Pagat on Tumblr

For the past week I've been pasting pictures of my many hikes to the Pagat area of northern Guam.

In a one year period I hiked down there 14 times, and in the process exploring so many different areas there and finding lots of cool things.

I don't have thousands of pictures of my trip, since more than once I lost a camera down there. But I do have enough to show different aspects of the Pagat area, most of which people don't really know.

Pagat proper is the trail that takes you to the freshwater cave and then through a trail of lusong, past a single latte house, to get to the natural arch and the cliffs.

Pagat is so much more than this, and I've been blessed to be able to explore and see so much more. On the Pagat loop trail you can see the limestone wall there which no one seems to be able to explain how it was made (but there are many fun theories). At Pagat point you can see two massive limestone rocks known as Chelef's Hands, named after a 17th century Chamorro maga'lahi who fought brilliantly against the Spanish and was eventually punished by having his hands chopped off and publicly displayed. Just a few hundred meters north of the natural arch you can see an entirely different set of latte houses, that are shaded by a massive nunu tree, that looks truly ominous if you are there at twilight.

On more than one occasion I got lost in the process, and three times people almost drowned because of carelessness, recklessness and just plain bad luck. At least a dozen times students have gotten lost in the process, sometimes for several hours. I've gotten lost twice, both in the exact same spot. I've been attacked by pigs there twice, but also seen haggan or sea turtles swimming off the limestone cliffs twice. I also was fortunate enough once to see to a war between pigs and boonie dogs while hiking near the Cepeda property.

Sadly I don't have great images for most of the things I've mentioned. So you'll have to make do with the images that I do have.

Head over to my Tumblr, I Pilan Yanggen Sumahi... to see some of the images.

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