Sunday, August 1, 2010

We slept in this morning. I was first awoken by a huge rainstorm around 7:30am. I read a little and then went back to sleep until almost 11am. We went out to get some breakfast and by then the clouds were clearing and it was hot and muggy. The bugs here are unbelievable! I get bit continuously... luckily it’s also unbelievable gorgeous. The peninsula we are on reminds me of Jurassic Park; I wouldn’t be surprised to see a dinosaur stick his head up at any point!

On our walks between the beaches, we had seen the sign for the lagoon. This lagoon is at the top of the mountain and supposedly they aren’t really sure how it got there. The little sign points to a giant hill of red clay that is full of craggily rock and red clay. It’s more of a scramble than anything else. With no other set plans, we decide to tackle the hill. Climbers have set ropes on the hill to help when things get a bit slippery (often), but we made it up the first part fairly easily. Going back down? We’ll tackle that later!

We found a couple viewpoints, took some pictures, then headed off in the direction of the lagoon. First obstacles was a steep downhill that it was necessary to use the rope so you didn’t just slide the whole way down. There are some handholds and footholds, but not everywhere. We took our time and made it down that one just done. Then it was just watching your footing. The next set of obstacles was three drops that were probably about 15-20 feet each. Each you needed to have a few more inches to your body than me and use the ropes as well. So I stayed at the top, while Trey scaled down the three drops. On the last one, he found a small rabbit hole so he didn’t have to scale sheer rock. Cut to the end, he made it out safely with some great pictures of the lagoon.

We headed back, and made the slow scramble back down. Well, I went slowly; Trey conquered the hill with ease. We then made to the short walk to the beach and jumped in the water to cool off and clean off a little. The red clay would only come off when scrubbing with sand! Our shoes and clothes will be tinted forever! After the second best shower of the trip (see post on Full Moon Party!) we relaxed a little and headed to dinner, and arranged diving for the next day. I am really loving Thai food!

Here's Trey with a monkey! Kindred spirits perhaps?