Some Beauty from our Days of Rest

We work hard through the week, so on Saturdays, Tim and I like to take a few hours to just stroll aimlessly on a beach or sit beside one and sip iced tea (or coffee, if you are Tim).

This first photo is taken at Agana Bay - it is the view from Barrista Blends Coffee House's back deck. We sit and watch the tourists go para-sailing, or as they zig and zag back and forth across the bay on wave-runners. Usually, it's not terribly hot (though this particular day it was!) and we can just relax and unwind from our work week.


A couple Saturdays ago, we took an "island tour," a drive around this tiny island, to see many of the local and historical sites. There are so many! We hadn't done this in a long time! We started out at Barrista Blends, stopping only for iced tea (and coffee!) and then going on to some of the beaches and other sites. Here are some trees that "walk." Their root systems are shallow, and if they are in a crowded jungle area, they will send out new shoots toward a sunnier spot and literally move toward the light, roots and all!



This is a set of overpasses that span the road in the village of Umatac (rhymes with "pneumatic") - they look almost out of place! Here, we stopped at a bench near the shore and had a picnic lunch (bugs and all). Afterward, we found ourselves beachcombing the short little shoreline where there were dozens of pieces of "sea glass," lots of teeny tiny seashells, and even a couple larger shells. It was very relaxing!




After our picnic, we drove under the gray and orange overpasses and up the hill to an overlook where the entire bay and village of Umatac were visible.


Also at this overlook is a park area where a local man has a caribao (water buffalo) and you can, for a small fee, ride the beast! (below left) The man also constructed a model of an old-fashioned grass house - the kind the local people used to live in many years ago. (below right)
















Tim and I continued our island tour and were treated to sights of the many beautiful island flowers in different locations: Ginger, hibiscus, and orchids . . .


. . . exoria, plumeria, and "love chains." Aren't they beautiful?



As we continued around the island, we stopped briefly at Inarahan Pools; these are tide pools that are quite deep in some places, and more shallow in others. The water heats up in these pools under the tropical sun. Thus, instead of the water being about 85 degrees, like the surrounding sea surface, the pools have a temperature of closer to 90 degrees. This makes them very popular with young families. We enjoyed watching the brave young men who competed for who could do the most daring dive off of the diving block! This guy is the one we deemed the winner!







Guam has lots of beautiful buildings as well as natural attractions. After leaving Inarahan pools and right before we stopped in the village of Inarahan for a snack, I asked Tim to pull off the road so that I could snap a picture of the front of this beautiful church (left) . Just around a bend in the road, only a few hundred feet north, is the village proper of Inarahan. We stopped in a little market for a cold drink and snack and then walked back up the road to take this second photo (right): the remaining front wall of the oldest protestant church on Guam. These two pictures provide quite a bit of contrast, don't they? :-)

Check back in a few days - I'll finish the Island Tour for you and include snapshots of our favorite beach at Ritidian Point.