Bounding down the mountain at full tilt I ripped around corners and jumped over loose stones. No traction and high speed threatening to spill me onto the loose dusty gravel path as I ran past backyards and huts on my decent. Sharp rocks stabbed up through my cheap worn out flip flops and a jab of pain started aching in my lungs but I had to keep running. Skipping on my toes to minimize the sharp rocks cutting through the thin foam and into my heels I slipped and skidded down the trail.

Earlier that day we had set out with Teyahna, Dailin, Dad, Orin, Eli and I to find a trail to the top of the mountain where there where military cannons left over from WWII when the US occupied the island. People have been raving about them for a while now so we decided to find them but unlike most people “we” (ehem as in dad) like to do things without a guide so here we were walking down the road asking for directions. The first people we met told us we could walk straight up the mountain from where we were but we should probably ask the people if we could go through their backyard and we would need machetes… That plan was a no go considering mom vetoed all machete smuggling attempts telling us they would get confiscated in Mexico and we would all be imprisoned if they found them (that was before we decided not to go to Mexico). The next people to give us directions told us it was a good 45 minute walk away so dad decided to head back to the boat and dingy there (we still had no clue where) and Dailin and I hoping there would be a big “WWII Cannons Hike” sign on the road decided to walk. The road wound along the beach and we could see all the locals raised boats and beached outriggers. Two boys whistled at us saying “hey boss you want?” and gave us mangoes. It was really neat just walking and seeing the tin houses and smoke drifting from the “yard clean up” burn piles.

Woohoo, once we got back we found out dad had asked a local from church to take us to the cannons. So we hiked though backyards and up a steep forested mountain and along a deeply rutted dirt “road” to the top and saw huge cannons at least 30 feet long. The view was panoramic and you could see both sides of the island, I guess that’s why the military decided to put cannons there. After exploring the bunkers and me almost falling off the huge guns we set off for more of a hike a different way down.

5 minutes down I realized I had basketball at 5pm and it was 4:55pm I asked if I could just go back since walking back was about 10 minutes but the lady that took us didn’t want me walking though the peoples yard without her since there where dogs that liked to bite people. So I decided to run all the way down this side of the mountain in the opposite direction and then run all the way back. It took me 30 minutes of solid running (plus 2 minutes to snag some bananas from a tree along the way) and when I got there everyone was doing warm up and stretching and I was dying of two collapsed lungs haha After Basketball I had to hurry back because we were having some people for dinner. Side note my legs didn’t work so well the next morning and I almost fell over getting out of bed.

Jaeden