Hiking With Girls...

This is Tarzan Falls.  Pretty, huh?  (I didn't take this...)  We decided it was high time our girls were introduced to hiking.

This is the view from the start of the trail.  Pretty close to the trailhead, maybe a hundred yards from where we parked.  But...  far enough that we had already missed the right trail, and ended up lost!  It was a misty, beautiful morning.

  The trail we were on got lost in a maze of jeep roads, and there was much consultation of the hiking book.  Which, really, was not much help.  But the view was amazing, out over the green grassy hills of Guam, and down to the blue Pacific.

And there were orchids everywhere!  Like, growing out.  In the wild.  Crazy!  For a person who has only ever seen orchids in shows at the botanical garden, it was quite amazing.

We walked down a grassy track, down to that ravine up there in the distance.  B was carrying Miss R, you can see her fat little legs there, and we had some friends with us.

We got down to the river.  (Which, you may notice, contains no large waterfall at this point...)

Although we missed the waterfall, it was a fantastic place to swim!  The water was cool, and we were all hot and covered with mud from the hike down. 

Our friends helped the girls swim across the deep parts.  Miss R loved kicking her legs in the river.

There was much climbing on rocks.  It was so interesting to me:  the rocks and water looked like they might be one of the mountain streams I am used to seeing in the West, but this was surrounded by lush tropical jungle and bright orange soil.

We all got very muddy.  And there was considerable whining from the small girls- especially Miss M, who has this strange obsessive issue with being sweaty (which is a big problem here in Guam...).  The hike we did ended up being longer than the trail to the falls; we figure those little legs hiked around three miles- so I guess they had some reason to whine!  Anyway, we were all extremely happy to get back to our car.  So, first Guam hike with girls:  Minuses-hot, sticky, dirty, whiny, and we didn't see the waterfall we were looking for.  Pluses- beautiful things to see, fun swim, good friends.