Sella Bay

Carlton is home now and will be hanging around for a while, so we took advantage of the long weekend!  On our last hike (up Mount Jumullong), the couple we ran into told us about a couple hikes in the area that they really enjoyed, so we decided to try one of them. Monday we hiked down to Sella Bay which is on the south coast of Guam and the site of the ancient Chamorro village of Sidya.

It was a very jungly hike and somewhat slippery in some areas where the mud was packed hard. Going down to the bay was fairly easy and right at the coast you come to the Old Spanish Bridge.

One of the creek crossings.

Wild orchids along the trail.

Looks like pineapple but they're on trees...

Sella River that flows under the Spanish Bridge

Spanish Bridge

Spanish Bridge

I call these jellyfish flowers. No idea what the actual name is.

Bridge with the coast in the background.

More of the jungle along the trail.

View along the trail.

Then we walked along the coastline for a bit to check out the area. Very interesting beach with rock all along the water, so not very friendly to bare feet. The rock is either volcanic or limestone, so very craggy and sharp!

Coastline

Interesting rock formations

Random huge rock/mound on the beach

More of the coastline

There are six parachutes going into the water, top left.

Funky rock!

Several areas of rock with these cool colors!

The landscape of rock

More funky colors in the rock

Ancient beehive oven remains

Fireworks flower (our name for it)

Spanish bridge from the coast

The coastline had a lot of interesting rock formations and tons of hermit crabs along the way! We brought our bathing suits but after checking out the sharp rocks along the water, we opted to stay on the land. There is supposed to be other ruins of the ancient village to see but we could not locate them.

The hike back up the trail was challenging. It didn't help that we lost track of the trail ribbons at one point and realized that we were no longer on the trail. So we spent a good fifteen minutes backtracking to find the trail before we could continue. There is a 440 foot elevation change with this hike and I definitely felt all 440 feet on the way back up!! Could also have something to do with the 88 degrees and 80%-ish humidity. We were definitely sweaty at the end of that hike!! Not to mention very happy to get into our air conditioned car! Another hike on Guam has been conquered!!

Whirlwind Visit

Carlton was finally home for a few days and so we got out to do some sightseeing! It was nice that he didn't have to work while he was home this time. I took him to a place called Leo Palace, which is where the Khaki Ball was held. I only got to see a small portion of this resort when we were there for the Khaki Ball but as we were driving in, you could see that the place is huge!

It's a resort but they also have condos where people live. It is also a popular venue for sports camps, concerts, Balls, and other big events - there was a fitness competition there just last weekend! It's easier to show you:

This is the front of the main hotel portion.

This map shows how big the place is.

So the picture of the map may be hard to read but they have two fields for baseball, two for soccer, two for softball, a golf course, a competitive swimming pool, a waterpark and a regular recreation pool. They also have a gaming area inside with billiards, darts, ping pong tables, and a mini bowling alley. They have a mini lake as part of the landscape. The place is just huge!

The back side of the main hotel with part of the lake showing.

The chapel for weddings

My handsome hubby!

Cheesy selfie!

Closer view of the back side

More of the lake with more artwork

Closer look at the artwork

Back side of the hotel with the lake

The entire main hotel with the lake

The condos across from the main hotel

These photos were taken on our hike to Mount Lam Lam which turned into a hike to Mount Jumullong. Both hikes start at the same trailhead and about three fourths the way up the trail splits. We turned to go to Mount Lam Lam but after being on the trail about five minutes, a couple guys saw Carlton above the grass and yelled to him that we should turn back. Both were carrying rifles and were apparently hunting wild pigs. Since we didn't want to a) run into wild pigs or b) get shot by the hunters, we chose to go back and hike Mount Jumullong instead.

Mount Jumullong is the second highest peak in Guam at 1,283 feet. Mount Lam Lam is the highest at 1,332 feet. Mount Jumullong is also very popular with the Catholics on island that trek up to the top every Good Friday. The top of the "mountain" has several crosses on it and there are crosses along the trail as well. Turns out this is not the best time of year to hike this trail. We were lucky it didn't rain on us but it was very muddy and wet...I was up to my ankles in mud a few times along the trail. So the trail was pretty slippery in many spots - it was either really muddy or you were walking on limestone that had been smoothed out by copious amounts of rain. Needless to say, it was an interesting hike! Here are some pics:

Before the hike, this is Cetti Bay from an overlook

Trailhead

Freshest dead Brown Tree snake I have seen yet!

Most of the trail is overgrown with sword grass.

More views of the coastline from the trail.

Plaque at the base of the largest cross on the top.

Largest cross, at least 20 feet tall.

Other crosses near the big cross.

Gotta have the cheesy selfie!

View from the top.

All the crosses.

View of the top from the trail.

Last view of the coastline from the trail.

Haphazard Hiking and Clown Town

Shenanigans from this past week include a lovely sounding hike and a spontaneous snorkel excursion!

Last weekend we decided we wanted to try one of the hikes in our hiking book but we didn't have a lot of time, so we chose one that wasn't too far from base (Asan Falls). It promised to be a fairly short hike (two hours) and we were supposed to see three waterfalls.

One thing we did not take into account was the off and on raining that had been occurring all morning. The hike started on a dirt road which was super muddy...and slippery!! I was taking it slow going down some of the short hills because it was super slippery and there wasn't much to grab onto for support. When we came to the water, we found that we were just below one of the waterfalls and right at the top of the middle waterfall. According to the book, we were supposed to cross the water and hike down to the last waterfall (which we could see). Once we got across though, we realized that not only did the hike down look a bit treacherous, there was no trail on that side of the water! So the only way we could reach the other waterfall was to actually wade through the water and we had no idea how deep it was. We hadn't dressed for wading through water and we didn't exactly have rope with us to scale the rocky descent. So we ended up cutting our hike short! Hopefully we will be able to complete that hike at some point.

There were a bunch of these tiny frogs on the trail!

One of the waterfalls

Selfie!

Another waterfall

July 21st is Liberation Day in Guam, it is the day that U.S. forces liberated Guam from Japanese forces during WWII. It is their Fourth of July and it is a huge deal! They have celebrations going on the whole month and there is a four hour parade on that day. Most of the businesses in town are closed on that day and it was supposed to be a day off for Carlton.

Well, things don't always go as planned and he ended up having to work the first half of the day. But we wanted to do something with the rest of his free day, so we decided to return to Gab Gab beach and snorkel. We had been told that "Clown Town" was not far from shore, so we decided that we should look for it. On one of our previous scuba dives, we had found a couple anemones with clown fish at Gab Gab. "Clown Town" is a larger anemone with lots of clown fish. Besides it was a rainy day and hiking was out of the question, so getting in the water seemed like a good alternative!

We snorkeled for almost an hour looking for this anemone with no luck. We had covered quite a bit of the reef and decided that we should head back. Of course it was right when we were getting back to the pool at Gab Gab where Carlton found "Clown Town"! The problem is that it's about 20-30 feet below the surface, so it's a bit hard to see when you are snorkeling. I did some free diving to try to get pictures but they did not come out as well as I had hoped. We do plan to return sometime when we scuba dive so we can get better pictures. For now, here are the pics from our snorkeling!

Lovely coral

"The fish was THIS big!"

He blends in well!

Great camouflage!

Beautiful colors!

More great colors!

Very long, skinny fish!

This is Clown Town!

Carlton diving down for a closer look

More of the anemone and fish

They are well hidden in this part of the reef

More of clown town

More of the anemone here

Clown town - reminds me of a Dr. Suess story