jump down
our first waterfall. Holy cow it was so cool!
Then there was kind of a freaky part because the water was
so high and the cave was so low. Literally I was laying flat on my tube so that
my head didn’t touch. Thank goodness it was for only about 30-45 seconds. I
thought the air might just run out down that tunnel. No worries, we all made it!
After we got into the cave a little bit more we could
actually start to see the glowworms! Then we found out that glowworms aren’t
really glowworms. They are larvae maggots and the part that actually glows is
their poop. Talk about a serious let down. It lights up because of a chemical reaction called
bioluminescence. This was really cool for me to compare because a few years ago
I went kayaking through the bioluminescence bay in Puerto Rico with my family. It
was cool for me to see and compare the two experiences.
In order to survive glow worms build elaborate traps
consisting of vertical hanging threads of silk studded with sticky droplets of
mucous to catch small insects such as mosquitoes, midges, fruit-fly, gnats etc.
that are attracted by the light produced by the glow worm. The pendulous web
strands are attached to a latticework of silk threads across the ceiling of
their lair. In turn the threads support the suspended tube in which the glowworm
lives and travels, enabling the glowworm to be attracted to the vibration of
trapped insects. When the glowworms find these insects that they caught they
suck their insides out. Gross.
These larvae
were once eggs and the female lays tons of eggs and the first egg she lays
continues to eat all of its “sibling” eggs to get energy. Then when the one bug
turns to larvae, if it’s a male it has no mouth and half of its body is it’s
reproductive organs. So the bugs wrap themselves up and sleep for two weeks.
Then when they wake up, since the male has no mouth, it can only survive for
three days. Our guide said basically the male spends 48 hours “making bug love”
and then it dies. What WEIRD bugs.
Anyways, we
kept floating down the caves and watched all of the glowing poop. I know it
sounds really gross, and in reality it is but it was so cool! It really did
look like sparkling stars! When all of our lights were off and we were staring
at the stars our guide, who was absolutely hilarious, sang “My Heart Will Go On”
with the words changed to be about the glowworms instead. He actually had a lot of songs that he changed the lyrics to that he sang. Talk about double entertainment.
We then
jumped off another waterfall that was probably about 10 feet high. This was
pretty scary seeing as all we had was inter tubes, there were rocks in the
water, and we were jumping off backwards. What a voyage! We then continued to
climb through small tunnels and jump down rocks.
At the very
end of our little expedition our guides told us to turn off all our lights and
find our way out of the cave by ourselves, with no lights. We eagerly, and
slightly nervously turned out our lights and floated down the river trying to
avoid rocks and each other. We did this very unsuccessfully as we ran into
walls time after time, but it was so much fun to figure it out ourselves with the
awesome view of the lights from the poop. We then reached the very end. It was
a bittersweet ending. My hands were completely numb, but the adventure was
priceless.
Natalie and I
Kirsten and I
