My Journey into Xibalba
- Daedra Isaacs-Haylock
- Mar 10, 2020
- 4 min read
Written by Daedra Isaacs-Haylock, Photographs by Herbert Haylock and Daedra Isaacs-Haylock
I live in the place you love to vacation. There is so much about my home that serves as intrigue, adventure, and fascination for many from the world over. So much about my home that I had not experienced. But no more… I had vowed to experience all that intrigue, wonder, and adventure that so many had traveled thousands of miles to experience.
So, I made my list – my own private bucket list. The first on that list would be my journey into Xibalba - pronounced Shee-bal-ba and meaning the place of fear or fright. As a first choice, this would be symbolic for so many reasons.
Our tour guide was a family friend operating a small independent tour company for ten years called Cave-Tubing-R-Us. So chosen because I felt “safe” to acknowledge that this journey would see me face my own personal fear of dark spaces complicated by a non-swimmer venturing into these dark water-filled cave systems known for the meandering of clear, clean, cool waterways – our rivers.
David met us in Hattieville – a village just 15 minutes away from our home and constructed after the 1961 Hurricane Hattie destroyed the main metropolis – Belize City. We pulled our family vehicle back onto the road and followed his white passenger van as it clumsily made its way along our major highway – not by world standards but would be viewed as a two-lane substandard city roadway.
We arrived at the staging area for the Nohoch Che’en Caves Branch cave tubing river location. Excitement was brimming; our apprehension was suppressed. Our family of four proceeded to see if the youngest member of our group would pass muster. A child has to measure at least 3 feet in height to be allowed on the river adventure. I silently said a prayer, it had taken a lot to muster the courage to face down this journey and it could not be averted now.
With high fives, he passed and we proceeded down to the river. So much about this trip would challenge this “intrepid” adventurer. Stage one took this non-athletic traveler on a half-hour trek; first across the river at a shallow point then up a narrow picado (used to describe unplanned narrow rough pathways) – a slightly elevated slope. David informed us that he was going to give us the extended tour so rather than go through three caves, we would journey through all five.
Along the way, he enthusiastically pointed out different plants and regaled us with his own version of back-handed humor and hearty laugh. He entertained our five-year-old with high fives and a hang-time on what he informed was a vine locally called strangler fig. The thickly intertwined vine so called for its stranglehold on the host plant and its ability to suck the very life and light from its host.
We arrived in record time at the launching site and the excitement kept pace with my palpitating heart. Imagine settling into an oversized rubber inner tube and floating down a river until you disappear into caves where strange and exotic Mayan rituals were held thousands of years ago. As I let myself fall backward into the rubber tube, my butt touched the cold clear water and the smile on my face showed my nervousness. Caves were to be revered, Xibalba, the place of fear or fright – the name for the Mayan underworld where the death gods and their helpers ruled. For me, it was facing my fear of dark spaces, water beyond my depth as a non-swimmer eager to conquer my Xibalba.
Our rubber tubes hooked together, we meandered down the river moving under the steam of the water's natural current with our guide highlighting the features in the caves… the mysterious rock formations created with the long passage of time… pointing out what he called the Belizean Sphinx. Every sound multiplied as he threw his voice and laughter to have it echo back to us. As we exited another cave, he pulled us up close to a plant, plucked a leaf, and had us sniff it.
“Copal leaf,” he said, “Used by the ancient Mayas as medicine to heal many ailments from toothache to fevers.”
Ahead, we heard the sound of tumbling waters. It sounded like a mega waterfall and my heart pace quickened. Were we about to go down a rapid? The non-swimmer in me got nervous.
But David laughed with enthusiasm, “Who wants to see the waterfall?”
The youngest among us shouted out with excitement and as we turned the corner light broke ahead and the sound of the cascading water grew louder. He pulled us up to the entrance of the cave and we laughed as we realized the echoes of the sound were really just a small trickle.
David laughed loudest… he had made this trip hundreds of times before but the excitement and thrill of his travelers enthused him the same each time.
His booming voice shouted back at us, “Watch out for the raspaculo”- Spanish for scraping of bums – raspar meaning to scrape. Culo means butt or ass. The water still very cold grew suddenly very shallow and our bums scraped across the stones offering a kind of natural rock massage.
The trip had ended.
We had journeyed into Xibalba.
I had faced down my fears and come out wide-eyed smiling and feeling proud. I did it. I completed my Journey into Xibalba.
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