Today we did a full circumnavigation of Guam. 87 miles total, including some little detours. Going all the way around is something Dave had never done, they didn’t take the family on road trips except up to his uncle’s farm on the very north tip of the island, which was our first stop.
Down below in that flat area is where Dave’s uncle had some land and farmed breadfruit and such.
The area to the right in both of these pictures is Anderson air base, which takes up a huge chunk of the northern part of the island.
Unfortunately the beach itself was closed, they’re still cleaning up after the typhoon a few months ago. But we drove down the road a bit to see what Dave could recognize. Apparently there used to be some large caves with lots of bats. Wit a hillside like this I can believe it!
From there we drove down the entire eastern side of the island, stopping at Talafofo falls.
One of the things to stop and see here is this small man-made cave.
So what is it with this cave you ask? Why bother with the detour to see this?
Well this is the cave made and lived in by a Japanese soldier. For 28 years he remained on Guam, after the war was over, living in this cave. Unfortunately the informational displays were all in Japanese and quite broken English, but it sounds like he just never heard the war was over at was waiting for the island to be re-conquered.
In his own little jungle… Paradise?
Continuing down the island we stopped at a couple of scenic points, including this one at Inarajan. Not quite the southernmost point on the island, but close, there’s a large bay at some natural pools that have been formed. This was the windiest and highest surf we’ve seen anywhere on the island!
Bev was having way too much fun looking for pieces of coral, we basically had to drag her out of there.
Wrapping around the southern tip of the island and heading back up the west side, we stopped at the remnants of an old Spanish fort that was built to protect this harbor that the Spanish used to re-provision ships.
A lonely place to stand watch, but certainly not cold!
At the entrance to the park was a man selling coconuts, an access to their delicious coconut innards via his machete. The siren song of the coconut could not be resisted, I think it’s in the genetics.
Continuing our journey north once more, we stopped at one more famous Guam landmark, still the center of island life: KMart.
Walking around a bit near the hotel before dinner we NEARLY discovered the answer to that most ancient of questions…
For dinner we actually went back to the same Chamorro Fusion place we went last night because they had so many delicious things we needed to try more.
So, having gone entirely around the island, visited several places from Dave’s youth and even more places he’d never been, we’re planning a nice easy Saturday of looking for some family graves. How many more cemeteries can there be on such a tiny island? I’m sure it’ll work out! On to Saturday. Hopfully we didn’t over-use Friday and there’s some left over for you!