Day

Up close with coral

Carina looking at something

Underwater village

Beyond this coral there was a cliff.  We went down it.  Diving is like flying sometimes.

Underwater selfie

A whole plethra of blue fish swam past me.

Sometimes when you look up you see fish.  The red glare is due to the red lens on the gopro.  It works best pointed down, not up.

Suburbs.

This looks like something from Dr. Seuss.  But it's not.  It's a worm (or two).

My favorite blue puffer fish that looks like an angry bird.  I love him.

I named him Henry.

This is still the Philippines.  I know I went to Palau recently, but it takes a long time to get pics from the gopro videos.  Day 3 of diving was Apo Island.  It was awesome.  Unfortunately my gopro kept breaking and I couldn't figure out how to fix it underwater.  So all the pics of the cliff I mentioned above are not here.  It was an awesome cliff, though.

Random post

Hike to Tarzan Falls.  The day after the really long hike, my friends wanted to hike to Tarzan falls.  They didn't find the falls, but we did hike through these fields.

This is the river, but we were too far downstream for the waterfall.

They brought their dogs.  The blue collar dog is Bandit, the puppy.  He's not so little anymore.  And he's even bigger now.  The other dog is Conrad.  He looks almost identical to bandit, but fatter and a light tan instead of brown.

This is the Doc's car.  For whatever reason, I wanted a photo.

Some time later, we did a night dive.  I arrived a little early and watched the sunset on the beach.

There were other people who decided to do a night dive, as well.

This was a chicken in my yard with 13(!) babies.

Donald Trump Chia Head.  It's a little past it's prime.

These are other random photos I had on my phone.

The rest of the really long hike

The beginning.

So much hope and anticipation to get started.  This is already two hours in because they didn't get started on time and then it took forever to get the starting location.

There were some neat flowers I saw while I was waiting for everyone to arrive.  The important word in this sentence is "waiting."  We did a lot of that.

Lunch break.  This is when I started realizing this hike was going very, very wrong.  I didn't pack a lunch because 7 miles should only take 3 hours, max.  I should have been home by noon or one.

This is me when we stopped, literally after only 20 minutes of walking.  It was a super long break, too.  I took lots of pics and started messaging people saying I was taken hostage by the Boonie Stompers.

Our final break before four of us realized where the cars were and bolted.  Green shirt guy is the one on the right.  He was cool.  Super cool.

Still waiting.

The hike finished in a neighborhood where we got yelled at for trespassing on private property.  I so didn't care, I hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch, I'd been out in the sun all day, I felt like a hostage, and I just didn't care.  But green shirt guy talked to him and was really nice and we crossed his property to safety.  I would have done it anyway, but at least this way we got permission.  This pic is of the chicken huts for people who raise fighting chickens.  It was next to the guy who yelled at us.

This is what my legs looked like afterwards.  We were on our hands and knees trying to get through the brush to the road and escape.

These are my cell phone pics from the really long hike.  It was so long that my go pro battery gave out and I had to switch to cell phone pics.  Afterwards, it was the Doc's birthday from work, so we went to a Thai restaurant.  I was so low on blood sugar from being outside all day and not eating that I paid 2 dollars for a can of soda to drink in order to just drink glucose.  Then I ordered a plate of nothing but chicken to cover my protein base.  Afterwards we went to a bar where I observed people get drunk and then left because I was tired.  All in all, it was a good day, but also frustrating.  My biggest regret is not getting green shirt guy's number.  And I'm also never going with the boonie stompers again.

The Forever Hike

Carina going up the steep part.

One of the first views before we actually got to the mountains.

One of the many, many breaks.

When we stopped for lunch, there was a little shed and a tree not too far away.  I hiked there with another person and took a pic.  It was not as exciting as I hoped.

This is the only tree I've seen like this here.  It is unique.

Lunch view.

Tree and shed from where we ate lunch.

Just on the other side of the grass, it drops off, so watch your step.

Another stop, about 20 minutes after the last stop.

Starting to get to the mountains.

Hiking the ridge line.

You can see the slow people coming down if you look really hard.

A little while before going to the Philippines, Carina invited me to hike with the Boonie Stompers.  It costs two dollars, but you get a guided hike on some trails that you otherwise wouldn't be able to visit.  The downside is that they stop every 20 minutes for about 30 minutes.  This was a seven mile hike, but it took over 9 hours when you include the driving and all the wasted time.  I was so frustrated.  So, so frustrated.  I had been invited to a get together by another friend at 6 pm and I really wanted to go.  I didn't make it because we were here all day.  I took a picture of my face with my phone which I will post in the next post.  Anyway, in spite of my dislike of how the hike was conducted, it was a nice hike.  The guy in the green shirt was cool.  I should have gotten his phone number.  These are the go pro pics.  This is my first experiment with taking video and then pulling the pics from there.  I'm not sure how I like it.  Once we realized where the cars were and how to get there, the green shirt guy, me, Carina, and another random guy just booked it.  We flew down the mountain with incredible speed to get home.  It involved crawling through some bushes and finding spiders.  Green shirt guy didn't like spiders.  He said. "Ack, a spider!" and then a little later, "Ack, another spider!"  I said, "another one?  No way, you found both spiders on Guam.  There's only two, so far as I know."  He didn't buy it, but we were trading one line witty lines the whole way to keep from going insane at the incredible slowness of the group.