Grutas de Garcia

A couple of weekends ago, some friends took us to the caves in Garcia. They are about 30 minutes from us, but that town feels further away than that! We arrived, bought our tickets and boarded the tram to take us up the mountain to the entrance of the cave. Wow, they packed a lot of people into that tram. The arial tram is a fairly recent addition. In the past, there was a hinged train that ran on tracks up the steep slope of the mountain. I heard that you would be sitting almost horizontal once you reached the top. I think I prefer the arial tram. We could have also walked/hiked up to the entrance. I think it cost the same, though.

The view from the caves was pretty interesting. It is on the wall of a big round basin, that totally looks like it was full of water at one time. Oh, and there are some structures in the cave with tons of shells embedded into them. Some of the mountains have the sediments that are very visible, but the layers aren't horizontal, they are very steeply sloped. There must have been a lot of plate shifting there at one time long ago. Neat to think about.

We entered the cave into a big open chamber and we could see the staircases leading everywhere throughout the cave. Our friends told us that concerts are held there occasionally, which I think would be really cool to hear. I'd have thought the loud noise would possibly damage some of the cave structures, but I guess nobody's worried about that.

The guide led us around the caves for a little over an hour. The kids enjoyed themselves. Jake hung out with his buddies, Grace and Sarah enjoyed listening to one of Jake's friends tell stories about the scary creatures that were hiding down the dark small caves and how to defeat them in battle, and Rachel just enjoyed climbing around by herself. She didn't want to hold my hand or stay close to me. I think most of us were "kissed" by the cave (we felt drips) which is good luck. And lucky for us, some vendors were selling fresh churros at the bottom of the mountain. After our picnic lunch and some fun on the playground, we called it a day. Fun trip.