Touring with Megan

While it rains here most days, rarely is it grey and rainy for the entire day. Unfortunately for Megan, she got to experience one of those few days. Undaunted, she went to PPR and did her best to avoid the rain drops. PPR has two types of beach chairs: the typical white metal loungers with plastic slats and wood loungers connected in the middle covered by an adjustable blue canvas top. When it rains, the blue covers do a great job shielding the rain and allows you to stay on the beach and watch the rain fall. Megan spent plenty of time under their shelter. I picked her up and we decided just to head home and out of the grey. For dinner, we stopped at Happy Fish Market to buy fish. Megan was intrigued by the place and said it does not get any more authentic. I picked out two white snappers that we had them fillet for us. At home, I cleaned up the fillets for cooking and then sauteed them in olive oil. With fish that fresh there is no need to do anything fancy, although I did use a seasoning that Sara had picked out during their stay. It was delicious, especially on a grey day.

The next was a bright and sunny day, perfect for a tour of Babeldaob. They are still working on the road on the east side, so once again the tour began on the west side. Having previously used LB's and Christy's cars for my Babeldaob tours, this was the first time I had driven my car. It performed admirably, although I had to give it a little extra gas on some of the big hills. Our first stop was Ngardmau Falls. We hiked down stopping to take the requisite pictures along the way. We went for a swim in the pools. Megan decided she would rather walk the stream instead of the muddy trail. The recent rain had made the trail extremely muddy, so I readily agreed and we negotiated the river trail. We arrived at the falls and found a large group of Taiwanese tourists and we waited until they left to take our own pictures. There was another small group there that we helped takes pictures for as well. Then we took some time to play in the falls. Megan thought it was very beautiful and enjoyed climbing around behind the falls. We returned along the river trail and back up the hills to the car.

I decided to do a little something different this tour and instead of continuing directly to the east side, we drove up the northern peninsula through Ngaraard State to reach the tip of the peninsula in Ngarchelong State. It is a scenic drive with great views of the ocean on either side and little villages along the way. At the end of the road is the Ngarchelong dock where we stopped and had a picnic lunch on the pier. It felt a bit like we had reached the end of the world because there is nothing past the dock except many, many miles of open ocean. We saw a few local fishermen on traditional bamboo rafts fishing with nets. It was a scenic spot for lunch.

Back on the road, we drove south to Melekeok to the see the new Capitol. I took Megan to the legislature building and she walked around the grounds a little bit. We then headed down to the village and drove to the dock. We hiked up the path to the Melekeok Bai and took pictures. Megan was intrigued by some of the drawings. We returned to the dock and walked out to the end of the pier and watched the ocean for a while. Afterwards, we drove south taking the long detour across the island. When we returned home, I cooked dinner again. We had purchased enough fish for two meals, so I sauteed the fish and some potatoes for another tasty meal.

The next day, Megan took it easy and spent the afternoon at PPR. She felt adventurous enough to try driving and took my car and had no problems getting around. In the evening, she met up with me at PCC where I was playing ultimate frisbee. For dinner, we went to Krämer's. Megan enjoyed their foccacia fish sandwich. She got to meet some of the expat community and got to experience a little bit of what life is like here in Palau.

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