I went to the northern most point on the island of Guam to a beach called Ritidian Beach this past week. The location of this beach was really out of the way from civilization, but the drive to the beach made for some spectacular views of Guam’s untouched northern coast during the last leg of the drive when I descended down from the cliffs to the coastline. I don’t think anyone lived in the surrounding area, and the only reason people would go there was to spend some time at the beach. While walking along the beach I noticed movement in the sand, and upon closer examination there were hundreds of hermit crabs like the one pictured below all along the beach. I’ve been told by the locals that there are huge crabs called coconut crabs on the island that can grow the size of car tires. I doubt I’ll ever get to see a coconut crab but I’ll keep my eyes open for one just in case!

Image Courtesy of Pacific Daily News

After spending some time at the beach today, I decided to take a break from sightseeing under the burning tropical sun to catch up on some much needed posts. I think my sun-burnt body will thank me for spending some time under a roof and out of harms way from all those UV rays. The amount of photos sitting on my hard drive waiting to be published on the blog is overwhelming and I’m going to try to get as much of them posted as I can today, but first here’s a current events story from Guam I came across while reading the paper today; something I think you’ll all enjoy (especially the male readers).

Well, after seven years of being on hiatus the Miss Guam Universe Pageant is returning to Guam this year. Fifteen of Guam’s most beautiful local ladies will start competing today for the title of Miss Guam. The winner of the Miss Guam Pageant will go on to compete in the Miss Universe Pageant and win a $5,000 cash prize, as well as some other perks. Go Miss Guam!

The heated Democratic Presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been big news on the island of Guam the past few days. The close race has made the island of Guam the center of attention in Washington today as Guam Democrats vote in its presidential caucuses - an event which usually went unnoticed. History was actually made in Guam this year when Barack Obama’s campaign opened a Guam office in the village of Hagatna in early April. No other presidential candidate has ever made this type of commitment in the history of Guam. In addition to this, the radio and television stations on Guam have been consistently playing advertisements from both candidates over the last couple days. A few days ago Barack Obama even called in to one of the local radio stations as a guest which surprised a lot of people on the island.

I think it’s great that I’m on the island while such historic events are taking place on Guam. From what I have experienced, it seems like the Obama campaign spent a lot more money to win support in Guam. Pretty much every advertising channel on the island was touched by the Obama campaign. Obama had advertisements consistently running all over television and radio, pamphlets inserted into Guam’s major newspaper, and Internet ads plastered all over the biggest news website for the island, www.guampdn.com. The only advertisements I experienced from the Clinton campaign were television ads, and the frequency of the ads were very minimal. I think this was due to the fact that it has been mentioned the Clinton campaign is strapped on cash. I’m really interested to see who will win the votes from Guam’s superdelegates.

I’m not trying to turn this travel blog into a political one, but I think it was important to mention because this is such big news on Guam right now. The fact that both candidates are paying so much attention to Guam to win over votes from Guam’s super delegates shows just how close the Democratic race is for President.