Travels with filipinos

Yesterday morning i to a moto to the stations of the cross on Mt. Vulcan, or the old volcano as they call it there. The stations were pretty cool. Spread out over 1.5km trail up the base of the volcano with actual size statues depicting the stations and ending with resurrected Jesus looking over the blue sea the island below. It's apparently an incredibly quite the spectacle there during holy week coming up.

After the 12th station there is a barely visible trail (one of the guys who was cleaning the statues for holy week showed me). It was completely overgrown by this neck high grass and I could tell it was used rarely, maybe just for the geologists to check their equipment up there from time to time. By the time I had come up and down I was bleeding all over my arms and legs from grass scratches. The first 3/4 of the way up wasn't too bad, very steep, and bush-whacking through the grass following a barely perceptible trail. But then I lost track of the trail as the mountain went straight up, but as this volcano was not covered in forest, you could see towards the top so I decided to keep going. From there it turned into a bit of rock climbing and scrambling though you couldn't really see the rocks as they were overgrown with grass and ferns. The first part of the final ascent wasn't too bad, but then it turned dicey. Very steep, climbing and scrambling mainly and everything was still covered in vegetation, and there was also shrubbery growing. It was especially difficult b/c you couldn't see the rocks underneath (or the holes between rocks), they were kind of crumbly, and there was definite exposed sections. At this point I was getting a bit nervous b/c at times it looked like I would not be able to find a way to keep going up if the cliff was too tall, but I always managed to find a way to scramble up. Eventually I finally reached the top to look into the crater. I have climbed many a trail-less mtn as only a few of the peaks in rocky have trails up them, but as they are always above tree-line and only covered in tundra or rocks, it's much, much easier to pick a suitable route even if it does involve climbing, (and when in doubt climb a snowfield, right Greg?). Here looking up you couldn't tell what would be cliff, rock, or shrubs. One of the more challenging climbs I had done. As I looked down from the top way to the bottom at the ocean, I was definitely nervous about getting down. It had been a bit sketchy going up and down is always much harder than going up when you're climbing. But I knew if I just went really slow and checked out all routes, I'd be ok. It ended up being much easier and quicker than I thought. The ferns, grass, and shrubs were amazing hand holds. I could be on a cliff and the ferns would be tangling around my legs, torso, everything, so I had to work to actually let gravity work to bring me down. It was kind of like those cartoons where you see the character falling down cliffs and being caught by roots or grass or whatever. If you started to slide a bit, all I had to do was grasp for some vegetation.

When I got back down I grabbed a couple mango shakes (very hot climbing the side of a volcano with no shade) for the jeepney ride from mambajao to benoni. From there I caught a ferry to mainland Mindanao. On the ferry I ran into the large filipino family (the one where half of them live in San Jose, CA now) that I had met at the sunken cemetary. I was on my way to go to Cagayan de Oro to catch an overnight ferry to cebu city. They were going to be going through Cagayan so they told me to jump on there bus. We stopped at a nice fresh seafood restaurant with great fish, and they were so nice and treated me to it. They also drove me all the way through Cagayan city right to the port. A very nice and caring family for sure, and a cute little kid Lucas who wants to learn to ski.

THe ferry was a huge one. I think the biggest boat I've been on in recent memory. Once on the ferry, I met a group of filipinos my age in the restaurant. They actually worked from Astrazeneca as pharmaceutical reps and were going to cebu for a training. (Astrazeneca was one of the bio tech companies I visited in San Fran when working for the Sap). After dinner we went up to the top of the ship. I enjoyed it very much up there. The stars and moon were out but there was constant lightning to watch out on the horizon, the breeze was great, and there was a gentle rocking of the boat. We sat up there just hanging out for a while and the guys (and girls) trying to hook me up with one of the girls (a favorite filipino past time I swear). In fact, when you first meet a filipino this is usually, almost to a T, how the conversation goes, almost like its scripted for everyone.

Hey friend, where are you going?
-just walking
What's your name?
-Travis
Chavez? Trabis (or something similar, they don't do v's)
What country?
-America (or sometimes I throw them a loop like Mauritania or Guyana or Eritrea or something)
How old?
-25
Where is your companion
-don't have one
Oh no all alone
-yep
You like the filipina? I will introduce you to some

sometimes I pretend to be married to avoid this complete awkwardness, but even then they usually still pester you about girls (you're so far away it doesn't matter).

Anyways, as things go, the night progressed into karaoke and beers must have been on the company b/c the boss guy kept bringing me one red horse after another. We stayed up really late, and when the ship arrived into port around 5:30 am I was still sound asleep. When I woke I was definitely the only one still sleeping in the bed area and most people were gone.

Now I'm on my way to Malapascua Island in n. cebu. I'm in Bogo now waiting for the bank to open from lunch so I can get some money as Malapascua has none.

The land of fire and ice (or at least cold water)

So Camiguin (rhymes with come again). How did I end up here being kind of far south and out of the way. Well, I had heard awesome things about it but doubted I could go b/c the ferry could be difficult with many connections or the once a week direct wouldn't be at the right time. But I was looking at the paper and it turned out that the ferry was leaving the day I would be leaving moalboal, so I jumped on it. So yes, back in mindanao, but still the very Catholic part, so not too worry, not the part of mindano you may have recently heard on international news where 27 filipine soldiers were killed by muslim terrorists and where 3 western red cross workers are being held hostage and threatened with beheading.
The ferry ride was quite interesting as this was my first completely overnight ferry. I had some from like 10pm to 3am or something where we just sat in chairs, but this one had bunks. The economy had a couple hundred bunks all out in the open air and with no sheets. The tourist one that I was in (b/c the economy was sold out) was inside with supposed a/c, (I don't think it worked too well b/c it was cooler in economy with the sea breeze) and sheets. Again, a couple hundred bunks just all set up together, like a huge sleep over. The bunks slept two on top and two below. I was on top with a huge, bright fluorescent light about 1.5 feet from my eyes, and the guy next to me liked to roll over a bit onto my side. Regardless, I did get some sleep. It was mostly young filipinos travelling for the weekend, and I met a group of nice gals from cebu city. A very nice australian who now lives on camiguin also introduced himself to me and gave me some tips.
It was an overnight ferry, so we arrived about 9am into Mambojao . I went out to the bow of the ship to watch us approach the beautiful island with 7 large volcanoes on it. Luckily a few dolphins were riding the wake of the ship, so I got to watch them. On arrival I checked into a nice little pension house and rented a motorbike. Rode it to an very high waterfall (275 feet), the highest I've seen so far. Of course dipped into the pool. The girls from the ferry were there as well so I hung out with them for a bit. Then I introduced myself to the only other westerner I had seen there as I had seen him on the boat as well. Marcus from Munich who knew of boehringer ingelheim and said so many americans have been to the tiny biberach an der riss that BI must be pretty huge. (This reminded me, the last german couple I met, the guy was actuall from Biberach and had several friends who worked for BI. Talk about a small world, the 2nd person after the president on dumaguette with biberach and BI connections). Marcus and I swam under the falls, which is quite the pound coming 275 ft up. Then agreed to meet later at the clam sanctuary. I drove to this place called enigmata or tarzan's tree house. It was a really cool place built in a giant tree. I wanted to stay in the tree house but the rooms were too expensive for me, though a greet deal. 15 dollars for a 3 person place, but that was the smallest. They had some cheaper rooms not in the tree house and although the place had an awesome hippy/nature type vibe I decided to stay where I was at even though it is a bit more b/c I'm in the town where it's easy to get food and I just didn't feel like packing up and unpacking again, etc.
I then drove the motorbike towards the giant clam sanctuary. The road was gorgeous as there was clear water on the left side and green rice fields in front of giant green volcanoes to the right. I ended up giving a local guy a ride for a bit on the bicycle and saving him a few pesos. The giant clam sanctuary is located on a nice white beach. It's a project with the Similan Uni marine lab (that I had visited in dumaguette) to try and increase the population of the 7 species of giant clam in the philippines. So you get to snorkel in this bay where there are literally thousands of giant clams, some 2+ feet long. I met marcus here and after snorkelling with the clams and the reef we motored quickly to the other side of the island to go to white beach, a huge sandbar 3km from shore. I wasn't planning on going here b/c of the cost of renting a boat, but with marcus it made it much more affordable (marcus is a med student interning in cebu city), so we went out to the island to watch the sunset. It was quite stunning with the glow on the pure white sandbar, the light blue water, the red and purple sky and the volcanoes off in the background. That night I ate at a surprisingly tasty place, which makes sense b/c the meals were more expensive. Usually I eat at places for under a dollar. I was walking by this place and meals were about 2 dollars. They invited me in and I said it was too expensive for me, so they said they'd drop the price down for me to 1 dollar equivalent. I think they're really hurting for tourists here. Based on the once weekely ferry (the fact that the airport is now closed) and what I've seen I'd guess there are about 5 western tourists on the whole island. The australian guy and his filipino g-friend joined me for dinner that night.

The next day I woke up at 4:30am to start hiking hibok hibok volcano by 5am. It's 4400feet and you start from about sea level. Mainly this is to avoid the heat (like starting anytime here avoids the heat!). It was straight up (switchbacks are over-rated right). You can be assurred that I was sweating incredibly. Maybe the most I've every sweat during a hike. Not only was my shirt drenched, but my shorts were a darker color from being drenched and my sweat soaked through my backpack. At one point we passed by a steam vent and the guide wanted me to feel it. No way, I was too hot. The halfway point was at a mirror and laser set up by PhilVolcs to monitor the volcano and seismic activity. The volcano is still active and it had a very deadly eruption in 1950.
We made it to the top by 8. It was a great view town to the coast, the palm trees, and white island, and the other direction into the crater. We walked a bit around the rim and saw a small crater lake. Perhaps the best part was the rather chilly, dry breeze blowing. We laid down for awhile and even took a nap in the cool air before going back down into the heat again. It was a pretty sweet hike and I was exhausted afterwards mainly from the heat. I was thankful for a stop to eat some fresh jackfruit from a village, but not amused when we stopped at the ardent hot springs to relieve our muscles. No way, we kept going down.
Didn't do much that afternoon besides trying to drink (water) and going to church. Walked down by the wharf, but that's it.
One of the slightly annoying things about asia is that you always have to hire a guide to hike anywhere. The US and Canada are so great b/c you can just go off into the wilderness to beautiful lakes, falls, mountains without a guide b/c trails are well signed or maps are excellent (and we don't typically have random villager trails crisscrossing the main trail). For example, this climb I had to hire a guide for 13 dollars to take me up and down. The price obviously would be much more reasonable with other people, but the trail wasn't that difficult. Way easier to climb and follow than most climbs in Rocky I've done. But the problem is the first few km's I would likely have gotten lost as it was forested and there were villager trails going everywhere. Even in areas with good marked trails (well, the only place I've been is Khao Yai NP in Thailand) they required a guide for the "long" 8km trail to the movie the beach's waterfall (or you could of course drive there), so I had to kind of sneak through to avoid the steep guide fees. And in some places where they attempt to sign trails, guides take them down. So that's a bit frustrating b/c hiking in nature should really be a cheap activity to due and not some expensive hire a guide for something easy thing.
Today I got up early and rented a motorcycle again. The motorcycles are much nicer (and cheaper) than the one that took Lucas' skin in Surigao. First stop was some waterfall that started with a B. Can't remember. A kind of off the beaten path place. Once again, everyone suggested a guide, but I decided to try it on my own. First you had to moto about 10km up towards one of the volcanos. The last 6km was just nasty, nasty steep, rocky, washed out, boulder strewn 4wd road. I quite impressed myself with my motorcycle handling. Had to ride it up in granny gear most the time and even a few times I had to get off and walk along the bike as I pressed on the gas. It was quite technically challenging like mt biking. Once again, no directions or anything, just asking random farmers along the road who, once you get farther away from the circumnavigating road, they speak less and less english. Once I got passed the agricultural area I only ran into one guy cutting something along the road and he could only communicate with his hand really. I kept going up and up and up and wondered if I was on the wrong road. Finally the road ended and there was a trail. I got off my bike and took it. It was a very nice trail, complete with built in steps and even ladders. It went up, but went along contours. Unlike the trail up the volcano I had been on which just went straight up and was obviously made just by people walking up, no trail crew or anything like this one. Well, I hiked and hiked on this trail going up and up and I began to think it was going to the top of the volcano and not to a waterfall. A sign or something would have been nice. But I kept following it b/c it was such a good trail so I knew it wasn't just going to a random village. Finally, the trail went down in the the dense and lush gorge where there was 1 gorgeous large falls and a couple smaller ones. By far my favorite waterfall on the island b/c it was tough to get there, is high up on a volcano in a lush gorge, and of course not a soul around. I lingered a bit in the cool water before the trek down and then the crazy technical motorbike ride down.
After that trip I stopped in a town along the main road to wait out a rainstorm and eat some food before proceeding onto Tiausu falls. Getting to this falls involved another fairly long moto ride up the mountains, but not near so technical. At one point along the road I was stopped by a group of people at a house saying I would need to hire a guide to find the falls or I wouldn't find them and would be lost. Considering this falls was more well known and I had found the last one, and I didn't listen to them and kept going. 1km farther I saw a sign for parking for Tirausu (yes a sign!) and again more people saying I needed a guide. I could hear the river, and the 30 minute walk to the falls was pretty easy to find. These falls were impressive in their force. Probably 20m high and a much bigger river than the others coming over it. I swam at the edge of the pool, but didn't dare go closer to where the falls were crashing into the pool b/c the water was a turbulent mess. Some little girl with a dog followed me there and back and I think she was hoping I'd get lost so she could guide me. At the end though I bought a coconut from her and her dad, so she was happy.
After this falls I skipped the St. Nino cold springs as it is supposedly just a large pool with incredibly cold 2 C water coming out. But swimming in the waterfalls is cold enough and I know they would have charged at the pool anyways. So I went onto the Soda Springs. There was a pool set up here and it was a unique springs...soda water. They said I should taste it, and believe it or not, yep tasted just like soda. Don't know how that works. I was the only one there besides two filipino men having beers, so I swam a few laps then went up to say hi. They shared there beer with me, though I didn't take much as I was still going to be driving the motorcycle. After my dip at the soda springs I continued along the coastal road until I got to the sunken cemetary. There is a huge cross in the ocean about 50m out memorializing the place, but I guess during one of the eruptions here in 1871, the cemetary got pushed underwater. I met a huge family of filipinos, though half now live in San Jose, CA, and they invited me into their boat they were taking out to the cross. After visiting the sunken cemetary we went to the ruins of the huge catherdral that was also destroyed by the same eruption. It was pretty neat to see b/c you could see the belfry and the tops of the church. The belfry appeared to be about 15ft high and the church a little less, but the truth is, back in the day over 50 feet high. But the lava covered more than 30 feet of the area and buried the bottom parts of the cathedral. After that I went back to the cross to watch the sunset before finishing the circumnavigation of the island. A busy, but very awesome day.
When I got back I of course had to deal a bit with a potential scam and will have to deal with it more tomorrow I think. When I arrived on the island, the Australian guy said most guys will try to rent bikes for 500 pesos, but you can get them for 300 usually if you're a good bargainer. Well I met a guide that said he would rent me the bike for 350 and guide me up the volcano for 800. I eventually got it down to 300 for the bike and 600 for the volcano. He agree, and I made sure he understood the deal that I would pay him 1200. So he went off to get a bike, which meant that he just went and found another guy renting a bike, so that in the end he'd get a bit of commission off that. Well anyways, after I had the bike I paid him 500 (300 for the bike and 200 downpayment for the hike). Well the next day after the hike I paid him 400 so we'd be even at the moment...600 hike, 300 bike. He gave this sad face and said that wasn't enough, that the bike was 500 and he'd given the other guy the 500, so he had no money and needed the full 600. I said no way, we had agreed on 1200. Anyways, today when I returned the bike the other guy asked for money and I said that the first guy (Allen) was supposed to pay him. I had paid the 2nd guy the 300 in the morning, but he wanted 50 more. Anyways, I found out that Allen had only paid him 350 the first day and lied to me about giving him 500 in order to try and get more money from me. Anyways, they'll both probably be around tomorrow and want money, but I'm not giving any more b/c I paid the 1200 I said I would and they can figure it out themselves.
Another interesting note on the day. I ran into (blanking on the name) the swiss girl that I had trekked with in remote Kalaw, Myanmar, that I had ran into at the beach on Ko Chang, Thailand. She was walking on the dirt road to Tiausu with a french woman I had met at the dinner place the day before. How random...meeting for a 3rd time in a remote island in the philippines on a remote road (a road that is sadly nearly finished in connecting one side of the island with the other by going through the center b/c this means it will just bring more deforestation and farming to the pristine interior...I road my motorcycle as far as I could up this road until it was blocked by a fallen coconut tree). I have run into several people twice, but never 3 times,

Tomorrow I'm going to take a jeepney in the morning to this smaller volcano that has full size statues depecting the stations of the cross up the volcano. I guess to do all the stations its 1.5km and then after you can go another hour to reach the summit. Then from there I'll catch a ferry to mainland Mindanao, a bus to Cagayan de Oro and then an overnight ferry back to cebu city as the ferry direct only leaves here on sunday nights.

But this island has been great. So much to do and so much beauty. A true tropical paradise with its white sand beaches, palm trees, fruit trees, rushing waterfalls, bubbling hot and cold springs, mist soaked volcanos, offshore islands, and dense jungle.

I'm (ab)seiling away

The next day after the dive I did an adventure trip with planet action, which involved hiking into the mountains to get to a deep ravine where we repelled down 5 waterfalls (the highest at 120ft) and jumped down two. It was an awesome trip, one of the highlights of my time in the PI so far. Drove along a really scenic coastal highway in mad max, the vehicle designed by the german who owns the company that looks like a cross between some war vehicle and a moon car to get to the area. Then we had about an hour hike to get up above the canyon and ravines. The ravines were deep and surrounded by cliffs so it was quite scenic, plus of course the water was oh so refreshing. But when you abseil, you basically just clip your rope into your harness and then repell down the rushing water. The biggest and last waterfall was quite a rush b/c the water really pounded on top of you and it was an overhanging falls so when you got halfway down you had no rock to push off on, just dangling there with the water rushing on you. The guides were pretty fun too b/c they were always yelling and screaming and shouting ACTION! There were several small falls that we slid down like waterslides and a couple falls we jumped. One of the jumps was a bit scary. It was about 10m high, but the water wasn't very deep at the bottom, perhaps 2 meters, which is fine to jump in b/c of water's high surface tension. The tricky thing was that if you jumped too far you were in 1m of water. Jumping too far was easy though b/c if you were too short then it was the rocks of the waterfall as it wasn't a completely 90 degrees falls at the bottom. I was with a german couple and the large, fearless german man went first. He jumped way too far and landed on his feet in chest deep water. He was still fine b/c it was sandy and that's still deep enough water. I was nervous before going since it was such a small area to hit, but I've had my practice waterfall jumping and made it easily.

At the bottom of the canyon were some hotsprings that we soaked in, though I didn't linger long preferring the cold river water instead. Then at the end of the trip, they set up a table and we had a very delicious bbq of fish, pork, and chicken and they had a 1/2 a liter of sprite and 1.5 liter of san miguel beer for us. As is typical philippine custom, you first start out with a chandy (or is it shandy) of 1/2 sprite 1/2 beer. you're next is 1/4-3/4, then full beer. Definitely an awesome adventure and then great food.

That night I wasn't really going to eat anything as I had eaten a lot at the bbq and the trip was expensive so I was saving my pesos, but the 3 girls that worked at the front desk of my place invited me to have fish and rice with them. They were sweet girls and always wanted to talk a bit before I left or came back to my room.

The next day I got up early and rented a bike to bike to Kawasan falls. It was 22km one way. The morning ride wasn't so bad in terms of heat. One of the things about asia is that public transport is so cheap and easy...and all major sites have at least dirt roads going to them, that you find yourself taking the public transport b/c it's so quick and cheap. I had been trying to do things on my own in thailand and burma, but had gotten a bit out of the habit here in the philippines especially b/c travelling with lucas and sari meant even cheaper fares since it was divided by 3, so I've been trying to get back to being more exercise oriented. Plus it feels so much better if you get there on your own after a good journey than just taking a bus, jumping of quick, snapping some pictures, and then leaving. But asia just isn't quite set up like the States in that sense where the best things are usually only accessed by trails. I got to the main Kawasan falls and it was quite an interesting place. A beautiful falls with gorgeous waters, and then restaurants and loding surrounding it as well as shaded bungalows and picnic places for rent. There were bamboo rafts in the water you could rent that the filipinos would take into the falls to get splashed. This was quite amusing b/c they'd scream, dance, and many brought umbrellas (worthless). I of course just opted for the swim. I had wanted to jump off this falls as apparently I had heard it was great for jumping. High, deep, and you could go right over the falls. But people are no longer allowed to jump because earlier this year apparently a korean guy jumped off, didn't see a raft directly under the falls and landed on a girl on the raft.

It looked like a trail went further up, so I followed it and sure enough it went by a couple more nice small falls and then another large one with more bamboo rafts and some tourist places. I kept following the trail some more before it ended at another small falls and some sort of hyro power thing. Since I had my river shoes on I kept walking up the stream. Happened upon a few more cool falls and then believe it or not I caught up to a group of planet action on their river hiking tour. I went ahead and came upon and a gorgeous narrow ravine area with unbelievably turquoise blue water. The only way to go up it was to swim. I swam through it and at one point you had to go through a small cave to get to the otherside, which ended up on a waterfall. That's as far as I went, thought the planet action tour was just beginning their "action" there and would continue on several more of these I was assuming. I didn't go further b/c I didn't have a buddy and felt it probably wasn't the safest thing to not have a spotter on some of the waterfall climbing and also I had gone much further than I had orgininally planned in the day (I had only thought there was one falls) so I was pushing the time I needed to be back to catch the bus from moalboal to cebu city to catch the once weekly ferry to camiguin. So I turned around. This was one of those times I wished Lucas had still been with me (or bro there) so that we could have continued exploring upriver and forgotten about the ferry (most likely would have made it anyways). Hurried back, but not too fast that I didn't jump off a few falls to cool down. Then I had a very miserable hot bike ride back to moalboal as I really had to push it fearing that I would miss the ferry and knowing I had a few things to do back in pangasama beach (I had thought they would have an atm there, but they didn't so I ran out of money and had to change some US dollars still in order to pay for my lodging). From moalboal it's another 4km to pangasama beach so I stopped but a coconut to chug before going on.

Ended up taking a bus and making it to cebu city in plenty of time to catch the ferry, though economy was sold out so I had to take tourist, but with my student discount (thank you Albertson College for not putting a date on your student id!) tourist was cheaper than regular economy. Met a nice woman on the jeepney from the bus terminal to the pier that took me to the mall to show me where to eat before going on the ferry since the ferry was 13 hours and had no food.

Hottt!

It has become incredibly hot here since the week I was on the boat. Back in college I had read certain books that came up with ideas as to why 3rd world countries tend to be along the equator and 1st world countries in the northern lattitudes including disease, resources. My own theory is it's just too hot here to do anything. Back home during a "hot" 75 degree day it's very easy to keep working hard, especially since we have basically 0 humidity...and then of course the cold of winter makes you want to work hard, or sit by a fire and educate ones self, but here, 95 degrees 95 percent humidity, nearly unbearable unless you're in the water or on a boat with a breeze. I tend to be more motivated than most for some reason, so I still took an 8km walk to the beautiful beach of white beach and nearly everyperson along the rural road was understandibly snoozing in the shade on a hammock or under a tree. It's just hard to get much done in the heat for them I think

Dove two dives today. One at Pescador Island and the other on the house reef. Both very nice, but no near the fish abundance of Tubbataha. Still, some some very unique and unusual fish: two scorpion fish, a frog fish, a very rare ghost pipefish, a free-swimming eel, and a new species of triggerfish I'd never seen. I was the only one on the dive, so I had the guide all to myself.

I met a very nice canadian couple taking diving lessons. They were about my age and are travelling for the year like me from Nepal and India all the way down to Bali. But they had done the same year trip (S. Amer) last year. I asked how they could afford such trips (they were on a budget, but not an incredibly tight one as they were taking dive lessons, had a guide in nepal, and were flying places to save time on ferries), and their trick is they work only 5 months, but lots of hours 60 hours, but live with their parents, so that they put away 95% of their paychecks. Hmmm....wonder if old Dad would be up for that!

After the dives I walked the 8km to white beach and just read in the shade for a bit. A very nice, deserted white sand beach frequented by pilipinos on weekends I guees. The walk over was slow as it was hot and I made a few stops to get coconuts. The kids seemed to be overly excessive with their asking for money on this road and I decided to attempt to teach a lesson, so one group of about 6 I asked to climb a coconut tree and get me one. One kid climbed the tree, another cut it for me, and a 3rd made the spoon to get the flesh out after I drank the drink. I gave a few pesos to each of those 3 kids, but none to the others asking for money, and told them, see if you do some work, that's how you can get some money

The beach was very nice. No one there, and very white and long with good views across the strait to Negros. Sat in the shade for a bit and read and then headed back to Moalboal for some dinner. Some guys were playing frisbee so I joined in with them, which was fun as I hadn't thrown a frisbee since Lucas and Sari left.

I eat dinner in moalboal which is much cheaper (meals for 50 cents compared to 5 dollars at the lowest on the beach) and then I walk the 4km back. All the trike and moto drivers can't believe I would walk and just think its so terrible to walk, but I enjoy seeing the countryside and you see and do more when you go by slowly...like last night a group invited me in for a few karaoke songs and a beer as I was walking. Maybe the same will happen tonight...

Cebu

From Puerto Princesa I flew to Cebu. Kent and Sara were on the same flight so I had someone to chat with while waiting for the delayed flight. The flight into cebu actually lands on an island, so you have to catch a taxi in. I shared a cab with a swiss girl, Bettina, who happens to be from St. Gallen where David Fleukinger from ACI is from. So she was quite impressed I could talk about appenzeller and the tankstella (david's favorite bar). We were both searching for budget places and were having trouble finding anything under 13 dollars for a single room, which is extremely high for a city. So we ended up just sharing a double room for that price instead. I must have fooled her that I wasn't a creep with all that talk of st. gallen.

Yesterday I had some errands to run (electronic finding, credit card fraud calling, etc) so I headed off to the monstrous SM mall here. I spent the morning there in much frustration. In one area there were selling apartment and flats for buildings they were building in cebu. Amazing how cheap the stuff was. You could get 1 bedroom apartments in really nice complexes for 27,000 dollars and ones on the ocean in a gorgeous location and fancy complex for 45,000. In the philippines you can't buy a house or own land if you're a foreigner, but you can own an apartment, so it was quiet tempting actually. The houses were even nicer and they tried to offer them to me, but I said I can't since I'm american. No problem they said matter of factly, you can buy one if you marry a filipina. Then they quickly said it should be no problem for me since I'm young and fit. They estimated 3 months and I would have a filipina wife. I couldn't help but smile at that one. One of the ladies even said she'd be interested in a date right there. haha...i find that whole marrying westerners thing kinda crazy. The afternoon I toured around downtown cebu (we're staying in uptown, the newer part, but now there is an upper uptown), which is really a terrible, dirty, polluted, crowded place except for a few spots. Went to an old spanish fort there. THe first one built when the spanish settled here. Cebu is where magellan first landed in the philippines and also where he was killed by king lapu lapu. Saw the cross that magellan planted on cebu and went to a really famous basillica. The holiest basillica in the country and has the santo nino statue that magellan gave as a gift to the queen of cebu. pilipinos travel from far and wide to see worship at it. I ran into Bettina in the supermarket where I was getting some water (its so hot hear now I can only drink and can't eat. I used to crave cheap eat all you can places, which they have several here, but I can't go b/c I'm too hot and still full from the food on the borneo explorer). We went and got massages at a pretty classy place, but the cheapest yet (4 dollars for 1 hr. 15min).

Took a bus today from Cebu City to Moalboal and then walked to Panagsama beach. After over an hour walking around to find a place I finally found a decent price (8 dollars, by the beach w/ private bath). The lowest I could find when I first got there was 15 dollars but I was able to get it down enough b/c know one is here. I'm the only one at my resort and every place else is empty, so I get a lot of attention from all the people at the restaurants and bars trying to get me to come in. Of course I walked back to moalboal for dinner b/c it's much cheaper.

Went for a long snorkel today (3 hours). It was the best snorkelling in the PI I have done so far, though nothing compared to diving Tubbataha. Saw 3 different species of pipefish (seahorse family) and each species was all over. This was pretty crazy b/c I'd only seen 2 individuals in all my snorkelling experience before that. Also saw a school of squid which was cool and unique. A turtle cruised by and I got caught in the midst of a monstrous school of mackeral. They all avoided where I was, but they completely encircled me. Also saw a flounder (flat sideways swimming fish) which are pretty rare. The best part may have been scaring the beejesus out of two divers who were diving the house reef. B/c of my swimming experience I'm pretty good at breath holding diving and can pretty easily go down 20 meters. I saw them down there and dove down to see what they were looking at. I think they saw this big dark figure (me) out of the corner of their eye and thought I was a shark or something b/c all of a sudden I saw all the air rush out of their regs as they gasped and spun wildly around.

Mom you would have loved this snorkelling. The water was incredibly hot partly b/c it was very shallow. I was sweating and the dive shops reported a surface temp of 33C which is 91F. And it was very shallow, like 4 feet, so you wouldn't have been too scared of the deep, yet there was a really nice wall going down 50m right off of the flats.

Tomorrow I plan on diving Pescador Island which is pretty famous in diving circles. I found a filipino run shop which is quite inexpensive and is charging pesos instead of euros like the rest.

Tubbutaha.hahahaha

Just got back from an AMAZING liveaboard adventure on the borneo explorer in Tubbataha Reef in the middle of the Sulu Sea between Palawan, Indonesia, and the Visayas. It was known as Jacque Cousteau's playground and favorite place. It was a bit expensive, but worth every penny. I was able to book the transition trip which meant for the same price I got 8 days instead of the typical 5. As soon as I boarded, I knew I was in for quite a trip. Took a chase boat to the main boat, the borneo explorer. This may not seem like much, but after taking deafening bancas where even earplugs would do little to sooth the ears all the time, this was a nice treat. I was welcomed on board into a fancy (and airconned!) main cabin and dining area and treated to ice tea (with its namesake ice). I was given a boat tour and shown my cabin which was quite awesome as well. A huge window looking out onto the ocean, a queen bed and then a bunk bed on top of that. Air conned of course, my own private bathroom with cold and hot shower. The room was so very clean and smelled of fresh fruit and was made daily and they'd even fold my clothes everyday. This was a complete 180 from everywhere else I had been staying. I arrived early so as not to miss the trip...philippine travel can be quite unreliable so I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon walking along the road that followed the coast. I boarded the ship around 5pm and settled into the cabin. I explored the ship some more and tried to meet and chat with the crew. I then made my way up to the bridge to learn all about the controls from Captain Castillo. We had a briefing and met all the other passengers on board (lucille from australia but works in the manila embassy, Bill and Lisa Bubb from Australia, Jean Paul, Anuete, georgio armani, and lindua from france, Sara and Kent from Sweden, Chester and Lucy from Palawan, Jean Paul and Thereu from France. The head divemaster was Paul Ancla from Cebu and the two divemaster guides were Cathy Ridsdale from the UK and Mike from Canada. Herg and Carrie (Germany and France but live in bali) were also along for half the trip but met up to guide another ship once we were a couple days in Tubbataha. (these names are more for my poor memory). I was the youngest by far (except the two guides who were in their late 20's), and the only real budget traveller also. They were all pretty much purely dive vacationers and I was by far the most inexperienced. I had 22 dives going into the trip and most had over 250.

That night we sat down for dinner that was just a preview of the amazingness to come. It was buffet style and there was always different meals to choose from, then fresh fruit (mangos every day!), fancy desserts, fruit juices and MILK! I'm pretty sure I gained lots of wait on this trip b/c we had so much food and on the budget thing I'm on I never really eat enough, so I was always helping myself to 3rds. And you know those shirts that are like eat, sleep, play basketball or whatever, well this was seriously, eat, sleep, dive. We had five dives a day and between each dive and before the first and after the lat there was food. Before the first dive was "light" breakfast which included cornflakes and milk (a delicacy here), bananas, WHEAT bread and peanut butter, hot coco. Then after the first dive at 7am was the heavy breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, porridge, other kinds of meats, pancakes, etc. After the 2nd dive was a big hot lunch. after the 3rd dive was snacks after the 4th dive was cookies and pastries and after the 5th dive (the night dive) was the big dinner. And of course there was juice, coco, and candy around the clock. And of course we were quite pampered. Anything you wanted. They helped most people gear up, but didn't help me much b/c I was the youngest and didn't have too much trouble. Fresh warm towels after every dive.



And of course the diving was super sweet. It was actually pretty intense. 5 dives at 1 hour per dive is actually a lot b/c breathing compressed oxygen can make you tired (that's why a lot of the people there used nitrox...but too expensive for me). Of course my schedule was also a bit more rigorous than everyone else. I did every single dive except the first night dive b/c I didn't have my advance cert yet so I had to wait one day before I could get that, where as most people only did 3 or 4 of the dives a day. No way would I do that b/c the diving was too good and I wanted to get my money's worth. And most people retired to their cabin during surface intervals, but not me...I enjoyed hanging out with the crew or swimming off the boat or even bettter, jumping off from the top of the boat (the boat was 4 stories tall). The french always got a kick out of that b/c they snoozed on the top of the ship on the beach chairs in their speedos getting tans.

So back to the diving. The first night we sailed all night to get to Apo Reef off of Mindoro, which is a nationally protected reef. That night was very rough seas and it took 14 hours instead of the planned 11 to get there. I was a bit seasick in the morning, but not really too much. More groggy from not sleeping too well b/c with every big way I would roll across the bed. I had 4 great dives there. Lots of sharks, turtles, and of course all of the reef fish. I also had Carrie in my group the first 3 days before she moved on to the other boat and she was a pro at finding the macro stuff, so we saw lots and lots of different nudibranchs, anenome crabs, shrimps, and other highly camoflauged tiny things. The next day we steamed to the Cuyo islands. Because of rough seas, we were late in arriving there (this time I slept well b/c I slept a different direction on the bed) which meant we only did 2 dives there that day, which ended up being ok anyways. The cuyo islands unfortunately aren't protected from fishing, dynamite blasting, or cyanide poisoning, the the fish life isn't the best and there wasn't much big stuff. All the same we saw lots of cool little things with the help of Carrie. The area was actually quite good for macro b/c all the big stuff to eat the little stuff was overfished. And there was a cool cave we got to swim through that started at about 25m depth and ended up at 18m depth. Also, the islands were quite gorgeous in the area, abit like el nido style. We left early that day to make it to Tubbataha in order to get there on time in the morning. That night watched a couple movies with the crew in the dining area, which is quite fun with the boat is rolling up and down. The 3rd day we arrived at Tubbataha reef. It's divided into the N. and S. Atolls and we spent two days at each one. The diving was absolutely amazing there. So many fish and such good corals and the most incredibl wall dives Tubattaha is a world heritage site, nationally protected, as well as protected by the WWF. It is supposedly the most pristine reef complex in asia b/c it is very remote, and has incredibly rough seas 9 months of the year, so not many fisherman got to it before it was protected. The fish diversity was definitely impressive with all the typical butterfly, damsel, parrot fish etc. More angel fish than I'd ever seen anywhere and just an incredible amount of sweetlips and grouper (a good indication of a non-fished reef as they are quite tasty fish). And of course the sharks, oh the sharks. More than you could count. So many that you almost got to a point where you were just like, oh, just another shark and kept swimming. Diddn't happen too much for me b/c I love watching them, but I know for some people it did. Mainly white tipped reef sharks and grey reef sharks. But I saw one huge bullshark. We went to one area to look for hammerheads, but didn't get any luck unfortunately. Lots of times you could get quite close to the sharks as they napped during the day and would just sit in sandy areas or in caves. But on the early morning and late afternoon dives we often got to see them hunting which was quite exciting. And we saw lots of other typically uncommon fish with high frequency here such as moray eels, ribbon eels, and lion fish. A few of the exciting finds were an octopus just sitting on a coral head changing color and texture, and anenome hermit crab, triton shells, a pygmy sea horse (microscopic sea horse that lives in sea fans that has only been known to science for 10 years), a couple conical sponges spawning (they look like volcanos and when they're spawning which occurs once a year, they look like erupting volcanos), a marble ray, and a few eagle rays. We unfortunately struck out with manta rays though the crew saw a bunch from the boat while we were diving one day. I love turtles and there were lots and lots. Hawkbills and Green. Almost everywhere I had been except for Apo Island with lucas, the turtles typically scare easy. But here you could just sit and watch them forage for food or just float along with them for minutes on end in the current. We got to do 4 days, 5 dives a day at Tubatahha which was just great. On the last night dive there we dove at the Malayan wreck. There are always unusual creatures inhabiting wrecks and I also saw the largest grouper and parrotfish I have ever seen, but the big excitement in addition to a turtle nearly running into me in the dark was near the hull of the ship. Bill and I were squeezed into a tiny hole barely big enough for the two of us in the hull of the ship looking at some large fish in there when in a flash and out of nowhere a huge reef shark swam straight at us. Nearly slammed into us and somehow managed to turn around in the tiny space and go the otherway so that all we could see was the tail. We were so surprised that we nearly slammed our heads on the wreck and then started laughing. Quite exhillarating.

Tubatahha is made up of two atolls. The southernost has a tiny island with a few trees and a lighthouse. The northern one has the wreck above water and just the tiniest of sandbars. There is also a rangerstation that is built on stuilts, but even on low tide there is no dry land. So the ranger station is always on at least 1 foot of water. On the 3rd day we took a tender boat in to see the ranger station and splash around on the sandbar and the emerald water. It was the first dry land I'd been on in 5 days and it felt quite weird!

Besides the diving though I had a lot of fun on the boat. Had fun with the crew (again for my memory) especially Ben, Ardy, Angelo, Jay, Roan, Jeff, Richard, Eddy. The crew loved me. I think because I actually talked to them, joked with them a lot, and tried to learn their names, and also I was the craziest and most spunky of the people on the boat. At the end of the trip paul told me that the crew really liked me and wished I would stay for another round. I actually felt like quite a celebrity with them b/c when we'd load up on the boats to go to the dive site they'd all sit on the ship and wave and say have fun Trabis (the v is not really used in the philippines), and when we'd come back they'd jump up and down and yell my name again. And of course in the morning they'd all be quick to shout out my name and I was always invited to crew movie time at night. And just anytime walking through the ship they'd always have their hands out for highfives and such. No one else got this treatment at all. I was especially fond of Angelo who was the server and bartender and was fun to make laugh. At one point the french group asked me why they were always so excited to see me in the mornings and when I came back. In my head I was thinking b/c I actually talk to them and try and be friends, but I just told them perhaps b/c I was young. I think they also really liked me b/c I knew about filipinos and their culture. Everyone else (besides bill and lisa) were on purely dive holidays. So I think they really respected that I'd try and speak tagalog, that I knew the names of filipino dishes, that I ate turo turo on the streets, that I knew things about each of the regions the different crew were from (from bicol to romblon to cebu to n. luzon), that I could talke to them about rooster fights and that I was always teasing them if they had a videoke machine. The first day of diving at Tubbataha (the 3rd day overall) at 7am as we were gearing up on the side decks I opened the door to the dining area next door (I didn't wear a wetsuit or fancy equipment so I was always dressed a full 5-10 minutes before everyone else) to grab a quick hot chocolate and angelo had the music blasting as he was cleaning up. What song was it...none other than total eclipse of the heart, one of my very favorite 80's power ballads to karaoke to. I was feeling especially happy and excited for the diving so I was running around and singing to it, and there is a pole in the middle of the dining area and I did a pole dance from it. Angelo loved it. And of course he had air supply's all out of love, my next favorite song. So every morning it became routine that before the dive I would belt out and dance to those two songs with all the crew loving it. By the last day, the 4 french friends in my boat (my boat had the 4 french friends, lisa, bill, and mike as guide with jay as boatman and eddy as helper) joined in the dancing and I was twirling Anuete around. I actually really liked the group of french people too. It took a few days to warm up to them b/c of the english barrier, but they were quite cool and I think found me rather funny. I especially like georgie as he seemed so nice and was always smiling. I actually had quite a lot of fun with them and I was glad b/c the other english speakers seemed to ignore them b/c there english wasn't quite as good. But you can still have a lot of fun with people just with hand motions and tones. But my favorite was Bill. As Kathy and I joked, especially after looking at all of chesters pictures he had taken of the trip at the end where bill and I were always hanging out, he was my new best friend. Bill was about 65 and had been everywhere and dove everywhere it seemed and had quite good stories. He and lisa had done quite a bit of budget travel in their day as well and were the next most budget people to me on the trip. We always had good convo at dinner and since lisa didn't dive as many dives as bill, I was often his dive buddy. But I really did like them a lot and we had fun diving together. We just had a good connection for some reason. I also had good fun hanging out with Cathy and Mike who were more my age and also native english speakers.

On the 8th day we arrived into the port of puerto princesa on Palawan. I had one last huge breakfast. Most the people got off the ship right away by like 9 or 10, but bill lisa and I took our time and stayed on the ship for a while. Everyone else at pre-arranged resort reservations but we had to find our places and check out time isn't until noon. Around noon we took the borneo explorer van and went in search of budget places. Before I left the crew gave me a gift of one of the cool bright yellow crew t-shirts for the ship. I was very appreciative of that and was happy not to have to spend the 15 dollars that everyone else did for their tubbataha shirt. Went out to a fairly fancy place for lunch with all the divers from the ship as a goodbye thing, but then headed back to the borneo explorer to find the boys to hang out with again. We cruised around town and then they all went to get pedicures. I'd never had one before, but they were less than a dollar and they were all doing it, so I got one. As they were working on my dirty feet with their tools that they didn't exactly sanitize I was crossing my fingers I wouldn't get any fungus or anything like the last time I was in the tropics. I was nearly done with I looked at Jeff's feet and asked him what the black area was. "worm" he said. I could only laugh...and pray.

That night they took me to videoke, something they had been waiting to take me to for quite some time. And I thrilled them with passionate but most likely terrible renditions of all out of love, total eclipse of the heart, making love out of nothing at all, and I will survive. They bought me several rounds of beer and then Angelo, ardy, and I went down to this concert by the ocean walk they were having that night in puerto to meet up with Paul, Mike, Cathy, Chester and Lucy. Chester who is a big wig in Palawan (owns all the petrol stations) had gotten mike and cathy backstage to meet the band (apparently a big and famous one inthe philippines. Tanduay Rhum was sponsoring the concert so they were giving out 1 free sample each of mango juice and tanduay and some energy drink and tanduay. But since we were with chester, we got unlimited drinks and eventually found ourselves with whole bottles of it. We had a good time at the concert drinking the rum, attempting fountains of rum, and just joking around before Cathy and I finally went up towards the front of the band. In this country whites seem to get way too much respect (in malls and airports where they check your bags they thoroughly search the filipinos and let me walk in without hardly looking or in a line of people they always try to help me first), so we were easily able to walk right up to the front of the crowd so we were in the front row. And when we would shout for covers, the people next to us would join us and eventually the whole crowd. And thanks to chester the band gave a shout out to cathy and mike as well. After the concert we all too trikes to get some mami noodles before turning in. Definitely a great way to end my first liveaboard expedition. Paul said he'd hire me as a dive guide if I get my dive master cert, so it's something to think about for me b/c the borneo explorer also does trips around the visayas, micronesia, and palau. The trip was totally worth it as it was definitely the best diving I've ever done, i improved my diving skills tremendously, had a lot of fun, and quite enjoyed living on a boat.

Goodbye to the sweet stringfields

A couple of days ago, we took our last trip together to Apo Island. It's listed as one of the 10 best dive spots in the world. We didn't dive b/c it was pretty expensive b/c of the boat ride out there as well, but the snorkelling was also supposed to be just as good. There were two main snorkel spots. The sanctuary and the turtle area. We snorkelled twice at the sanctuary and once at the turtle area. It definitely lived up to its word. THe snorkelling was fantastic. The diversity of soft corals and fish was unbelievable. And saw the largest aggregation of plate corals I had ever seen. Bigger than the size of a basketball court. Saw huge "schools" of clownfish. Clownfish don't really school, but it was just an area so dense with them, they were everywhere...like a city. Lots of trumpet fish and trigger fishes and pufferfish. At the turtle sanctuary we saw 3 turtles very close. It was an especially good interaction b/c typically turtles swim quickly away (yes quickly), but these ones you could get quite close to and just float and watch them eat, and in very shallow clear water. Unfortunately the day was quite marred for me b/c I realized that my camera had broken. We also did a little hike up to the top of the island to the lighthouse where we watched some local boys fight spiders. The boat back and forth between the island was pretty fun b/c it was not a very seaworth vessel and we were all completely soaked by water splashing onto us in huge buckets.


Apo island had a special interest to me b/c in Dr. Walser's class we had a read a book called the enchanted braid about the importance of coral reefs and a couple of chapters were reserved for apo. Apparently 20 years ago or so the people in the village were starving and poor b/c they had overfished and dynamited the reef so they had much diminished fish catches. They aggreed with the help of the WWF and Smithsonian to set up a sanctuary that was absolutely off limits to fishing. THe rest of the island could still be fished. This gave an area where fish could breed, grow up, etc and then move out to the rest of the reef around the island. 5 years later and the fish catches were back to normal, plus they were now making money on ecotourism. One of the best documented examples of conservation making life better for local people

that night, we went out for our last karaoke together and then I took lucas out for his belated bachelor's party (no one was able to throw one for him b/c they had snuck off in secrecy to the philippines to get married). We sang some more karaoke, went dancing to at a club, bought some handles of Tanduay rum to drink by the ocean and then ended the night in a pretty interesting conversation with a lady boy.

Yesterday was a difficult goodbye for me to say the the stringfields. I hung out a bit trying to do errands in dumaguette before flying to manila. From manila I took a bus to batangas where I stayed last night in a kind of sketchy, rent by the hour hotel, but it was late at night and all I could find and batangas is definitely not a place tourists go, but the bus to anilao where I'm headed today had already stopped when I arrived at midnight.

Today at 6pm I head off onto the borneo explorer for 8 days of unlimited diving at Tubbataha reef and apo (a different apo) island. I'm excited b/c it will be the first time I've slept and lived on a boat. Doubtful that there will be internet on the boat, so I'll see you all in 8 days.

Lunch with the Gov

Today we got up early to go to Apo island for some snorkelling, but the weather didn't look too great so we changed our plan and went to Twin Lakes national park...a rather sketchy ride on the back of a motorcycle and then steep hike. The scenery was quite stunning up in the mountains of Negros. The road was treacherous and full of landslides. Apparently a few weeks ago they had buckets of rain and caused lots of the landslides making the road impassible. We got to the first lake which was gorgeous set amid misty mountains. We wanted to hike to the next lake, but the trail went along the first lake's shore and with all the rain the water levels were 15 feet higher than normal. It was quite funny to see the picnic cabanas completely submerged in water. They were having an inaugural lunch for a new tourist facility at the lake so there was apparently a bunch of big wigs up there. We were just chatting to a few people up there when I noticed one of the guys was wearing a boehringer ingelheim hat. BI is a huge biotech company that has facilities around the globe including connecticut and germany where I had visited when I worked for Sapidyne. The guy wearing the hat used to be the president of the site in the Philippines and in Indonesia, and has since retired to the PI. After chatting, Lucas, Sari, and I went to sit by the lake and eat mangos and let the little fish clean our feet. It started to pour, so we went under the cabana in the new tourist place. The guy, Michael, from BI and his wife invited us to ride back down the muddy road in their 4WD, which would be much safer than on the motorcycle and of course drier. We accepted and they took us to their AMAZING house. It had a gorgeous view of the ocean, immaculately landscaped yard full of flowers and fruit trees, a couple pools, huge outdoor dining area and more. They had security officers and maids and everything. It was quite incredible. They had us (in our sweaty, dirty, smelly clothes) sit down for coffee and fancy treats as we waited for the Mayor of sibuyan and the governor of the province of Negros to come for some food and coffee. So we got to eat and chat with the governor and the mayor. They were quite funny and liked to make jokes about how corrupt politicians are in the PI. After that they gave us a ride back into dumaguette.

We finished out the afternoon visiting the siliman university marine laboratory that has giant clam, grouper, and philippine crocodile breeding programs. We then watched Marley and Me in a theatre (aircon!) and finished out the night having a mango and mangosteen party.

Still have not found any sandals my size and my keens are starting to fall apart. Luckily they have cheap and hopefully good shoe repairmen here. I got my keens stitched back up for 30 cents today so hopefully they'll hold until I can find some sandals built for giant's feet.

Spooky Siquijor Island

Hmm...so it's been a while since I had a chance to write in this.

On the 4th, the last time I wrote here, Lucas had to go from Loboc to Tagbiliran to work on an application b/c he needed a fax machine, so Sari and I walked/swam up the river from nuts huts to a waterfall that afternoon, where I was lucky to see what some people call a Jesus lizard; the kind of lizard that can run on water. That night sari and spent the evening reading in hammocks from the nuts huts balcony listening to the jungle until lucas got back when we feasted on some homemade yoghurt.

The next day we went to the Tarsier reserve in bohol. Tarsiers are these cute, tiny primates that have huge eyes and heads the resemble yoda's and fingers that resemble ET's. They had been known as the smallest primates on earth until a mouse lemur was discovered in madagascar a few years ago. Luckily the tarsiers are territorial and tend to sleep in the same tree during the day, so with a guide we were able to find 5 of the cute little guys and actually get quite close. I loved looking into their big, soft eyes.

After visiting the tarsiers we went to Tagbiliran to due some necessary travel searching/booking/planning. We went to the mall to do it and of course feasted on the cheap icecreams and shakes there. That night we caught a trike over the bridge to Alona Beach on Panglao Island where after a bit of a search we were able to score a great deal on lodging at the high priced diving resort.

The next day Lucas and I dove two dives with a local philippines company. The funny thing is alona beach caters specifically to europeans (mainly germans). There are tons of dive shops and all the diveboats we saw out were packed full of divers b/c they all book online from home or on package tours. Then there was lucas and I, just the two of us on our own private tour, paying half the price of everyone else with the local guys. The two dives were excellent! They were dives off of Baclaran Island. On the 1st one we saw a turtle, some lion fish, a huge school of giant barracuda, some very cool anenome dwelling crabs, a species of angel fish I'd never seen before, and a moray eel. The 2nd dive was the best wall dive I had ever done. Huge fan corals, little caves to explore, the wall dropping indefinitely down to the depths of the ocean. At the end of the dive we ran into a large group of japanese divers. We had quite a lot of fun watching our dive guide laugh at and imitate the japanese divers. Had a fun ride back to Panglao sitting on the bow and bouncing up and down in the large surf as the boat raced back towards Alona.

That afternoon we chartered a banca pumpboat to siquijor island after I had climbed a coconut tree to get us 3 coconuts for a snack. Siquijor is known for its magic, mystery, abundant fire flies (the spaniards called it isla de fuego b/c of the glow given off by the fireflies), medicine men, and mysticism. In fact all the no siquijoran filipinos we talked to told us to definitely not go th siquijor b/c it is a haunted bad place full of spirits...all the more reason to go! Siquijor was a great place though. Very quiet, hardly any touristm, nice beaches, jungle interior, and some of the nicest people in the philippines thus far. The banca we hired landed on some random beach. We had planned to walk to this one budget resort, but a man on the beach said he had a cousin who had a house for us to rent cheaply. Thus we were introduced to Tata and Edwin (edwin is a proud retired policeman, aged 48, who loves basketball, singing, and cockfighting). The were able to hook us up with a nice two-storey house for only 10 bucks for the 3 of us. That night we joined with Tata, Edwin and their various cousins and neighbors for some karaoke and drinking. You could buy a liter of coconut wine for 16cents. Siquijor had some of the cheapest prices. Besides that we got a liter of beer for 80cents, a kilo of bananas for 15 cents, and fish tempura for 6cents.

The next day we rented motorbikes in Larena to circumnavigate the island (72kms around, plus roads to the interior). We originally were going to bicycle around it, but figured it would take too long considering we still had other places we wanted to see in the PI. Our moto tour was quite cool though. We just packed light and headed off. The first day we got to a beautiful white sand beach where we hung out, listened to some music, and snorkeled. We then drove inland up the mountain into the forest to San Antonio where the infamous healers (medicine men) are. We met with one and had a little bit of his 200+ herb potion that is made during holy week. On siquijor they kind of mix Catholicism with animism. It was beginning to get dark so we rode down to where our map said there were some beaches near San Jose as we had planned on sleeping on the beach. The beaches weren't exactly public, but one of the hotels said we could sleep on their beach if need be. We decided to check out a bit more. We stopped for some tempura at this one house and they said they knew a person who would give us a good deal at a house. We went to check out the house and it was amazing. Really nice and overlooking the ocean. Lucas and Sari took a room for 8 dollars and I slept on a very comfortable hammock on the deck with the ocean breeze for a buck. Turns out the house is a vacation home of some australian room and the caretaker of the place was just making some money renting it out to us, which is why we could get it so cheap (nearby resorts were charging from between 30 dollars and 50 dollars for bungalows). That night the family who had helped us find the place cooked us the food we bought at a little store and then we had some beers down on the beach. In the morning we shared breakfast with the caretaker and a couple of his friends and enjoyed the ocean view

After breakfast we headed off again on the motos, though it would have been nice to stay as one of the caretaker's friends is a chef and was going to make fresh fish curry. We first stopped by at a century old tree that is apparently haunted. Then we visited an old church and the oldest convent in Asia. After that we drove inland to a really amazing 3 tiered waterfall. The water was a beautiful turquoise color and so incredibly warm that you could just swim in it forever. We had a good time jumping off the waterfall into the glorious water below and feasting on the 2 kilos of bananas I had bought at the market. Definitely one of the best swimming and jumping falls I have been to thus far. After that we drove to an area with some nice beaches nestled in rocky coves. We did some snorkelling and I had some fun jumping of a pretty high cliff jutting into the ocean. After that we got on the motos and headed to find a beach to sleep on. Again, the same thing. No really good place to sleep on the beach, but we ran into a caretaker at a fancy resort that was closed and we got some very nice ocean view bungalows for 3 dollars. He originally wanted 15 dollars, but we had all the bargaining power and we knew it, b/c we knew that since he was just the caretaker, he would make all the money from whatever we paid. We said we'd only stay for 3 dollars each otherwise we'd move on. If he said no, then he missed out on 9 dollars, so of course he eventually said yes. That night we took the motorcycles up to near the top of the island in the interior of siquijor looking for fireflies. Unfortunately we didn't see too many b/c it was a very bright, near full moon. However, it was pretty cool nonetheless b/c the moon made it spooky, we got some nice view from the top in the moonlight and we were able to glide all the way back down to the coast with no headlights and the motos off in stealth mode the whole way. That next morning we went out and explored the beach and tidal pools a bit and just watched the ocean from the veranda.

That afternoon we took a ferry from Siquijor town to Dumaguette on Negros Island. Dumaguette is a really cool college town that has a nice oceanfront blvd and path with huge trees and good views as well as a nice central square. Unfortunately I wasted the whole afternoon dealing with airline tickets and travel stuff. I have a liveaboard divetrip scheduled for the 14th leaving from Batangas near manila so I need to be up there by then. It's a kind of expensive trip so I don't want to risk missing it. I found out there's really no direct busses to manila and the ferry is only once weekely so travel time with busses and ferries would take at least 2 days if I made all the connections. I went around everywhere asking people and travel agents before I foudn out there were no direct busses or ferries. So I ended up having to book a flight, which isn't the end of the world b/c it only costs 40 bucks and lets me spend more time with Lucas and Sari on Negros. The more upsetting thing was I needed to change the date of my cebu pacific flight from manila to bangkok, b/c I had had to wait until I got to a big enough city with a cebu office. If you remember I had been forced to buy a roundtrip ticket when I was at the bangkok airport as per new rules on PI immigration so I had only guessed when I'd come back. They had told me it would cost 40 bucks to change the ticket at a later time, but when I went to do this I was going to have to pay 160 bucks b/c of fair increases and such!! So I ended up canceling my flight, which means I'll get refunded 35 dollars of the 80 dollars I paid, and I was going to go just completely book a new flight b/c it would be cheaper. Well I was on cebu's website and I booked my dumaguette to manila flight just fine, but it wouldn't accept my credit card for the next flight I was booking from MNL to BKK (I found it for $150). I stayed up very late trying to fix this with no luck, so I was very discouraged about money and booking when I went to bed that night b/c I figured the tickets would go up again even the next day as they tend to get more expensive each day. So today I went to the booking office in dumaguette since my credit card wouldn't go through, and it's amazing how ones karma can change so quickly...when I asked them to book it for me, expecting to pay at least 150, they said, oh, there is a promotion for today, you can book for only 40 dollars!!! That was a huge relief (and money saver!) So thank God for that.

Today we caught a jeepney up to Valencia and then rode a motorbike and then walked to a waterfall. It was quite impressive. Hidden away in dense jungle and over 100 feet high with powerful surging water coming down. The water was very cold, but we still swam and even found some cliffs in the pool to jump off of. We relaxed at the falls for a bit and I munched on mangos (I had bought 4 for 80 cents at the market this morning). We made it back to dumaguette fairly early so we went around to get some shakes and icecream and then to a supermarket to get some cheap food. I bought a liter of milk and downed the whole thing right then as I hadn't had milk in such a long time and was craving it. I searched around in about 5 shoe shops and several department stores in the mall and even a nike and adidas store in the mall but couldn't find any sandals that fit me. Nor could I find any at the local market...so I'm unfortunately still sandaless!

Tonight we all got hour massages for 4 bucks including aromatic oils and hot showers. It was by far the best massage I have had yet in Asia, and when we got out, we were all so relaxed we could hardly move.

Wunderbar! ..and bigfoot

My last day on Siargao Island I went for a little surf in the morning. Then we all headed out to the flying fox run by the german treasure hunter Victor. He had an eat all you can buffet for 4 bucks, and we were all excited for some different food. 4 bucks is pretty expensive for us here, so we made sure we got our money's worth, and you can be sure we did! It was so very tasty, and we kept coming up for more. Lots of good german food and some filipino food too. Fresh pork, fresh mahi mahi, bratwurst, german chicken, german pancakes, real bread, mangoes, other fruits, mushroom stew, pasta. Yum yum yum! Mom you would have loved it with all the german food and the crazy german guy and bavarian music playing in the background.

After feasting for over 2 hours we headed off to watch a cock fight. We could hardly walk!

The next day began an epic couple days of travel. We left cloud 9 at 3:45am to walk the 4km to general luna b/c a moto was way to expensive at that time of day. From GL we took a trike to dapa where we caught the 5:45 ferry to Surigao. From Surigao we were told we could go to Butuan to catch a ferry to Bohol. We took a bus fo 3 hours there. When we got there, we found out the ferry didn't leave for 2 more days. So Lucas got a quick haircut and shave and I loaded up on tasty fruit at the market (mangoes, pineapple, rambotan, mangosteen, and bananas) before taking the bus ride back to Surigao. When we got to Surigao they told us to go to this one port, but when we got there it was the wrong one, so we had to take a jeepney to another one. We had missed the 3:30pm ferry to Liloan (we had been told it left at 7pm), so we had to wait for the 11:30 ferry. We arrived in Liloan on Leyte around 4am where we caught a bus to Sorsogon. From Sorsogon we took a bus to Bato. From Bato we took the 9am ferry to Ubay on Bohol and then a bus to Carmen and then another bus to Loboc, arriving there around 3pm. We then had to walk the last 1km to Nuts Huts retreat where we are staying. A definitely long and exhausting journey.

Nuts huts is an awesome little place. Away from everything in the jungle right next to a blue river. It's very relaxing...full of jungle sounds, hammocks, and greenery. Last night we walked into Loboc which is about 4km away for some internet as lucas is applying for a job. Loboc has the 2nd oldest church in the philippines. We finished the night slurping on mangos down by the dock.

Today after a breakfast of fresh yoghurt and bread, we took a hike up through the jungle to 2 pretty impressive and large caves full of bats. It was a nice and sweaty hike for sure. When we got done we were ready for some lunch and as the food is too expensive at nuts huts we headed back to Loboc. It's only about 2.5km if you go by river from nuts huts to loboc, so I swam the whole way into town. A nice and refreshing (and non-sweaty) way to get into town!

I broke my flip flop sandals about 2 weeks ago, which is not surprising considering I use them everyday all day and am often carrying a heavy pack, going through mud, etc. But I have been unable to find any sandals here that fit my size 13 feet! I have been searching for 2 weeks now and have only found size 11, but way too narrow so far.