My recent adventures have been about a vacation that my family and I took to the island of Guam immediately after I had relinquished my position as the Commander of the 305th Supply and Services Company. My family and I decided to spend some time cooling our jets while catching up on some much needed rest and relaxation. Of course, you may already know that. You may even know how we traveled to Guam using the low-budget method of transportation known as Space-A (space available) transportation. Naturally, it had its own little quirks that we had to deal with such as not being able to catch a direct flight to Guam. Then, there was the minor little issue with the cargo plane seats on the flight from hell. Or how about our temperamental car rental that seemed to decide when and where it needed to take a break. Or about the wild pigs and the coconut crabs, and our fruit picking exercises. Most recently, I talked about a couple of our tourist trips around the island. Including some island luaus or traditional island picnics where my family and I ate free food pretty much the whole time that we were on Guam, courtesy of my First Sergeant from the 305th Supply and Services Company and his relatives that lived on Guam. I mentioned that I still had one or two more tourist trips to discuss with you. Well, this is that story. Cuz you see the last story that I want to share with you about Guam is another story about its weird wildlife. That’s right. Previously, I talked about coconut crabs and wild pigs and even flying foxes. But this last critter that I want to talk about is a water buffalo except that it is not called a water buffalo in Guam. Oh no. They just couldn’t possibly call it something as mundane as a water buffalo, so they had to come up with the name Carabao. However, you will have to wait to hear about the water buffalo next time because as I said this story is about a tourist trip. My family and I decided to take a final tourist trip to a place called the Priest Pools. I know what you’re probably thinking. You’re probably thinking that the Priest Pools is a specially reserved place set aside for priests to go and meditate and be with God. You’re also probably thinking that you can go there to get even your most heinous sins forgiven. Yep. Nope. It just ain’t that kinda place. You’re not gonna rush up there and catch a whole bunch of priests in repose that are just waiting to take your confessions. Yep. Nope. That ain’t gonna happen. In fact, if you even find a priest at one of those pools, it would be by pure luck. But the reason that they are popular is that there are waterfalls and swimming allowed in the pools. What makes the pools popular is that you can jump off of rocks into the main pool and the second pool. There are a total of five pools, but you can only jump off of the rocks into the first two. The other three are too small. The locals call the rocks that you jump off of to get into the pools, cliffs, but they are really just rocks. They also recommend that the first time you get into the main pool or the second pool that you ease into the pool and swim around to identify any submerged rocks so that you know where it will be safe to jump into the pool. No. That bit of wisdom wasn’t whispered to me by a visiting priest. The Priest Pools are located on the southwest end of the island of Guam near Merizo. For my family and I to get there, we had to drive our trusty (yet temperamental) rental car from Anderson Air Force Base, which was all the way at the other end of the island. I say that it was all the way at the other end of the island like that was a long-long-ways away. But I really wasn’t. Since the car didn’t get all temperamental and shit, we were able to drive there in about half an hour. After we arrived in Merizo, we asked the locals how to get to the Priest Pools. They gave us surprisingly good directions. Once we got out of the car, we were able to hike to the pools within 15 to 20 minutes. There is a trail that you can take along the right side of the falls and the pools to hike down and check out all five pools. That hike is a bit more challenging and could take 25 to 30 minutes. It may take even longer when the rocks are wet. Most people go to check out the first two pools, for the swimming, but others go to check out all five. We were told that the Priest Pools were named after the Spanish colonial priests who used the pools to bathe in the late 1600s. There. I gave you a little history lesson as an added bonus. Sorry. Still couldn’t do anything about the cameo appearances by the priests. Maybe if you visit the Priest Pools on Guam, you will have better luck conjuring up the priests. Anyway, my family and I spent the better part of a day enjoying ourselves at the Priest Pools without experiencing any exercises in futility.
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