PALAU WITHOUT FINS Diving and More Today is my down day; I slept in, then called some family members. I meandered up to the café for the breakfast special. The coleslaw was especially tasty. A pleasant faced man, Senator Reclai, chatted with me until his business associates joined him. He told me there was a library at the college right across the street. My room was dimly lit as was the motel common room and due to the heat and insects I opted for the library. I was able to type in a bright, clean college atmosphere. The librarians were very nice and helpful, but I still never got an internet connection. It has been so frustrating. On my way back to my motel I decided to get a massage. I stopped at the Anthias Café ... read more

ANILAO 2 THE STORM I settled into a routine…eat, dive, relax, eat again. The diving was easy and there was so much to see. The weather was foul; heavy winds and heavy rain. It just got worse and worse, but we are divers, right? It makes little difference underwater. So we got up, ate breakfast and went to the boat. Surface intervals were very cold. I was hungry for the sun. Then one of the staff told us there was a typhoon in Leyte and we were getting winds and rain because of it. On the way back to my room after lunch I glanced up at my bungalow and wondered if it might slide down the hill. Then I shook off the thought…don’t borrow trouble I told myself. The fifth night I woke to use ... read more

TOURS with Marco Vincent Resort During my stay at the Marco Vincent resort I am sure I regained the ten pounds I lost while walking the El Camino in Spain. I ate three delicious meals each day and did only 300 steps a day. Thank goodness my room was on the second floor and I had occasion to go to my room often to get my things for that was the extent of my exercise. As I said, I hoped to catch up on my blog and rest since I couldn’t dive; my jaw was throbbing. The staff wanted to cheer me up, however. The day after the boat ride, right after breakfast they took me on a tour of an aborigine village. This Mangyan village houses about a hundred families. (There are perhaps ten different ... read more

THE LAST HUNDRED KILOMETERS I must apologize. I mix kilometers with miles, indiscriminately in this accounting of our walk to Santiago, Spain. Lauren took special interest in the signposts along the way, in kilometers, as they marked our progress. When we reached Sarria, we expected to encounter many more pilgrims because if you walk from here, the last 100 kilometers, you get the same certificate of completion as those of us who walked the 500 miles from St Jean Pied de Port. I was relieved to discover that after the first few days the trail really wasn’t that congested (especially since we were still starting very early in the morning). A few cafes were really hammered by large groups of people, but we tried to keep a pleasant demeanor and remember that everyone walking the Camino ... read more

Hiking the El Camino NEW HORIZONS At the start of our journey everything was new and interesting. The ancient villages were a constant source of amazement, the stones having withstood the wear of centuries. In each village there was a church standing in the center on the highest ground. We could see it for miles before we arrived. I became fascinated with the variety of terrain we walked over: rocks, gravel, pavement, large round stones, soft duff in the forests, tiles and cobblestones in the villages and towns. After the two days of relentless sun without a tree for shade as we crossed the Pyrenees, I appreciated the paths that wound next to small streams under twisting arbors. In the thirty five days we walked we had only one day of drowning rain, lightning, and hail, ... read more