I had no idea what was nestled beneath the surface.
To say It was a surprise is an understatement.
For some reason we thought it would be fun to rent dune buggies for a day of sightseeing.
We waffled on whether to buy overpriced bandannas that the Dominican tour guide insisted we needed. Erring on the safe rather than sorry principle, we caved.
Azure skies, winding dirt roads with lush vegetation of palm and ferns led us through the countryside.
In theory it was fun…but the reality was that we were soon covered from head to toe in mud, white and sandy, but mud none-the-less.
I do love sports, the outdoors and adventure, but I am also somewhat of a “girly-girl.” Having grown up in a household of girls who played dress-up and dolls, I didn’t have brothers to rough house with.
So getting dirty was never-ever on my radar.
I also don’t know if I can even express to you how thankful I was that we bought those overpriced bandanas which at least covered our noses, mouths and necks.
One woman at the mid-trip pit stop lamented to me…”And we paid good money to get this dirty?”
Once I got over the trauma of being covered in mud, I relaxed and began to enjoy myself. There is something freeing about relaxing into the circumstances of which you have no control over and accepting the inevitable. What is a little mud really going to hurt anyway?
So…
I had to do a little pep talk to myself, “You’re not actually going to melt, so get over it!”
And once I did, I had fun.
However, the highlight of the trip was yet to come. A little tired and a lot dirty, we stopped at a beautiful garden. I would have been content to sit on a rock and soak up the sun, (not that I’d have gotten much of a tan through the mud covering I wore), but the guide kept motioning us down the trail toward a cave. “Cenote,” he said.
“What?”
Now I have been in quite a few caves, so I wasn’t very excited. But curiosity about this Cenote moved me from my seat. As we descended into the depths, I repented of my ho-hum thoughts.
Below us in the dim, brightened by artificial illumination, was a beautiful subterranean pool. A Cenote is born when the porous and fragile limestone floor collapses to form these holes that fill with clear, turquoise spring waters.
The Cenote beckoned,
And we answered it with a splash of total submersion.
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Psalms 114:7-8 Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs water.
-If God is able to turn the rock into a pool, can’t he do anything you ask of him? Sometimes He reveals something beautiful and unexpected. Other time he just whispers, “Be patient my child.”
-Send your petitions to him and remember he can do all things.