Coconut brew

I had a terrible night. The restless leg sensations would not stop. I kept stretching, and even did yoga poses, but they kept coming. I don't know when I finally fell asleep. I woke up hearing my alarm ring in the other room, meaning it was 7:30. The plan was to get up at 6 to be there by 7:30 when the gates open and be first in line for the cave tour. But Chris let me sleep. He said we did not need to go at all if I wanted to sleep in. However, I wanted to go. So I got up, ate breakfast, put on my bathing suit and clothes: ready to go. Chris did not have time for breakfast. He programmed the tablet to take us to the wildlife park. The tablet said it would take 52 minutes. So we followed it, arriving at the gate 10 minutes early. A lady ranger was turning people away because there were jelly fish in the water. I asked if tours were canceled and she said yes. But when Chris mentioned Ignacio and his tour, she let us through. We parked at the building and Chris got out and talked to Chris the ranger: who did not seem to be informed about what was going on. Eventually the lady came back to the building and Ignacio showed up, too. The cave tour was supposed to be at 9 but it was well after. I used the porta potty then joined the others in the main room. The lady ranger told us about how the island environment used to be; how the brown snakes are killing off the birds; and the beetles are killing the palm trees. Then she turned us over to Ignacio for the tour. As we followed him, we could see where wild pigs had dug up the ground. He said they sometimes uncover unexploded ordinance. Yikes!

At the beginning of the trail was a noni tree. The leader announced that I had eaten the fruit. So I asked if I could have another one. I offered it to the group and an older lady took a bite. I finished it. Then Ignacio continued down the trail, pointing out plants or special rocks as we went. The first cave was a grotto and we pretty much passed it by although he suggested the group could take pics there. The second one was just large enough for everyone to get in. He asked who had a flashlight and Chris said we had the battery charger pack (that Faye gave us for Christmas last year). Other people had lights on their phones. I did not know how to make my phone do that. Anyway, it was dark in there and I took flash pics just to see where I was going. The leader pointed out markings in the cave, but they were very subtle. He said they used to be vibrant. He told us a story about how the markings were just considered art work at one time. Then some sort of navigation training. But now they are believed to be a calendar indicating when a star went nova and created the crab nebula. We continued down the path. When we got to the star cave, it was smaller and he could only take in half the group at a time. He showed us the thumb prints on the back wall, and hand prints indicating the nova event. Again, there wasn't much difference between the markings and natural discolorations in the stone. The entrance was covered with a net to keep the mud daubers out because they obscured the markings. I had a theory that the birds were looking for a safe place to build a nest, and those were the same places that the early Chamorrans put their writings to survive time. I took pics outside the cave while the second group went through. That was the end of the trail, so we walked back to the main building. I found a rock that perfectly fit in my hand and he said it was carved to be used as a tool of some kind. So, then he put on a video of a group singing ancient Chamorro songs. The video said the people sang/chanted when they got up, during the activities of the day, and when they went to bed. This is known because the songs were passed down to each generation, and written down by the Germans when they first visited. Many of the ancient words have been replaced with Spanish ones and that made Ignacio sad. We talked for hours. Then Chris and I headed down a trail to find Casa Royale. There was nothing there but a sign.

Then we found ourselves on the beach. Chris laid out our towels and found a coconut because I was hungry. He worked hard to get the husk off and it was bad inside. So he found another one. I watched him labor over it, while I made rope out of the coir. When he opened it, it smelled fermented. The meat was soft so it was going bad. But I dipped a finger in the water and tasted it. It tasted like a good brew. I sipped some of it and it was good in a fermented way. But Chris was so worried, that I let him throw out the rest. I got my feet wet in the surf, but did not want to attract jellyfish. Then we packed up our towels as a ranger came by to tell us the park was closing in half an hour. Why the park closes at 3:30 is a mystery to me. Anyway, we headed back. Ignacio had told us of a restaurant that had really good specials. So we stopped there on the way back. As we walked in, we saw the specials listed on a white board. They all sounded good. But after we sat down and perused our menus, we asked for the specials and were told the lunch specials were discontinued at 4 and the dinner specials wouldn't start until 5:30. I hated to just get up and leave. So we ordered from the menu. Then another waitress said the specials could be ready in half an hour and which one did we want. So we asked for something with seafood. While we were waiting, the first waitress arrived with our order: my lamb burger and his fish and chips. I was starving so I dug in. Then the second waitress came by and said oh, you decided not to wait. The meals were good, 'though I really wanted seafood. So after we ate, we considered ordering a special. Then decided against it.

We paid and drove south again. We went to the Tuesday night farmer's market. As it turns out, the market starts at 2 and there is food served there, so we could have gone straight there and paid a lot less. I found a ripe papaya, and some other produce that I had never seen before, so we got some. One was a boxy root that you peel and eat raw. Another was a bean with a flange. Chris got some of the calamansi. We brought our food home, knowing we had more than we could eat in the time we had left. I sat outside with the sprouted coconut we brought home last week. I was determined to open it myself. Chris gave me his multi-tool. I smacked the end of the coconut on the concrete as I had seen in a video. But it did not have the desired effect. I had to strike it with the tip of the pliers repeatedly, then grab small widths of husk and pull them down. It was a very slow process, but I stuck with it. When the husk was finally off (and in a bag), I thumped the equator with the mult-tool, but it did not do much. Chris got me a knife from the kitchen, but it was too light to do anything. So I bounced it on the concrete until it cracked. Some water came out and I pried the halves apart. AHA! Another sponge! We took it inside. Chris and I ate the sponge, then I sat in the living room and pried pieces of coconut from the shell as I read e-mail. I saved some of the second half for tomorrow because it had coconut oil in it. Then Chris and I watched the last episode of The Finder. We watched an episode of something dark and gory, then finished up with the pilot episode of Terra Nova. He looked up something about the show. Then I sent pic from my phone to my gmail, and downloaded pic from his camera. I typed up my blog and got ready for bed.