Back from vacation in Boracay in the Philippines and we all loved it. Boracay is a 7km long, 1km wide island in the middle of the Philippine archipelago (archipelago was our word of the week), so it is protected from the open ocean and made for calm and warm waters. The sand on the main beach (called White Beach) was soft and powdery...
White Beach is 3KM long and there is an uninterrupted strand that runs the length of it. The strand is pedestrian only and is lined with the hotels, shops and restaurants. Of course there was a Starbucks.
But the big find was a Shakey's located right next to our hotel. Shakey's was huge in my youth, first being the place the baseball teams would go have pizza after games, and later as a place to load up with food during Bunch-a-Lunch in my poorer days. Had to have a meal there for nostalgic purposes.
The bulk of the tourists were Asians; Japanese, Chinese and Koreans mostly. The Koreans were funny as they brought their own kimchi along and broke it out at their breakfast tables to mix in with the hotel's buffet. As is their custom, they all performed and endless series of pose-a-thons for the camera with obligatory flashing peace signs and jumping photos. There were a decent amount of Westerners sprinkled into the crowd and we heard many Australian and European accents. We seemed to set up our beach chairs next to these two girls daily for some reason.
Betty made friends with them and learned they came from Russia. They stood out from the crowd so much that a parade of Asian dudes would come up and ask to take pictures with them. We were a little more discreet.
As the beach faced west, watching the sunsets became a daily routine.
The reason I included this picture is I wanted to share a comment that our friend Patrick posted on Facebook about it..."Nice camera work. Very hard to get a picture of both the sun and the moon in a single shot"
The only mild bummer about the beach was the daily algae bloom. There was a 2 meter wide slick of algae between the beach and the blue water that you would have to walk through. Wasn't really that bad as the stuff was not thick or clingy, and had the smell of a new tennis ball. Plus, it provided hours of entertainment as we would ball it up and chuck at one another, and of course create some performance art.
One afternoon, we hired one of these local boats for a 4 hour ride around the island.
We stopped for snorkeling and also at Puka Beach. Puka Beach is one off the few places left where natural
puka shells are found.
I had to buy a necklace, David Cassidy style.
We sailed by Manny Paquiao's resort...they so love that guy.
And were gassed by the end of the ride (note the puka necklace).
Another afternoon, we went to the north end of the island to see what's what. The north end is the rugged side and has the highest point on the island. We rented ATV's and a dune buggy.
Betty proceeded to immediately drive into the bushes.
It was terribly funny at the time, but when we got home, we learned that one of the teacher's at school on vacation on another local island rode her scooter off of a cliff and died. Sorry for the bummer, but it's a reminder not to get too nonchalant.
The view from the top of the hill was a full 360 and simply gorgeous.
From the ATV place, we went up the road to the zip line joint. Turns out, only Paul had done a short zip line before on a school trip, and the one we went to looked really long and both the operators and equipment looked a bit sketchy, but we all agreed to go for it...still in our nonchalant phase. We went two at a time and Paul asked why we chose to go one parent and one child at a time, and Betty told him it would be bad for the kids to lose both parents in an accident. So reassuring.
The operators of the line offered to let the local dude that was taking us around on the excursions to ride down first so he could take photos of us as we came down. As they were strapping him in, he looked a little giddy and we asked if he'd ever done it before, and he said it was his first time. Off he went, and when we got to the bottom, he wasn't there. Apparently, he smashed his face into the harness and cut himself open enough to go to the hospital. Luckily, we didn't know that till we had zipped down. They really don't prepare you well enough mentally for the "automatic" breaking system, which consisted of a series of 2x4's that the pully rig basically crashes into to slow down. It felt like a mild car accident but we all escaped unharmed, although Betty has been complaining of whiplash since.
The mode of transportation on the island is called a Tuk Tuk, which is a 150cc mortorcycle with a sidecar attached.
A tight squeeze for a family of 4 but still a fun way to travel.
The food we encountered was a mixed bag...other than Shakey's, we thought the local treat called a
Halo-Halo was pretty gross. Sounds better in that description that what we sampled, which was basically crushed ice and jelly beans. We did find a restaurant that we loved...a Spanish joint called Dos Mestizos...that Betty and I both thought was the best Spanish food we have ever eaten. Had a handful of typical tapas (the Spanish Tortilla and albondigas were standouts), a couple of soups and the best paella ever. Was so delicious that we went back a second time.
That's it for today. Since I like to judge things immediately and with limited information, I will provide my observations on the Philippines and Filipinos tomorrow.
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