Belize

We drift gently in our tubes, reveling in the cool water and soft currents. Our guide leads, explaining plants and history and landmarks all in a thick but unrecognizable accent. He gestures grandly behind him, at the yawning mouth of a cave. Vines drip over the entrance and trace lazy designs in the water with the tips of their tendril fingers. The limestone ceiling is massive and ornate, lined generously with stalactites. Darkness calls out from within. "Dis is called da gateway to hell," calls out our guide. Comforting.

We float into the cave, and click on our headlights, small beams strapped to our foreheads. The outside light quickly abandons us, as though it too is terrified of what may lie within. We paddle nervously with our fingertips, lost in blindness except from the small circles of blueish light we each cast. Sticks caught in notches high above us serve as a threatening reminder of how high the water can rise, when it feels like it.

"We ah in de deepest part of da watah now, ova 55 feet deep. Der ah feesh hea, dey ah blind, but can be as big as five feet long." My fears shift from the scuffles and squeaking along the ceiling to a hypothetical nudge from below. The ceiling lowers as the walls narrow, and I can see bats now, dipping into holes in the ceiling. My light flickers and dies, leaving me only with the other softly glowing heads around me. What a luxury light is. 

There are soft splashes around us, dripping from the points of the ceiling. The water bunches at the tips of stalactites, forming perfect beads of water, until they're no longer light enough to stay up, and fall to the water with a delicate splash. Blindly, I float under a ridge in the ceiling and a drop forms, as it has for hundreds of years, and falls, a perfectly full and heavy diamond, as it has thousands of times before, and splatters on my face, landing squarely on my nose.