Ok. We got up around 9am for breakfast after getting a good night of sleep (not sure if we caught up or not, but it sure felt good!). Breakfast was a simple meal of a fried egg, toast, and coffee. I was pretty hungry, so I got another breakfast after the first. :) We chit-chatted with Stella, one of the employees here about things to do, and Bridget and I decided to take it easy and just walk to the next town up (45 min walk) and see what was there. Stella said there was a restaurant with good pizza and mango smoothies. Sounded good to us, so we headed that direction. ABC, as the town is referred to, is also home to a bunch of chalets, hotels, resorts, etc. We walked through the whole town, but didn't see any pizza places, just more Chinese seafood restaurants. At the edge of town, we noticed a sign for "Monkey Bay." Well, that sounded cool, so we walked out in that direction. And then things got interesting...
So, since we had just planned on a short 45-min walk, we didn't bring a ton of water. We filled my Camelback (a small backpack with a water bladder inside to store water - much easier than hauling around water bottles), which holds about 1L. 1L would be fine for the two of us to walk 45 min one-way, and we could always get more in ABC before heading back if need be. However, we were lured by enticing "Monkey Bay" sign, so we kept walking. Without getting more water. Strike one. We asked someone how far it was, and he said it was about 1.5 hours. Well, that's quite a bit more than the 45 minutes we just walked. But we figured it would be cool, so we kept going. Strike two. About 20 minutes down the trail (the path turned into a trail through the semi-junglish landscape), we come upon another settlement called Penuba. For some reason, we didn't think of getting more water; we just walked right through and kept going. About an hour later, we hadn't made it to Monkey Bay yet and we ran out of water. We sucked the Camelback dry. Now, at this point, we had two options. Keep going or turn around. We knew we were getting close to Monkey Bay based on the time estimate. We figured it was less than 30 minutes away and assumed there would be some type of store there that would be selling water. If we turned around, it would be about an hour until we got water, and we figured that wasn't a good idea. So, we kept going. Strike two-and-a-half. About 10 minutes later, we ran into a snorkeler that was headed back to Penuba. He said he had swum along the coast and came up on a beach and was headed back. We asked how far to Monkey Bay, but he didn't know anything about it. We also asked about stores or anything on the beach and he said he hadn't seen anything. Well, Bridget and I figured that he must have not gotten far enough to see Monkey Bay from where he got out of the water. So, we kept going. Strike three. Another 20 minutes later, we get to Monkey Bay. A very clean, pristine, but deserted beach. There were only a three people on the beach, but nobody was selling water...
By this point, we were already getting thirsty, which we knew meant we were getting dehydrated. We had gambled and lost. Looking back, that wasn't the smartest of moves...any of them. We didn't get enough water for how far we were going, we didn't ask if there was water at Monkey Bay that we could buy, and kept going after we ran out of water on the trail, despite evidence to suggest there wasn't water available anywhere close. So, this analysis took about 5 seconds as we started our hike back to Penuba. The trail we were on followed the power lines, which counted from one city to the next. So, we started at pole 40 to Penuba and slowly, agonizingly slowly, watched the numbers fall with each successive pole. A very long hour later, we finally make it back to Penuba. We head straight for the refrigerator in the restaurant and grab a 1.5L water bottle. Bridget opens it and starts drinking, while I try to figure out if anyone was watching us. I try to figure out where and how to pay as Bridget gulps it down. Nobody was paying attention to us, so I took a turn downing the amazingly refreshing liquid, a lifesaver at this point. With about 1/4 left, I ask the nearest employee-looking dude where to pay and he points me to another guy and he tells me the price. So, I paid him whatever he asked (he totally could have gouged me and I wouldn't have cared - especially since we had already drunk most of it...). Since Bridget and I hadn't eaten since breakfast (another strike - we didn't bring any snacks along), we decide that we should just sit down and each lunch there too. So, we order lunch and keep chugging the water. Before our food arrives, I head back over and grab another bottle. In a matter of less than 20 minutes, the two of us down 2L of water. Yeah, we were a little dehydrated. But we learned from it and won't make the same mistakes again. After lunch, we grabbed a third bottle to re-fill the CamelBack so we would have a good 2L of water for the walk back, which was about an hour. Needless to say, that part of the walk was much less stressful....
Now, despite the apparent severity of the situation, we still enjoyed ourselves before the water ran out. During the hike, we ran across a band of monkeys. We heard some noises coming from above us, so we sat still and looked around. Once we stopped making noise, the monkeys went back about their business. They weren't afraid of us, and we got some good pictures.
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| Monkey #1 |
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| Monkey #2 |
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| Monkey #3 - I guess sitting on the wire is the thing to do... :) |
And a couple of nice views along the way too... :)
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| Looking South along the shoreline |
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| Bridget perched on a rock |
Well, that's about all I've got time for. Bridget's been asleep for awhile, so if I want to keep up with her tomorrow, I'll have to sign off now. There's still a little bit more for our first day (yeah, that wasn't quite enough for us already...), but I'll add that later. Adios!
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