We entered the Apra Harbour and headed across to our berth at Hagatna around 8am and it did look rather bleak outside . Before we could get outside though we had to go through the very arduous task of clearing American Customs in the Vista Lounge. Although being asked to queue at certain times, depending on tours etc., the natural habit for us humans is to get there early, and much early in many cases. We actually were one of those as we had been given the marvelous offer of spending the morning with Annie & Mike, in their hire car, so we took advantage of that and therefore, had to get off the ship as soon as we could. The queue when we joined it went from the stage in the Vista Lounge to the second stairwell after the Atrium Lounge, and at least two deep!!!! Fortunately it did move fairly quickly, but they didn't cater for the much older folk with walking sticks, many of whom just stuck with the queue.
We were off the ship by 9am and whilst waiting for the hire car, the heavens opened with a deluge of rain that lasted about half an hour. The rain stopped, the car arrived and then it was off exploring new territory - Mike at the wheel of the left-hand drive, and fortunately Colin was the navigator as, although the map of the whole of Guam looked informative at first glance, there were no street names on it, only numbers!!!! We started our tour by rounding the pretty harbour foreshore and visiting the mini Statue of Liberty and also the impressive statue of Chief Quipuha, a Chief of Hagatna. We drove across the very lush, tropical and quite hilly island, dotted with meagre homes along the way – everyone had chickens of all colours in their gardens, and we found the sea again.
It took us a while, even asking a few directions on the way, but finally ended up at the fantastic Talofofo Falls, and we got more than we had expected. We were welcomed by tame pigs, just lying all over the carpark, one great big beautiful girl with a tribe of little piglets, all feeding to their hearts content. Once through the ticket office, we were surprised to see that we had to get a cable car down, down, down to the actual falls, no choice!! The whole place did look a little tired, so we weren't quite sure what to expect – BUT were totally blown away by the spectacle of the falls and how pretty it all was.
There was even a sourvenir shop and museum down there and this is also the site where a Japanese soldier hid in a cave for 27 years (he had no idea that the War had ended). His name was Yokoi and he built a cave underground, which is still there. We didn't get to it as it was 300 metres away and then it was a climb down a ladder into the very tiny cave. We did however see a wall picture of what it would have been like back then – there was plenty of fish in the river, plants and seeds and of course lots of fresh running water for him to survive - how he didn't go crackers is a mystery!!
We thought we almost had the place to ourselves then unfortunately a mass of locals came out of nowhere so it was a long time queuing to get back in the cable car. As time was very precious (we actually had to be back at the ship by 4.30), there was no chance of driving right around the island and seeing all the sites, so we headed back for town, with some shopping in mind for the Masons. We left Annie & Mike to continue with their touring, very thankful for being able to get out into the countryside and having a good look at Guam.
Although the shopping is duty free here, the shopping centres are all over the place and we were told that the transport between them was very slow. With only designer shops in the centre of town and not wishing to risk missing getting back on time, we decided to keep our money in our pockets and head back to the ship. WELL, we went to the designated Hyatt Hotel for the shuttle bus, only to find there literally must have been 500 people waiting – the queue similar to the early morning one, so we shared a taxi with another couple and got back about 3.30 for a late lunch. Just about everyone was extremely disappointed that our stay in Guam was far too short, many folk not even getting into town until 12ish, which was no time to do anything – lots of long faces tonight……
There was lots and lots of dinner table chatter tonight , we all went in different directions and of course, all agreed that we could have spent a whole lot longer there. We had heard that it was similar in many respects to Hawaii, but we didn't see much evidence of that, although it is a very pretty island.
PHOTOS: Annie, Mike & us at the mini Statue of Liberty; Statue of Chief Quipuha; Huge sign to the Talofofo Falls, that we missed the first time; Mumma pig and her babies; Cable car over the falls; There are some young men jumping off the slippery rocks into a pool within the Falls; Another view of the Falls; Wall picture of Yokoi's Cave.
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