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.