Hoyo de la Romera

This was so fun and we all absolutely loved it.  Well, maybe not Isabel, she's didn't cry, like the last caves, but she was still a bit nervous.   I wish I remembered the name of the company because they were great, especially with Efraim.  I would give them a five star review.  

We drove out following the guides from Villa de Leyva, and some of the kids rode in their jeep.  

This is what the sinkhole looked like when you weren't standing right at the edge.  They told us some story about it being haunted by a woman who was thrown in there after her husband caught her cheating.  That's basically the outline for most Colombian ghost stories.  Lovely.  

Unfortunately, they did not give us much geological information, I think they saw the kids and decided (wrongly) that they wouldn't be interested.  Also, I think our lack of understanding of Spanish was a hinderance as well. 

Efraim surprised me again and again on this trip, he never hesitated and just went for things.  The guides were a bit concerned if he's be able to do it at first and they were shocked at how capable he was. He went down first with the one guide (so she could be right with him) and then she could belay the rest of us. 

All the kids did great repelling down.  I was glad I had taken them rock climbing in Bogotá though, I think it helped that it wasn't their very first time being harnessed in and repelling.

It's about a 38 meter (130 feet) drop. 

It was so wild being down in that cave.  I felt like I was in a National Geographic magazine, I mean, every photo looks unreal.

And last came down Leo. 

Once we all made it to the bottom, they led us down to explore the cave a bit.  They said it hadn't been fully explored but they didn't want to take us far in with the kids, or maybe just they never take tourists in that far. 

We saw bats though.

The boys wanted me to take photos of the rocks to see if they could identify them later (and the guide thought they wouldn't be interested in the geology!)

It was a scramble getting down, and slippery.  

See the bats?

Yay.  Bat guano and clay that I did NOT allow Efraim to keep. 

This was where we stopped exploring, it went way deeper.

So beautiful.

And then we had to climb this tree to get out.

Well, the first part was a bit of rock climbing, then we had sidle over to the tree roots.

Waiting for our turn to go up.

Climbing the tree roots wasn't too bad. 

But this part?!?!?  It was by far the scariest thing we did on the trip.  Leo stayed at the bottom to give directions that they taught him, and he was getting so impatient.  You had to kind of just jump around the trunk at one point to get the next hold and even with a rope and harness, it was terrifying. 

Efraim was again the only one with the guide going right along with him. Still, having just done it myself, I was so impressed that he managed it mostly all on his own.

Leo's tune changed a lot when he came up last.  Not so easy as he thought. 

We survived!!

It was a happy coincidence that I found Hoyo de la Romera, because I actually found this sinkhole, Hoyo del Aire, in Santander, and wanted to go there.  But after researching more I found out it was closed now to tourists (it was open briefly but the repelling set up was deemed unsafe and shut down.)  According to un-cited internet sites, it's over 220 meters deep (722 ft) and is home to endemic species of bats, crabs, and fish.  Crabs? It's also supposed to be the 2nd largest sink hole in the world.  I don't know how much I trust google translate or those random internet sites though.  But it's fairly unknown since during the Colombian guerrilla fighting over the last 60 years, it was unaccessible and used to dump bodies.  But the happy coincidence was the fact that my research led me to the much more convenient Hoyo de la Romera.

Check out that sign.  We were SOOOOO close to Hoyo del Aire!  Although to be fair, 30 kms in Colombia is like 3 hours of driving.  No joke.  Sigh.  Maybe someday.