Today was lots of fun, so well organized and once again I felt 100% safe on an excursion. I went on the snorkeling and skull cave excursion.
The van had comfy seats and air conditioning. We didn’t really need the air conditioning as the weather was mild but the cool air felt nice. We drove thru the countryside for almost an hour and half to get to the dock where we got on small boats. The small boats took us to the resort. At the resort we could hangout, go swimming in the pool, go canoeing or go snorkeling. Almost everyone chose to go snorkeling. The equipment was provided. There were four(4) vans of about eight(8) people each that went on this excursion. All the vans stuck together during the drive.
The two organizational bits I really liked were the megaphone so we could all hear the guide and the siren indicating it was time to stop snorkeling and come in for lunch.
I was almost the first one into the water- that hardly ever happens. After about 30 minutes I got out to get my camera and might have been the first one out of the water too.
After snorkeling and lunch, we boarded our small boats again and were boated to a different island where there was a skull cave. Turns out each island has it’s own skull cave but this one is very easy for tourists to get inside and see the skulls.
There are many stories about what the skulls are but our guide told us the ‘true’ story. The skulls are from slain warriors from other tribes. In the cave we went to there were about 300 skulls separated into three piles- the largest pile was the ‘winner’. The large holes in skulls are from clubs, the small holes are from spears. Only the skulls are in the caves, the rest of the bones aren’t- pretty sure the rest of the body was eaten.
After skull cave, we boated back to the dock to catch our bus for a hour and half drive back to the ship. We were the last group to get back to the ship and got there shortly before it was time to leave.
When asked about the road conditions, our guide said they are 95 percent and he didn’t know what happened to the other 5 percent.
There was hardly any garbage along the roads and we saw a number of schools and churches.
The houses are raised off the ground to protect against pigs, dogs, animals and flood water. The guide said that if a man had a raised house and a garden it proved he wasn’t lazy and was a good worker. That made him an excellent husband choice for the local ladies.
