Amethyst Caves

This week, Trevor and I experienced one of the most quirky tourist attractions I've ever encountered.  There is this place called the amethyst caves that used to be a mining area for well...amethyst of course.  The caves are set up as a mini labyrinth museum.  And by museum I mean a completely random conglomeration of garbely gook.  Seriously though there was no thought process whatsoever as to the displays in this cave.  There were animatronic dinosaurs, artifacts from Egypt, a Buddha exhibit, art gallery, skulls from Africa, and amethysts of course.

Also as part of the cave experience, there is a group of acrobatic performers from the Philippines who put on a show every few hours or so.  Luckily one of the shows was just about to start when we got there so we got to see the full performance.  They were silly and goofy and made the kids laugh (ok, and me too) but they did do some pretty cool tricks.  I'll post a few videos and pics of our time below with captions to explain everything.

Aside from the bizarre randomness of the caves, the only other thing to report about our time there was that after we got out of the caves it was SO COLD!  It wasn't cold enough to be snowing but it was raining and the rain was FREEZING!  There was a little sign that said there was a zoo at the top of the hill and Trevor begged me to go (you know our fetish for zoos) but for me it was absolutely out of the picture.  I'm sure it would have been a prairie dog, a fox, and maybe a peacock or something.  For me it was time to go home.

The cave had all sorts of different lighting effects

Cool tunnel 

Random water fountain 

There were animatronic dinosaurs here there and everywhere throughout the caves

Awesome dragon cave mural

Getting ready for the performance

So talented!

It's kind of hard to tell but her feet are on those raised platforms and she is picking up money with her mouth on the table

Enter the tiny realm of ancient Egypt

Part of a cave mural.  I call it Creepersaurus Rex

Random Christmas light hall??

Amethyst display.  Couldn't tell if real or fake.....

Super creepy life-size figurines of miners

Now we all know the reason behind the famous painting.

Hallway to Buddha

Of course he wanted a pic by the snake painting ;)

Whole view from on top of the hill

So cold in the rain!

This old man was contributing to the beat of the music by playing these things that look like scissors.  In the mean time, he was also cutting up these candy things to sell to audience members.  "Hey what's your instrument of choice?" "Oh, you know, I usually play the scissors"

Philippine Acrobat crew