EVEN EVEN more

DAY 3
After having found Cueva del Subterraneo the previous day, the group heads back to the site. The girls decide to catch nearby surface fish (a personal vendetta for Meredith, having been sorely defeated in Texas in December by the little beasts), while the boys head into the cave to abduct future members of our new cave population.

Meredith, attempting to snag some surface fish. Notice how far the mud comes up on her leg (left). Right: Trying to free herself. It was a close call, but fortunately Deidre and Catie were nearby to help (editor's note: in this case, "help" was mostly in the form of loud editorial comments: not necessarily helpful, but comments nonetheless), but not before snapping the photos.

Catie

Despite being thwarted by the surface fish for over 1.5 hours, Catie maintains her good mood.

Meanwhile....the guys are entering the new cave. There was a drop at the beginning of the cave, so Bill had to belay everyone down.

Victory!! Members of the team meet up after a successful afternoon of catching fish.

Exposure averted

Back at the trucks.

After the successful capturing of fish at Micos, everyone but Bill (who went out scouting for caves, one of his favorite hobbies) headed to Cueva del Chica so that the people who hadn't seen it yet could experience it. What we didn't count on were the bats....

Sneaking under a fence to get to Cueva del Chica.

Vampire bats in Cueva de el Chica

Okay, this was really creepy. So, we knew that vampire bats inhabited the cave, but Bill conveniently "forgot" to warn us that they ought to be waking up and preparing to go out for the evening. The swarms were so thick that you couldn't see through them, and the fly-bys were just a liiiitle too close. Scary!!