Tinian Pika Festival

We hear the call of Tinian and follow our sense of adventure. The Stars and Stripes, working with MVA, Tinian mayor, and Don Fareell, to promote the Pika Festival, and to help plant the seeds of a future Tinian bike race, offers a special trip for bikers, hikers and all interested folks for a round trip sailing to Tinian for $49. Passengers can bring their bicycles on board, and stay at the Dynasty for a special rate as well. Peppy, Capt. Charlie,  Rexplorer, Doc H., Mary and Linn, and a bunch of other people, sign up for this good deal and a fun-sounding trip. We pack our bikes and luggage and meet up with everone else at 5:30 a.m at the Outer Cove on Saturday morning. The boat leaves the dock at 6 a.m. CC prepares for rough seas with a doze of Dramamine and a good thermos of coffee. Three hours later, we are docking on Tinian.

We are met by girls offering each passenger a seed lei, a welcoming water supply truck, and curious onlookers, as we unload our bikes and luggage. My camera is not used for the next several hours as forty some odd bikers sign the release form, have our legs marked with a number (mine is 33), fill our camel bag with water from the water truck, get on our bikes and start our ride immediately. Our luggage will wait for us at the hotel after we finish our ride. Unbeknownst to us, the ride is long and hot. We start at the heat of 9:15 a.m. I soon realize that the ride that is touted to be a "piece of cake" because Tinian is a FLAT island, is a total myth. As we continuously climb slope after slope, through freshly cut trails that are bumpy, slippery, and the sun is beating down mercilessly, we curse under our breath, and finally decide to turn off the trail and get back on the road. We wind through the village to enjoy the solid ground and quiet neighborhood, and back to the hotel. Peppy goes off toward the airport and makes her way back a while later. Rexplorer finish the whole course in four hours and exhausted. Doc does his share of sweating and hard work in the heat. Aspers have brought their grand kids so they ride to the hotel from the dock. Despite CC's complaint, the ride is great. There are much possibilities for hiking as well.

Mary and grand enjoying the cool pool at Dynasty.

After cleaning up and eating a big lunch, we head over to the Pika Festival for some loud announcements, food and watch lots of kids enjoying this special day. One event is pig catching by a bunch of boys chasing and then piling on top of the poor squealing animal. Winner gets $100. Also on the program are chicken and rooster catching...

Lots of hot peppers. Also on display are hot pepper bouquets.

A crowd-pleasing ladies hot pepper eating contest. Each person has 100 little hot peppers, a plate, and a bottle of water in front of them. They are to pop the pepper in their mouth one at a time, chew it a few times and spit it out onto the plate. At the end of 3 minues, the one who chews up most hot peppers wins! There is a judge in front of each contestant to make sure that every pepper is chewed before spitted out. It's painful to watch!

The Winner! She chews up 97 peppers. The painful look on her face atests to that feat. A good cooling and soothing remedy is vanilla icecream and milk!

CC gets really excited to hear the announcement for pika popcorn. There is a choice of Pika for mild, Pikaka for hot and Pikakakaka for 911 HOT! CC orders a Pikaka popcorn and waits around. Unfortunately the microwave is not working and the corn never popped! Disappointment!!! 

Sunday morning we rise and shine for a ride to Suicide Cliff at 6:30, on the south-eatern tip of the island. It is nice and cool and breezy. Stopping for a group photo are Dick Pierce, Peppy, Doc H, Rexplorer, and Capt. C. 

Peppy and CC takes a break in front of the memorial for all the dead at Suicide Cliff. Notice the rising cliff in the background. That, is the testimonial that Tinian is Not Flat.

Looking down over the wall where the Suicide Cliff gets its name. It is more like the Banzai Cliff on Saipan. It does give one the shivers to look down at the unavoidable rocks and the boiling sea below for anyone who jumps.

View from Suicide Cliff toward Puntan Kastiyu.

A trio of happy and colorful bikers!

House of Taga Historical Site. Very impressive Taga stones and a new sign board of photos and pictures and story of Taga legend. These stones are huge.

Rexplorer standing beside the stones gives one the perspective of how large the stones are.

Stars and Stripes ready to pick us up Sunday afternoon.

Bikes inside the cabin, well protected and strapped down.

Even the bags look tired and ready to go home!

Peppy can atest to how tired we all are. CC wakes just long enough to take this photo! :-)

We are all glad to have taken this special offer and to have spent the weekend on Tinian as some of us have not been there for quite a while. It is larger than we thought and the island has more parks, palapalas and picnic areas than the population can possibly utilize, a perfect place for more visitors...Peppy, Rexplorer and CC are already thinking of a bike/hike trip for the SundayHikers in the near future!