As I have told many of you who have asked, living on Guam is great in part because it is chalk full of outdoor activities. Since Guam is an island, the sea-based ones get all the play, but the land of Guam is also fantastic to explore, and one of the best manifestations of this is going caving. A short history lesson: Guam is a volcanic island, but it is also surrounded by coral. So somehow the volcanic rock and the coral get down with each other, and voila, you've got an island with an extensive cave network (at least that's the official history I got).
Friend Anna told me about a cave called Cool Cave. I am not joking. It might have another name, but in at least one article I found online and in Anna's book of caves on Guam, it is named Cool Cave. Maybe it was named because of the cool temperature inside the cave, maybe Mr. Cool found it, or maybe Kool and his Gang used to hang out there. (There is also an "Awesome Cave," so maybe Cool Cave is cool, but can't hold a candle to Awesome Cave.)
Regardless of the reason, Anna and I decided to wake up early this past Saturday morning and go explore it. She had been led there once before, so we took her old beat up Toyota inside of my old beat up Toyota and headed to the southern part of Guam. Based on her book and my internet research, we learned that there was no real trail or trailhead, simply that the "trail" started just to the north of a sanitation transfer station on the side of the road. Now I should point out that I have the sense of direction of a toaster, and Anna's sense of direction is not much better (it maybe equates to a quesadilla maker). The two of us put together could not find our way out of bathroom. But, we found what we thought was a trail, saw some orange and pink tape on a trees (which is often previous hikers marking their path), and forged ahead. Then we reached an area too thick to pass. We went straight, then back to the last mark, then left, then back to the last mark, then right, and decided it was best to go back to the road to try again. We made it back to the road a few meters from where we started and, already cut up from the ubiquitous thorny trees, probed in again at a different spot. This spot wasn't as full of brambles, and soon we found ourselves sort of on the right path. Our first main marker was to find the edge of the cliff (pictured above...there was actually a huge orange date on the side of the cliff that someone painted in that morning...uncanny coincidence), and then turn left. Once we found this marker, we turned left and with relative ease picked up another trail marked with tape on the trees. Finding the actual entrance of the cave, which is small, was supposed to be the hard part (like the bars in LA that don't have any names, maybe it's called Cool Cave because you're cool if you actually know how to find it). Remarkably, the markers led us right to the entrance, which even people with decent directional sense would have been hard-pressed to find. The hike was supposed to take only a half an hour, and it took us probably 4 times that. No big deal.
Once in the cave, Anna, a biology grad student and somewhat experienced caver, took control. She had warned me that there were two spots that were kind of tight squeezes. Being slightly claustrophobic and having been scared shitless watching "The Descent", I laughed nervously to myself and figured it couldn't be that bad. I also figured those spots weren't until the end. Instead, they were both right at the beginning of the cave and were pretty tight. Well, I was not about to let 2hrs of hiking through thorny bushes and a myriad of spider webs go to waste (oh yeah, every two trees seemed to have a massive spider web strung across it (exhibit A to the right)). So with a few deep breaths and some gentle encouragement from Anna, I held down my panic and fear of being trapped and made it through both of the tight spots. We brought glow-sticks and orange tape along to mark our trail in the cave to find our way back, which quelled my fear of never seeing sunshine again.
Once through the tight spots,
our reward was instantaneous Cool. Stalactites (coming down from the ceiling) and stalagmites (coming up from the floor) never cease to wow me. Caves like this are constantly growing, water dripping down to form and re-form the shape of the cave. Devoid of life (though I did spot a crab crawling around inside), but still alive and growing. And so old! Though, as Anna and I speculated, if these rocks could talk, all they would probably say is, "yeah, it's been pretty dark in here for a while." Definitely lived up to the hype there Cool Cave.
We could have hung out with the stalactites for hours, but after a while, it was time to go, back through the squeezes and out into the light of day. On our way back, our goal was to add marks to the trail so it would be easy for the next pair of Magellans to find the entrance. Somehow, we couldn't even accomplish this simple feat. We again forged confidently to where we remembered coming from, marking the trees with orange tape, then backtracked, taking the tape back off the trees, then going in a different direction. Eventually, we found ourselves in another thicket of brambles. I was able to poke my head out the top and saw the trail we needed not 5ft away. We just couldn't find a way through the spiky flora. So eventually it came down to brawn over brain, and we simply had to push and pull ourselves through the thorns and onto the path that eventually led back to the road, probably another hour and a half after leaving the cave.
Still, though it may sound like justification, not actually having a trail to follow added to the adventure rather than detracted from it. Anyone can just walk down a path. Big wup. Try following a non-existent trail before you even get to your destination and then talk to me.
Fun Guam fact of the day: Guam is right next to the Marianas Trench, the lowest point in the Earth's crust, and the place where the humans foolishly dropped Megatron at the end of Transformers.
-More to come-
What were the two of you doing in a bathroom together?
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