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Off we go on a barge-like boat with about a dozen other people taking the same tour. |
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After crossing the bay, we come up to the national park. There's a lot of driftwood that has washed in and collected from the last few weeks tides. |
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This pretty little flower is quite the pest. Imported from Canada, the "water hiesen" never freezes, so it just takes over shoreline after shoreline upsetting the local fishermen. |
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...and speaking of whom, here are a few now. I'm not sure where they're off to, but our boat driver passed them at a pretty good clip. |
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Sometimes the river was wide, and sometimes it wasn't. We got to this point and then turned left, into... |
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...this little nook. The water was narrow, shallow, and our driver must have really knew what he was doing because we didn't get stuck even once on the whole trip. |
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We stopped for a while at a small village. It was a very poor village compared to the area, and those that have radios here get their battery charged about once a week. |
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Here's one of the better house in this little village. It's not much, but it's about all they need here. |
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This is a shot of the bulk of the village. And I thought I came from a small town. |
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I took this shot to see how many of you would be able to see the dog. He really matches the roots of that tree closely. |
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Alright, now how many of you actually know where chocolate comes from. Well, it comes from a tree like this, in little pods like those. |
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Turn around a corner, and here we have "the crystal lagoon." Yes, it's actually THAT blue. I didn't touch up this picture. |
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Some of our group goes for a swim in the crystal-blue water. I'm told that fresh water flows into this pool from the surrounding mountain. |
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Back out on the boat. Here you can see a crane taking a rest. I managed to get this picture right before he vanished. |
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We came up to a cave where a lot of fresh water leaves this mountain. There was a pretty strong current coming out. |
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At first glance, you could only see a few fish in the water, over the side of the boat. |
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But when our tour-guide threw in small pieces of bread, they came swarming to it, and I was lucky enough to get a picture of it. |
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A few of us hopped out of the boat, into the water inside the cave (me included) and we rode the current out to the shore where we stopped for lunch. The current was warm/cool/warm and very refreshing. |
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We stopped for a little snack and a drink. This is one of the campground area available in the park. |
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Here, our guide is showing us some kind of not-really-edible fruit that the locals hollow out so they can use the shell for a bowl. |
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This part of the tour had a lot of rock-faces jutting up from the surface. |
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One of the larger ones is called the "Shark's Mouth Cave", and quite obviously understandable.. |
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The water was calm all day long, even though there was a storm brewing up in the distance. Back at the resort, they got hit with it, but we had clear sunny weather. |
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I managed to get a good picture of a whole flock of vultures. They really like to nest in all these small islands. |
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If you look closely, you'll see one of the vultures in the trees showing off his red neck and blowing it up like a baloon to attract the women. |
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I saw quite a few birds in this unusual tree, and tried to get a good picture of it. |
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Inland a little bit, the river is overcome by these tree roots. Land forms under these over time as the sand washes by and catches hold. |
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Some of these land-making trees can get pretty thick underneath. One of the guides picked up a crab and passed it around the boat. |
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We stopped at an old indian cave that was used for worshiping angels. At the entrance, you could see jellyfish in the water. |
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This one also turned out pretty well after being lightened up. Can you imagine how long that took to form? |
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This shot is looking almost directly up at an odd tree that has grown downward into this hole. |
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This is just a basic shot of some of the rock formations inside the cave. |
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This, however, is a look at some of the badly-eroded indian pictures and religious drawings. You can see some if you look closely. |
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Here is a look at some of the people on our tour. That makeshift railing is where those indian drawings were. |
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After the cave, we went back to the shore where we left from, and had a nice lunch. Hey, when was the last time you saw a glass bottle like one of these? |
