We've been in Guam a few days short of a month which feels crazy to me, but we've been trying to get out and about on the weekends to explore. We're not in a huge rush to see everything, and surprisingly enough that while Guam is a small island it does take time to get places. We live in the Northern most part of Guam at Andersen AFB. One of our first weekend adventures took us to Marbo Cave which is in Mangilao, about a 30 minute drive. There was a great website (360Guam) that gave us detailed information about this location and we decided it would be a good adventure to take the kids on.
I agree with the website that you would not want to attempt this drive on a rainy day since the roads closer in were not that great, and there isn't lighting along the road. It was definitely thick jungle along the sides of the road, and I see why people carry machetes in their cars here. It was disappointing to see how much trash was left in the small parking area. When Mason was deployed here a few years ago, his squadron was always doing beach cleanups and I can see why now. There is a lot of trash (including glass bottles, etc...) left behind in many public places, which is sad. I speculate because you have to pay for trash pick-up on most of the island.
The walk from the car to the cave was about 5-10 minutes. Not long at all. There was a rocky decline that Woodrow decided was "too harder" to climb down, so I carried him although he did okay on the way back up. We've got to develop our hiking legs again out here. Plus everywhere is so hot. There was a path past the cave to go to a cliff with an ocean view, but we decided to skip that this time since we weren't really sure how far it was. When we got to the cave there weren't many people there as a group was leaving, but there was a group of 4 people smoking or vaping down in the cave area and it was so gross. The whole area was cloudy and we got the point...the guy could blow smoke rings.
Anyways, the cave has a freshwater pool so Mason hopped in with the boys first and then tried out his new snorkel. There wasn't much to see in the water, but it was so refreshing to take a dip in cool water after sweating on the walk and being in the cave area. It seemed like there were more smaller caves you could access or climb to, but we just stuck to the main smaller pool. For most of our visit it was just us and the kids which was pretty nice. The boys love the water, but you've got to stay within arms reach, because they love to jump right in, or off rocks, and scare the life out of you. The kids favorite part was swinging on a small rope that was hung in the cave, somehow I didn't manage to get a picture of any of them on it.
It was a really fun first adventure in Guam, and I'm glad we went. On our way back we decided to head to Tarague Beach which is a beach on Andersen AFB. I foresee we'll spend quite a bit of time here since it's just a 10/15 minute drive from our house and close on base. We'd been here before, but Mason tried out his snorkel set again and was able to see some cool fish and the boys were able to play with their sand toys, which they love to do.
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