Today was supposed to be a snorkeling day. One of the guys was doing his first dive, so he arranged a boat for all of us to go along to either go diving or snorkeling. The weather turned out not so good though, so the boat trip was cancelled. Looking for something to do, a few of us decided to hike to the waterfall that is close to the town. As we were sitting around talking, a Filipino guy who helped arrange our housing appeared and offered to be our guide. It’s a good thing he showed up because the trail wasn’t well marked. I was looking forward to a mid-morning hike to waterfalls, followed by a relaxing afternoon. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way. About 1/2 way into the hike, the guide removed his shoes, left them in the bush and instructed us to do the same. It was really muddy and sludgy due to the massive amounts of rain lately. I figured if we’re taking off our shoes it must just be a few minutes away. 1 hour later after trudging through the jungle in our bare feet (over rocks and sticks and who knows what else) we reached the waterfall. It was beautiful and was hard to leave knowing the barefoot journey that would be occuring on the way back. By some miracle, there were no injuries!! A few people fell in the mud, the guide got a leech on his arm, one of the boys ended up with a leech on his butt and the guide couldn’t find his hiding spot for his shoes on the return journey (thankfully we found ours). We’re going to try to go out on the boat again tomorrow, `but if it doesn’t happen, I’d totally be up for a mellow day of sitting on the beach, maybe doing some yoga and just vegging out.
