Equipo Williams

Yesterday we went to the Marble Caves. As you might’ve guessed from the name, the marble caves are (bum ba da dum!) Caves made out of Marble. But what you might not have guessed is that they are not on land, but in the water.

When we got to the row of stands that run tours, we had planned to go to the caves on the second. We were walking down the aisle and a man came up to us and said that they had a tour at five thirty that they were trying to fill up. We knew that it might rain on the second, but we would only have twenty minutes to get ready, not enough time for Baba to go back and get his camera. It turns out, he wanted to make sure it didn’t fall into the water, and said it was fine. So we decided to go. We hit up the nearby Copec (gas station) for free bathrooms and came back ready for the hour and a half long ride. They gave us rain ponchos and life jackets, which we put on and headed out. 

There was one other family, with three kids, and one other guy by himself. Our tour guide was a spritely and funny lady who spoke enough English to pull through with us. The Marble Caves are on Lago General Carrera, which becomes Lago Buenos Aires in Argentina. The lady said it is the second biggest lake in South America, after Lake Titicaca. The boat ride there wasn’t too choppy, but sometimes we made sharp turns and the boat tipped a little. After about a ten minute ride, we got to the first cave.

The Marble had a kind of scaly pattern in it. We were informed that the Caves were carved by a glacier a long time ago. They had some mini stalactites that were very you and looked like water droplets that were just about to fall. We took a picture here and then moved on to the next “boat-enter-able” cave. This one was similar but had much higher ceilings. We took a picture here and moved on to the tunnel. The tunnel is just a cave that you can go through to get back to the water, so a tunnel.

The final caves area we went to was the Chapel and the Cathedral. These are a big island (but still small enough that it took about thirty seconds to boat around it), and a small island with caves under it. Just to clarify, the Chapel is the small one and the Cathedral is the big one, they are named these because, until the area was more naturally protected, you could get married here. I thought this was cool and that if he could, Uncle David would totally get married in a kayak. Anyways, after circling the chapel a few times, we headed back.

We were the last tour and I think they wanted to finish up quick, because they rode us fast against the waves. The driver also wanted to have some fun, so he made us hit every single wave as hard as possible. Everyone (including the driver and guide)  was laughing and screaming and it was in general very fun. When we got back we took off our coats and headed back.

The tour was super fun and I’m very glad we did it yesterday, because today it is pouring and windy and awful. I loved seeing the Marble Caves and definitely hope we get to do another fun boat ride on this trip.