Not that kinda hash, people…
This past weekend we went to the island of Anguar, which is the southernmost island/state in Palau. IT takes about an hour and a half on a speed boat to get there, and about 40 min of that is in HUGE swells of water (thank you sea bands, I did not lose my lunch). Anguar is an amazing little island that is about 7 miles around and has about 200 people living on it. It is known for its abundance of monkeys in the wild. Like the rest of Palau, the jungle is on the inside of the island and the beach on the outside. The whole island was destroyed during WWII and there is still a lot of paraphernalia from the war leftover. Airplanes, ships, cannons, railroad tracks, etc.
The purpose of our weekend down there was to do what is known here as a hash run. This involves running through the jungle, almost purposefully lost. Christy and Rick set the trail this time, and put markers up through the woods. When you come across two sticks crossing, there are paths in all 4 directions, only one of which is the right way. If you find all the right ways, you end up at a cooler with beer. Totally awesome. However, some of my friends who did this a couple months ago got lost in the woods after the sun set and were stuck in the dark jungle unable to move until someone found them at 9 pm. I wanted to avoid that.
So I ran as fast as I could, and luckily, all the time I spent in the woods as a kid paid off. I ended up being the first lady to finish and the second overall (even beating the four air force guys that were running with us). I felt pretty awesome about this. All I won though was an extra turn having to chug a full beer out of a (hopefully unused) bedpan. Apparently there are ceremonies after these hash runs where people drink a lot.
The rest of the weekend I spent on the beach, fishing and collecting sea glass. It was pretty incredible and really, just another weekend in paradise. Oh palau.
