Saturday, April 09, 2005
I've been wandering around the hotel for the past few minutes while Jed is in the room getting a massage or something. I walked around the lobby, hung out by the pool, and now I'm in the business center using their computers. The front desk people are probably gonna be sick of me asking to use the Internet once the daily updates for the mission blog start next week.
Well, the Legend Hotel where we are staying at has some great tour packages. I forgot to mention Jun, our guide yesterday at the Underground River. He's a pretty funny guy. I don't know if you can request a particular boatman for the river tour. However, if you can, try to get in the boat that Jun is manning. The guy cracks me up.
Jun on a rock formation in the shape of a female figure: "Doesn't that look like a famous actress? That is our very own Sharon Stone."
Jun on a rock formation smeared with bat guano: "That is where the bats relieve themselves. It's called the bathroom."
Jun in response to one of the passengers stating that he's seen bigger bats: "Up and ahead is the biggest bat of them all. Bat-o! (lit. rock)"
Heh, him saying all of these in tagalog with his high pitched voice just made it all the more funnier.
Anyway, seeing the beauty of God's creation continued today when we visited the Estrella River Falls. On the way there, the tour guide asked us, "So which one of you is Dr. Santa Maria?" Doctor? Jed and I gave each other a glance. He's still just a med school student. Our guide told us, "Well, that's what the paperwork said." It did indeed state "Dr. Santa Maria" on the voucher in black and white. Needless to say, that made Jed's day.
So, yeah, back to the falls. I think it was only about 15-20 feet high. Definitely not as high as, say, that one in Yosemite. (You know, the one where you can hike up these stairs or rocky steps along its side. What was that called again?) You can swim around the Estrella Falls area, though. There was also what looked like a church youth group there with some kids getting baptized. I wanted to listen to their testimonies, but there were other people around that I couldn't get close enough to hear.
Well, the Legend Hotel where we are staying at has some great tour packages. I forgot to mention Jun, our guide yesterday at the Underground River. He's a pretty funny guy. I don't know if you can request a particular boatman for the river tour. However, if you can, try to get in the boat that Jun is manning. The guy cracks me up.
Jun on a rock formation in the shape of a female figure: "Doesn't that look like a famous actress? That is our very own Sharon Stone."
Jun on a rock formation smeared with bat guano: "That is where the bats relieve themselves. It's called the bathroom."
Jun in response to one of the passengers stating that he's seen bigger bats: "Up and ahead is the biggest bat of them all. Bat-o! (lit. rock)"
Heh, him saying all of these in tagalog with his high pitched voice just made it all the more funnier.
Anyway, seeing the beauty of God's creation continued today when we visited the Estrella River Falls. On the way there, the tour guide asked us, "So which one of you is Dr. Santa Maria?" Doctor? Jed and I gave each other a glance. He's still just a med school student. Our guide told us, "Well, that's what the paperwork said." It did indeed state "Dr. Santa Maria" on the voucher in black and white. Needless to say, that made Jed's day.
So, yeah, back to the falls. I think it was only about 15-20 feet high. Definitely not as high as, say, that one in Yosemite. (You know, the one where you can hike up these stairs or rocky steps along its side. What was that called again?) You can swim around the Estrella Falls area, though. There was also what looked like a church youth group there with some kids getting baptized. I wanted to listen to their testimonies, but there were other people around that I couldn't get close enough to hear.
