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After what some may consider careers in consulting and logistics, we quit our jobs, sold our stuff and left Germany to be full-time travelers and development volunteers. This blog is about our travels, our work as volunteers and our alternative life strategies - always looking to make an impact and to find the meaning in what we do or put some into it if we can't find any. -
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20. April 2011 // 19 Comments -
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How to prepare for a hurricane in Belize
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16. July 2011 // 5 Comments
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Lebenszeichen / Signs of Life
12. July 2012 // 0 Comments -
Action at Mama Noots
7. June 2012 // 2 Comments -
Tip: Rainbow Hotel, Caye Caulker, Belize
3. June 2012 // 0 Comments -
River Rafting and Volunteer Consulting
31. May 2012 // 0 Comments
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The day I didn’t see the Black Hole Drop
Deutsche Version: Der Tag an dem ich den Black Hole Drop nicht sah.
You see, the problem is the monkey. He lives inside of me.
Whenever I stand close to an edge, try to make casual conversation on a balcony or attend a meeting in a modest all-glass meeting room on the modest 30th floor of a modest corporate headquarter, that monkey wakes up. He looks down into the void below and whispers:
“Jump.”
I will try to push him back, give him logical reasons why jumping would most likely hurt very much.
“But it would be so much fun”, he says as he is pulling me into the void.
The thing is: My logical reasoning is based in the front parts of my brain. The evolved parts. The sophisticated parts that – theoretically – are capable of understanding both theories of relativity, that like to be entertained with philosophical discussion and that are happy to spend an evening dissecting a Pink Floyd album. These are the youngest parts of my brain.
The monkey lives in the back of my head, where he had to find refuge when my ancestors climbed down from the trees to start recording Pink Floyd albums.
Those back parts of the brain are old. And powerful.
If you’re not afraid of heights, somewhere down your ancestral tree, someone successfully killed that inner monkey and the memory of joyfully leaping from tree to tree, jumping on a leap of faith, knowing that there will, most probably, almost for sure be some branch or liana to hold on to.
But if you’re like me, you have a monkey that constantly fights the civilized parts of your brain about whether or not jumping would be fun or stupid.
The struggle between the monkey and your smart frontal cortex – that’s fear of heights.
I slowly wake up to the rhythmical drums of painfully loud dancehall blaring from the bus’ speakers. A quick check out of the window shows me that we are already on Belize’s Hummingbird Highway, winding on a south-eastern route through thick rainforest from the capital of Belmopan towards the southern coast. We got up at 5 and left Belize City at 6, headed for Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch for a weekend of jungle adventure. Amongst the tours our little group agreed upon was lush cave tubing on the first day combined with a bit of canopying aka zip-lining and the Black Hole Drop, which I scheduled for the second day in order to have some time to prepare for the upcoming monkey fight.
Location
[map:http://maps.google.de/maps?q=17.166542,-88.684387&ll=17.169659,-88.665161&spn=1.926066,3.435974&sll=17.251389,-88.766944&sspn=0.042627,0.06403&num=1&t=h&vpsrc=6&z=9 250 500]
The Black Hole Drop. Going down a 300 ft. cliff into something that is called “the Black Hole”. Not just any black hole. THE black hole. Most of it hanging freely with no friendly wall to put your feet against. I could already smell the fear. Fear smells – for some reason the body emits chemicals that smell a lot worse than normal sweat. Maybe it’s supposed to make the mammoth not want to eat you. Maybe the monkey knows. But he won’t tell me.
Twenty minutes later, Efren greets us with a big smile. Efren is the guy who invited us out for this weekend. We sit down on a table at the restaurant – an open terrace with a thatched roof, surrounded on three sides by the jungle and hedges upon hedges of huge, colorfully blooming flowers and the big pool on the fourth side. Fans are rotating on a beam above the table, the coffee’s good. What a pleasant morning.
“I signed you up for the Black Hole Drop for today”, Efren says – as if that’s anything to be proud of, turning the pleasant morning into psycho-monkey-mayhem in an instant. Cheerfully, he adds: “Tour’s leaving in 20 minutes, so get your gear together. And look out for the snakes”.
“You shut the hell up“ I reply. In my head. Directed at the monkey, who is jumping up and down, fists firmly wrapped around his cage’s bars, screaming. To Efren, I mumble something like “Cool, then we’ll do the safe, not nerve-wrecking stuff tomorrow.” I probably only think the last part.
An hour later, we’re hiking in the middle of the rainforest. I have to keep my eyes on the trail, consciously planning and carefully planting every step in order to avoid slipping. And stepping on snakes. August is called snake month out here and our guide urged us to look out for the little ones lying on the trail. Every now and then we stop to take in the views around us, but even when we’re walking head down, there’s no mistaking where we are – the sweet and earthly smell of the ever-wet forest is all around.
The trail takes us over 4 hills, the next always steeper than the last. Using my camera as a welcome excuse for taking intermittent breaks, I have fallen behind a bit and catch up to the group halfway into the fourth ascent. Three of our four guides and about 6 members of our group are sitting or standing in a little clearing, panting, sweating and renewing their bug spray finish.
I’m still looking at my feet as I greet them with a jolly “so, where’s this famous black hole then”. Nobody answers until I look up and our guide coolly points over his shoulder with a nonchalant “uhm, there”.
Here’s another thing about the monkey: He’s fast. As I follow the guide’s thumb over his shoulder, past 2 panting hikers standing on a narrow trail over a steep cliff into sudden nothingness, the fear of heights hits me like an unexpected kick in the face. I can’t tell you if my palms or any other body part broke into a sweat, because I was already drenched. But the other stuff happened. You know – standard procedure when it hits: Soft knees, the wish to lay flat on the ground, get away as far from the edge as possible to calm the monkey. I squeak, jump in the opposite direction from the ledge and tell my wife that I would really like to keep on going.
“But look”, she says, and points at the opposite side of the black hole. “You can see from here where we will rappel down.” Through pinched eyes, I take a look. The Black Hole is a sinkhole that resulted from a huge cave collapsing a long time ago. The steep walls aren’t even, if you follow it around from where we stand to the other side, the ledge slopes upwards to a peak. On that peak you can see a dirty spot in the middle of a white stone wall. “See the brown spot? That’s where we’ll jump down.”
Jump down. It’s all that darned monkey needed to take over. My eyes focus on the ledge right in front of my feet. I am about 10 feet away. I see myself taking 3 long leaps towards the nothingness before I jump head first down. As this is playing over and over again inside of my head, I can feel my body tilting forward towards the Black Hole. Gotta move. Gotta get away from this cliff.
“Well then, I guess we better get up there and do it”, I hear myself say – giving into maybe the only force that is a match for my inner monkey right now. My not-so-inner show-off.
With quick steps and an upright posture that I imagine to be very confident and leadership like I continue down the trail along the cliff, focusing on my boots, not looking left or right. After about 20 meters, I turn around because everything around me seems too quiet, only to see that I took a right where everyone took a left, so that now the group is going parallel to me – but on a path that leads up the slope towards the dropping point.
Shortly after I catch up with the group, we arrive at the dropping point. This is where every man and woman is for themselves with their fears and their monkeys. I can see that at least one other guy in the group is fighting the same fight – even though no member of our group seems completely relaxed.
Our guides quickly get us into our harnesses while comforting us with the right mixture of efficiency and precision. They crack a couple of jokes to take the edge of the situation and ask who wants to go first.
“Me, I want to go first”, I hear someone scream even before the guide finishes his question. A quick look around reveals that, yes, it is indeed I who has his hand raised. No way I am staying up here to watch one after the other going over that cliff, feeding the monkey with their screams.
My wife gets on the rope next to me and we both let ourselves down next to each other. I have a camera tangling around my neck while the other camera is in the hands of the guides, cheering us up and making us smile for the camera. My right hand is on my hip where I let the rope slip through a terrified grip that slowly turns into a terrified cramp. I know that nothing can happen – there is a backup rope being handled by one of the guys up on the ledge. Even if I passed out, he would just put me down on the ground slowly. But knowing this and opening the grip are two completely different things. “Let’s enjoy this, go down, go faster!” screams the monkey. “Let’s not die!” yells the neo-cortex.
About 60 feet down I yell “stop” to be able to stay in one spot for a little bit. I have no more contact to the wall, but I am still facing it, with my back towards the hole. As I reach for my camera, some canopy with a lot of nothingness between it and me enters my peripheral vision. My heart stops for a bit and my stomach makes a motion that can only be interpreted as “abandoning ship” as he tries to leave my body that got him into a situation he does not agree with in the least. In a whiplash-like motion, my neck straightens to face the wall. I try to snatch some pictures over my shoulder. Next to me, Kerstin is spinning around on her rope, enjoying herself.
We continue on downward, Kerstin spinning around and me studying the wall meticulously. About 80 feet off the ground we pass the treetops and someone yells that I am about to hit a tree. I take a reluctant look around – even though I wouldn’t really mind. The thought of sitting in a treetop right now with something under me that is more concrete than air – it seems tempting.
About the Black Hole Drop
The Black Hole Drop is an outdoor adventure in the Cayo District of Belize. After a 2-hour hike through the rainforest you rappel 300 ft. down into Actun Loch Tunich, a sinkhole created by a collapsed cave system, taking in breathtaking views of the jungle canopy below.
Tours:
The Black Hole Drop is in the middle of a private nature reserve run by Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch. Be there at 8:30 for a walk-in day tour (105 USD) or book it as a part of a stay at Ian Anderson’s (accommodation starts at 34 USD for a bed in the bunk house – or treat yourself to a forest canopy tree house with a private outdoor jungle shower and a hot tub on the roof terrace for 400 USD and up per night.) The Black Hole Drop tour is offered most days – call ahead if you want to make sure.
The tour starts at 9 am and gets you back to a well-deserved cold beer or dip in the hot tub by 3 pm.
There are plenty of other tours, ranging from bird watching walks to a week-long survival training in the jungle.
Directions:
Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch is located on Mile 41 ½ of the Hummingbird Highway. If you’re coming from Belize City (about 2 hours), it’s about 15 minutes past Belmopan on the way to Dangriga. If you’re coming from Dangriga (1 ½ hours), it’s 15 minutes before you get to Belmopan. Tell you’re bus conductor that you want to go to Ian Anderson’s and they will let you know when you’re there. From the bus stop it’s a 15 minute walk. It’s quicker and more expensive to just take a taxi. Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch also offers pick-up services.
What to bring:
Hiking boots or sneakers are mandatory to prevent injury to toes. So are long pants in case you meet a snake on the hike. You will definitely meet mosquitoes, so make sure you bring plenty of repellant. Bring a camera. Water, lunch and rappelling gear is provided, but I was very happy I brought some bars to munch on during the hike. A rug or towel also comes in very handy – you will transpire.
After my feet touch ground, I try to loosen my grip from the rope. My fingers don’t follow right away, my forearm is a tight knot of cramp and fear. I stagger away from the landing point, chuckling, then laughing and screaming in disbelief.
“We did it, wooohooooo” echoes from the walls of the Black hole.
I kiss the lady. I do the chainsaw. I raise my hand, still cramped to a fist like a formula 1 pilot crossing the finishing line. I did it. I did the Black Hole Drop.
Without ever really seeing it once.
When everyone has made it down, we have a special lunch at the bottom of the black hole. On a white table cloth thrown over a big boulder, we find tortillas, salami, veggies, salad, mayo, cheese and hot sauce. It is one of those meals that you never forget, that come with a taste that no cook can put into them. When you dig your teeth into that – from a culinary perspective basic – tortilla, you taste the richness of the moment. I’m reminded of a sandwich I had on Amado Beach in Portugal after surfing my first wave – that’s the only meal that I can remember that tasted as sweet and rich as this tortilla at the bottom of the Black Hole.
We make it back to the resort around 3 pm after a snakeless return hike that felt considerably shorter than in the morning. I stumble into the bar and order 4 beers. “Very cold and very large”, I add. “We just got back from the Black Hole, you know.” The barkeeper smiles at me. He’s seen this look before.
I sit down next to Efren and slide a bottle of beer across the table towards him. Maybe I will give this guy another chance.
Am I disappointed I didn’t see a snake? Not really. Am I disappointed that I didn’t see the Black Hole drop? A bit. But I know that I will be back here in a few months. To do it again. And that time, I swear, I will look. Because now I know I can go down into that void without losing my life. Or shitting my pants.
“It’ll be fun”, whispers my inner monkey as he goes to sleep.
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