Blogs from Micronesia, Oceania - page 2

Jan 30: Well today we attempted to kill ourselves hiking through the jungle. Went to a place called 6 falls. I expected it to be rough but I was wrong. It was killer. Six hours of forging rivers, climbing waterfalls, bush whacking jungle, dangling from ropes, swimming up rivers, and climbing slippery rocks through strong currents. It definitely was not a dry hike. It was incredibly beautiful though and chance to see what most people never do. It was also cool that another 50+ gent and I kicked butt on a bunch of young’ns. Old age and treachery triumphs over youth and vigor once more. Of course they’re probably out drinking in the bars tonight and I’m at my hotel popping advil. ... read more

Jan 29: Wow, what a day. There was no work lined up today so we had a play day. We took a boat ride out to some ruins called Nan Madol, also known as the Venice of the Pacific. It is a city built on about 100 man-made islands by placing columnar basalt on coral reefs. The basalts are stacked up like a log cabin. Some rocks weigh several tons. The islands have water channels between them; we scooted around in sea kayaks to explore them. After that, we had lunch on a beautiful white sandy beach, hiked up to an awesome water fall, and then went snorkeling out towards the outer reef where it drops off about 200m deep. Words can’t describe how beautiful it was. ... read more

Jan 25: We arrived at Pohnpei Micronesia yesterday. Back to reality. Our bus ride to the hotel took about an hour to go about 4 miles because the bus kept breaking down. The humidity is so thick you can cut it with a knife. I woke up early and decided to go for a run. It helped to start the day getting all of sweat out of me. It helped keep me cool the rest of the day. This place is absolutely the tropics. Very beautiful. Much cleaner than Dili. ... read more

Kosrae Got our first glimpse of a tropical island paradise approaching the airport on the nw coast of Kosrae (ko-shry’), the easternmost of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). A car from our lodging, the Kosrae Village Resort, picked us up at the tiny air terminal. The immediate impression of the island is of exuberant plant life - every inch is bursting with greenery, from mosses and ferns to giant trees. Very little traffic on the peripheral road, which nearly circles the island - the only road of any length. The 5,000 or so residents mostly live along this road - there are five settlements or villages where the houses are closer and there are a few little stores, as well as schools or government buildings, but there's no one central town. ... read more

At first it was no more than a dot on the horizon, a dark speck amid the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean, possibly no more than a trick of the eye. A few minutes later the dot had grown and filled itself with a colour that was unmistakably different from the only other one that could be seen in this landscape: it was the green of vegetation growing on an island. Soon our 9-seater missionary plane was circling Fais, a tiny raised atoll in the Outer Islands of Yap, the westernmost state of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). We passed tall cliffs against which the ocean threw itself, sending up white arms of spray clutching at the plane that sped overhead and hinting at the limitless power that lay within its waters. Then the ... read more