Hiking, Cape Hedo, etc.

It was Eddie's day off, so of course, we went out wandering around the island. We went north today, in search of a waterfall. We saw signs for it, then all of the signs abruptly changed to Japanese, so we followed a scary-ass narrow windy road until we found a trailhead, and thought, why not? So we went hiking. Here is a view from the trailhead (a lot of Okinawa is heavily forested like this...gorgeous!):

It turned out to be a rather steep trail, but someone kindly installed stairs:
Now, as anyone who has ever done any hiking knows, the First Law of Hiking Dynamics is that what goes down, must eventually come back up. The Second Law of Hiking Dynamics is that you will get tired long before the hill does. Needless to say, the return trip was a bit less enjoyable.

Eddie, pretending not to be aware that he will soon have to go back UP these stairs:
We had no idea where we were or where we were going, but we found this ever so helpful sign which led the way:
Yep. We know where we are now. NOT.

We then stumbled across these wicked cool little cabins. They are elevated, as are all of the little platforms for putting up tents, so I'm assuming that for some reason, it is unpleasant or otherwise not recommended to sleep on the ground in this particular forest. This may or may not have anything to do with Habu, but I'm not going to argue...
Speaking of Habu, we didn't see any. Apparently it's too cold this time of year for these fearsome snakes, making me wonder what kind of wussy-ass snakes we have here. Poisonous, yes...but obviously can be thwarted by cold. I am going to start marketing cans of "cold" to repel Habu. I will make millions.

So, no Habu today, but we did encounter some of the local wildlife, and decided to have some fun with macro lenses and such. Ms Papercuts and others who are creeped out by critters of the arachnid persuasion, I would suggest that you avert your eyes...


"RAWRR!!":

"Iz mai web! No can haz!":
Baby spiders:
Once we were done ogling spiders and climbing endless staircases, we made it back to the car, wound our way out of the mountains and back to the highway, and went on to Cape Hedo. Cape Hedo is the northernmost point of the island, and was remarkably devoid of hedonists as near as I could tell. It was, however, a wicked cool place to take pictures:


And the obligatory wave picture, which has not been retouched AT ALL (the water is really that blue):
Another fine (if chilly) day in paradise.