High hopes are the clay pigeons of emotion: flung skyward by careless hands and shot to shit. The group of "college kids" turned out to be a bunch of Asian students from an all-boys high school in Tokyo. I mean, when you squint your eyes they all look like 12-year-old girls, but that's not my bag either. Their translator was kind of hot, but not much on talking. I got a "Thank you prease" out of her when I asked her name, and that was about it. Total communication breakdown. But one must roll with the punches, even when said punches are ten 17-year-old Charlie Chans who think you're supposed to get entirely naked before you put a wetsuit on. I've never seen so much chode in my life, and I don't even like using that word. After the unfortunate wardrobe ordeal, we were given headlamp helmets and then loaded into a van (yes, just like the retarded hikers at Hell Hole). Our guides warned us not to pee in our wetsuits--while submerged or otherwise--drove us to the mouth of Two Dogs Cave. Every time the driver hit a bump it was like a scene from an old Gojirra movie. All these kids would widen their eyes, grab for their helmets and make this weird "Ohhh!" sound. You'd think that we were driving along a cliff at 100 miles per hour.

We got to the river, grabbed tubes and dropped into the Earth. It was a pretty bizarre feeling to hike a quarter of a mile into the side of a mountain guided by the dim glow of our headlamps. I was the only English speaking person on the tour apart from our guides, so I had plenty of time to survey my surroundings. The water was cold. Really, really fucking cold. Imagine river water in the late Fall, after the first few cold rains have diluted any heat the sun might provide. Then send that water into the bowels of a mountain on an overcast day. My hands and feet were numb inside of fifteen minutes, and judging by fellow tourists' endless exclamations of "Oh wow! Berry cold!", they felt the same. We finally came to a small waterfall. After jumping off, we were in water 5 meters deep and had to rely on the tubes. At least I relied on my tube. The others seemed to think that since I spoke English that I was somehow in charge, and they followed me almost as much as they did our guides. One of these was a young native named Raj. He was at the front of the group, and as we paddled through the immense silence of the deep underground, he sang several old Maori songs. They echoed off the cavern walls, adding an eerie touch of archaism to our little tour. Phosphorescent glow worms lit the ceiling in small clusters like neon constellations, dangling webs to catch the massive and decidedly creepy crickets that lived on the cave walls. Lloyd, our second guide, told us to kill our head lamps. We sat in almost complete darkness; our only light came from the glow worms. All was quiet and still save for the lapping of the water at the cave walls and the subdued, unintelligible chatter of my companions who simply didn't seem to know when it was time to shut the fuck up. Raj let off a couple of M-80s and half of them probably broke the wet-suit rule. One kid actually screamed and fell out of his tube. It was pretty hilarious.

Eels. There were eels all over the damn place. They live back in the caves and even though they go out to forage or hunt or whatever it is eels do, they come back to the exact same spot to sleep and rest. The first one was small, maybe 18 inches. But in the deepest pool (about 8 meters) there was an eel upwards of five feet long. They don't generally bite, but I have to say when I saw that mean-looking motherfucker winding past my feet I came dangerously close to violating the wetsuit rule in more ways than one. And no, that's not a sex joke.

Somewhere along the line, the Asian kids started referring to me as "Captain." I laughed at first, but after awhile it started to piss me off. I couldn't tell if they were making fun of me or not. God knows I couldn't understand anything else they said, even when they tried English. Their second translator (some stiff-necked asshole with a string tie and a bad attitude) told me later on that they all assumed I was planted among them as a team leader. I wasn't sure what to make of that. Chalk it up to cultural misunderstanding. The rest of the trip was uneventful. I asked Lloyd if I could take off for a bit, and he said it was a straight shot out to the exit, but that I might as well go on because he and Raj planned to take the kids' headlamps and leave them in the dark for 15 minutes or so. When you give the same tour 3 to four times a day, 5 days a week, I'd imagine you'd do some pretty fucked up things to keep yourself entertained. And anyway, it's not like the kids knew how to ask what was going on.

Back at the main building it was hot soup and bagels and "Thank you prease" left and right from every one of the Asian students, none of whom seemed to understand that I had no part in their little adventure other than being stuck with them instead of a group of tasty co-eds...who it turned out were scheduled for a tour that started 5 minutes after mine ended. They were loading up in their van just as ours pulled in. One poorly timed phone call and I end up "Captain" of the King Kong Klan.