Talofofo Falls Resort park

Since Adam left, we've been cooped up in the house some more. First, yet another virus made its way through the house. Then, the baby developed a severe rash that ended up being a hyper-sensitivity reaction to .... something. We still have no idea what. He's finally starting to get over it, but it's been a miserable few weeks.

Luckily, we've gotten into the full swing of home-school again so the kids have been at least mentally challenged, but we've been going a bit stir crazy from being cooped up in the house for so long.

Today changed all that. For my birthday I decided I wanted to go to Talofofo Falls, a
"resort park" south of where I live that has both the tallest falls on the island and the historic cave that Yokoi lived in (more on him later). I took the opportunity to meet more people and asked a new boat wife that just arrived if she wanted to come along.

limo

After picking her up, we drove out to the site. The odd balance on the island I think was demonstrated quite clearly right in the parking lot, where we found both a limousine and a family of wild pigs.I found this probably a bit more amusing than I should have, but we paid for our tickets and headed inside.

and pigs

We were greeted by a Japanese man who spoke very broken English, who told us the story of Yokoi, a Japanese WWII soldier who hid in a small cave for 28 years following WWII and "didn't know" that the war was over and the surrender was ordered (not sure I buy that line, but that's how the story goes). He lived off of tropical plants and fish from the river until he was eventually found by a local in the 70's. Throughout the site they kept referring to Yokoi as a hero. Not exactly sure he fits my definition of a hero, but surviving that long in the jungle in a cave underground is pretty impressive.

kids in one car, adults in the other

After the short history lesson, we were pointed out towards the actual park which had a train, and a few amusement park style rides. We avoided these and headed straight to the cable cars for the voyage down to the bottom of the falls.

the falls are actually a series of many.
this is one, seen from the cable car

Once there, we walked around the base of the falls, over a very shaky suspension bridge (still not sure that the youngest girl was a fan of that part, though the older kids seemed to get quite a kick out of it) and up to the museum.

the base of the falls

The museum was very small with a few displays and wall paintings outlining the general history of the island from the initial island inhabitants up until current American holding of the Island following WWII.

After leaving the museum, I was very sad to see that the "monorail" was not working and we'd have to walk out to Yokoi's cave through the jungle path on foot. It wasn't a far walk by any means, but hey, wouldn't you want to ride on such a fine example of engineering greatness too? ;)!

yes, the white chair on the left is in fact a normal chair just tied in place

cave entrance

After completing the very buggy walk to the cave and back we followed the path to another section of the falls, across another suspension bridge and back to the cable cars for the ride out.

To cap off the day adventure we headed over to Jeff's Pirates Cove to eat and swim. I even treated myself to a birthday drink.  :)! All in all, another great Guam day!