This morning we decided to hike the Mastic Trail which is in the center part of eastern end of Grand Cayman. The trail runs parallel to Frank Sound Road which connects the southern and northern sides of the island once you get past Breakers heading east on the main road. Last year we took Katie's sisters on a hike of the trail and started on the north end. On that occasion we had started around 9 a.m. and went about 2/3 of the way in before doubling back because it was too hot to go on. This year we decided to start on the southern end of the trail and begin early enough that we would have cool weather for the time needed to complete the 4 mile round trip hike. We took our camel backs full of water so we didn't have to carry water bottles and after applying bug spray were ready to go. We got to the southern trail head about quarter after 8 a.m. and started our journey north. While there hasn't been a lot of rain the past week, the trail was still muddy early on as the
overgrowth prevented sunlight from getting to the ground and drying up the puddles that were days and possibly even weeks old. The trail itself is a combination of dirt, rocks, tree roots and limestone outcroppings. It is not an easy walk and you have to watch every step so you don't break an ankle. This causes a fairly short hike in terms of distance to be quite long in terms of time. One of the highlights of the Mastic Trail are the Cayman Parrots that are very prevalent especially in the southern part of the trail. They have a very distinctive call and you can hear them communicating with each other in very vocal tones. We also saw some ground doves and several other smaller species of birds. Katie got a heck of a shock when a snake that was sunning itself on the path got surprised by her stepping near it and slithered away angrily. We actually saw several snakes after that all of whom seemed to be out enjoying the sun. The walk north took us about an hour and a half and as we got to that end of
the trail we both felt in pretty good shape. We then started our return hike at a surprisingly quick pace and though we expected to take longer going back then we did heading up, we actually got back to our car just an hour and 13 minutes after leaving the northern trail head. By about 2/3 of the way back though we both started to feel it in our legs and as we got into the car it definitely hit us. We were both very proud of ourselves though for doing the complete hike and have attached a few pictures of the parrots we took. We also have a couple of video's that we will try and post later today.
This morning we decided to hike the Mastic Trail which is in the center part of eastern end of Grand Cayman. The trail runs parallel to Frank Sound Road which connects the southern and northern sides of the island once you get past Breakers heading east on the main road. Last year we took Katie's sisters on a hike of the trail and started on the north end. On that occasion we had started around 9 a.m. and went about 2/3 of the way in before doubling back because it was too hot to go on. This year we decided to start on the southern end of the trail and begin early enough that we would have cool weather for the time needed to complete the 4 mile round trip hike. We took our camel backs full of water so we didn't have to carry water bottles and after applying bug spray were ready to go. We got to the southern trail head about quarter after 8 a.m. and started our journey north. While there hasn't been a lot of rain the past week, the trail was still muddy early on as the
overgrowth prevented sunlight from getting to the ground and drying up the puddles that were days and possibly even weeks old. The trail itself is a combination of dirt, rocks, tree roots and limestone outcroppings. It is not an easy walk and you have to watch every step so you don't break an ankle. This causes a fairly short hike in terms of distance to be quite long in terms of time. One of the highlights of the Mastic Trail are the Cayman Parrots that are very prevalent especially in the southern part of the trail. They have a very distinctive call and you can hear them communicating with each other in very vocal tones. We also saw some ground doves and several other smaller species of birds. Katie got a heck of a shock when a snake that was sunning itself on the path got surprised by her stepping near it and slithered away angrily. We actually saw several snakes after that all of whom seemed to be out enjoying the sun. The walk north took us about an hour and a half and as we got to that end of 
the trail we both felt in pretty good shape. We then started our return hike at a surprisingly quick pace and though we expected to take longer going back then we did heading up, we actually got back to our car just an hour and 13 minutes after leaving the northern trail head. By about 2/3 of the way back though we both started to feel it in our legs and as we got into the car it definitely hit us. We were both very proud of ourselves though for doing the complete hike and have attached a few pictures of the parrots we took. We also have a couple of video's that we will try and post later today.
