The St Herman’s Cave is located near a village/small town just before the border with Guatemala and honestly was a complete surprise for me personally.
There are lots of nature excursions to do around San Ignacio. That’s also the reason why there are hostels and hotels in San Ignacio. Cause otherwise there is hardly anything to see in San Ignacio. I also did make the stopover solely because of its proximity to the cave. And yes there are probably tours from other places in the area, but why bother when you can get cheap and easy closer? There though is a rather pretty bridge in San Ignacio which did appeal to me personally a bit. But more on that in another post 😊

Since St. Herman’s Cave is really big and you need sturdy shoes and a helmet etc. to go inside, it was clear that I couldn’t do it alone. So I asked around in the centre – something I always do when I need to book a tour, because then you can haggle and in 90 per cent of the cases (in my opinion at least) negotiate a better deal than what you find/pay online. So, I found what I was looking for and was ready to go on a cave discovery tour the next day.

First, we walked through the jungle to the cave. Along the way our very knowledgeable and friendly guide told us all sorts of things about the plants and nature around us. Once we arrived at the cave we descended bit by bit going deeper and deeper. And honestly? The cave is huge! Without a guide, you would be completely lost. It can also get a bit slippery and quite muddy, and you should be a little bit athletic and, to be honest, also relatively ‘slim’ because we also had to squeeze through relatively narrow crevices. Like if you have a bit of extra weight it shouldn’t be a problem and there weren’t too many narrow parts we had to cross, but I’m just being honest. Claustrophobics would freak out on the tour… As I am a little adventurer and adrenaline junkie, I, on the other hand, had a lot of fun. 😀 It was a really nice adventure tour through a cave 😀 And of course our guide showed us things and explained things to us again and again… he was really great to be honest.

On our way to the largest part of the cave, we kept passing white stalagmites and stalactites that sparkled when illuminated – no, that’s not a typo. I did say sparkled 😉 When we finally reached the largest part of the cave… I’ve never seen anything like that. Artistic shapes of stalactites and stalagmites everywhere on the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling… And everything sparkled. Like a huge chandelier hall. Incredibly beautiful.
After leaving the cave, we went to an almost completely open cenote where we could swim and then back to the hostel.

Do or not? I think it would be crazy not to visit this cave. You get a truly impressive cave including an adventure trip, amazing nature and some really interesting facts about the Belizean jungle 😊