At the end of my last post about our Cayman Islands trip, we’d just been left hanging by our in-country contact and had almost two hours to burn until we’d be able to do the cave tour we had planned for the morning. I was feeling hopeful that we’d find something interesting to do while we waited.

Sure enough, right down the road was the entrance to Mastic Trail. With a quick online search, we found out it was an out and back, 4.6 mile round-trip hike. We also saw some photography that made the hike look even more tempting (as if a deserted but marked open trailhead isn’t tempting enough). If you do the math, sitting in a climate controlled environment, 4.6 miles in two hours might sound like enough time, even if you take a little time out so we could get back in time to have a little food truck lunch at a place across from the entrance to the caves.

If you’ve ever done a rainforest hike or a run in the tropics, you know that every mile feels like two. We set a timer for half of our time, and started out. I’m still not sure how far we made it into the bush, but we were scrambling over volcanic rock for much of the time, slapping mosquitos, and seeing and hearing a fantastic array of wildlife, so I would say whatever distance we covered, we get an A for effort. (In keeping with my goal to wear handmade clothes throughout the trip, I made the shorts I wore).The trail is marked easy, but the rocky terrain and the heat meant we were glad we were wearing sneakers and were in decent shape. I didn’t count the number of mosquito bites I got, but it was a lot. (Mysteriously, they never started itching, so that was a win).The trail was fantastic. The red dirt path, the brown grey rocks, and the green foliage were the backdrop to incredible birdsong, some fairly large snakes, and all kinds of smaller critters. It was hot, buggy, sweaty work and when we got back to the head of the trail (We started at the North End near Rum Point), we had worked hard.Back at the entrance to the caves, I wasn’t hungry, so I ordered a smoothie from the food truck: mango, banana, plantain. Are you thinking either, What is plantain? Or, Why would you put plantain in a smoothie? At $6 CI, it was the most expensive, but also the most delicious smoothie I’ve ever had.Our Crystal Caves guide was a Caymanian named Rudy, and he told us he was the oldest guide working at the caves. He was unflappable, unhurried, and super knowledgeable. We found out the caves weren’t a recent discovery after all, but have been known about for over 25 years. In the old days, cavers used to hike in through the bush and access the caves by crawling on their bellies over sediment that has since been removed to make the caves more accessible.

A man on the tour with us had done that unofficial cave tour 25 years ago. We got to witness him seeing the caves again for the first time since then. Between that cool connection and our handy guide, we had a good experience and learned a lot about both the caves and the surrounding environment, including a plant near the entrance to one of the caves that, when wet, can turn your skin black and leave permanent scars.Before we left the caves, we talked to the man who had been to the caves so many years before. I’d overheard him tell someone he was from Cayman Brac and wanted to ask him what we should do when we were there the following day.

We got more advice about what to do on Cayman Brac from the Chaplain’s friends that night, including one person who told us we’d be “done in 15 minutes.”That didn’t sound very promising, but I was still curious about the little island.

Keep an eye out for what we found in Cayman Brac in Part III next week.