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Warning: This will be a long email, so if you want to just scroll down
to the pictures first (we know you always do) we won't be offended.
Hello from Paradise! We've finally made it to the beach, and we can safely say it was worth
it all to get here. We left Cebu a week ago on "Weesam Ferry" to
Tagbilaran, Bohol, a smaller island. We arrived in Tagbilaran and took
a bus through jungle and pleasant little villages on our way to Nuts
Huts, a resort on the river that had been highly recommended to us by
Lonely Planet. The bus was supposed to drop us off at a boat dock
where a pumpboat would take us up the "Mighty Loboc" river, but
neither the bus driver nor the people we asked really knew where it
was, so we ended up being dropped off by the side of the road at the
beginning of a rough trail marked "750 meters to Nuts Huts." 750
meters is not far, unless you are travelling with two large rolling
suitcases, a heavy backpack, and a baby (we had left the frame
backpacks we originally brought in Manila because we thought rolling
suitcases would be easier to travel with. Yes, the joke's on us). By
the time we had bumped and dragged ourselves and our luggage to the
top of a steep winding staircase down to Nuts Huts, the larger of our
two suitcases had been completely destroyed and the smaller one was
not far behind. The Belgian hippy proprietor of Nuts Huts welcomed us
cordially, and commented placidly that he had never seen people try to
roll in luggage before. We dragged our bags down the rest of the steps
and settled into our picturesque nipa hut on the river. As we drifted
off to sleep, the jungle awoke around us, and we could hear an
orchestra of insects and other inhabitants serenading us through the
trees. When we woke the following morning we had experienced enough
authentic living with mosquitos and spiders, so we decided to relax
and then leave the next day. That night it rained all night and
continued in the morning, so we slogged up a hundred slippery stairs
to the charming outdoor restaurant and watched the tropical rains come
down around us from hammocks on the porch. Axa loved swinging back and
forth in a hammock, and she even fell asleep long enough for mommy and
daddy to have a nice dinner without the customary juggling act
required to keep her from grabbing anything within her now
considerable reach.
By midday the rain had slowed down enough to make leaving possible.
This time we took the pumpboat, first up the river to the falls, and
then down to a spring that created a delicious natural swimming hole.
The river was high and chocolatey from the recent rains, but where the
spring came up off to the side, it turned turquoise blue and
brilliantly translucent. We could not resist the opportunity for a
swim, so we changed in the boat, and Axa played with the boatman while
we jumped in and frolicked in the water, with a light drizzle still
pattering around us.
We left the boat and entered a jeepney crammed with people along both
facing benches to go back to Bohol's capital city of Tagbilaran. Just
when we thought the jeepney had reached its extreme limit of capacity,
the driver produced several stools which the unfortunate passengers
who entered last were required to balance between their legs as they
swayed back and forth between full benches of people. From Tagbilaran,
we took a long, hot, slow, noisy, bumpy ride on a motorcycle sidecar
to Panglao Island, which is connected to the main island of Bohol by a
land bridge. We arrived at Alona Beach in the midafternoon, and the
sun came out over the white sand and the sparkling ocean.
We were led by one of the insistently helpful locals to a resort
called "Charlotte's Divers," where Tony negotiated such a good price
that the staff decided they needed to confirm it with the absent
manager. They sent him a text message and told us it was fine, so we
moved in with our bags (which yes, we had dragged over several meters
of sand to get there) and went to get some lunch at a beachside
restaurant. However, a few minutes later, the person who had shown us
the resort came up and sheepishly told us that the manager had arrived
and was very upset. We went back to the resort to find him, hands on
hips, lecturing the staff and taking their tips. He was a very irate
Korean who spoke almost no English and seemed to be angry at the whole
world, but especially at us and his staff. He looked ready to throw us
all out, and insisted that there would be no discount. His interpreter
and the two hotel staff were standing around looking mortally
embarrassed (this was all an extreme breach of normal Filipino
etiquette, which always treads on eggshells around anything that could
in any conceivable way embarrass anyone). We were more amused than
anything at the way he was carrying on. With a little
judicious diplomacy on Tony's part, he eventually calmed down and
agreed to let us stay there at something between the normal rate and
Tony's discount. Still, we elected to find another place, reasoning that at
least we wouldn't lie awake at night wondering if our volatile host
would come pounding on our door in the middle of the night and demand
that we leave or pay exorbitant fees.
We were glad we left, because we were cordially welcomed at Isis
Bungalows, where we settled in to a lovely bright hexagon with three
sides of big sliding glass windows facing the beach. Thus it was, that
when Grandma Familia called as Tony and Axa were playing in the sand
on the beach and Sarah was swimming in the crystal clear water, and
asked if we could possibly come home early (yes, that's the phone call
pictured below), she was doomed to disappointment. Most of our time
on Alona (our beach on Panglao Island) was consumed in romantic walks
along the beach, swimming, and eating at our favorite beachside
restaurant, Trudy's Place. We liked it because of the excellent food,
reasonable prices, and waitresses who didn't mind at all when our baby
fussed, and in fact entertained her whenever she seemed less than
content.
While staying on Alona Beach, we traveled inland to see a health
clinic sponsored by "Vaccines for the Philippines," a foundation
organized by some BYU and U of U students who raised $30,000 selling
rubberband bracelets at U of U games to buy medicine for the people of
Bohol and then came over with their families and friends to distribute
it. We'd met them when we went to church in Tagbilaran. We expected to
be the only Americans there, and instead were surprised to find that
half the congregation that week turned out to be Caucasian and from
Utah.
On Friday we decided to take the "Choco Tour" of Bohol, so named
because it ends in the island of Bohol's most famous attraction: the
Chocolate Hills. We hired a gregarious driver named Jojo and set off
in a car with windows tinted like a limo all the way round, even the
windshield. The first stop on the tour was the Hinagdanon Cave, a
spooky, somewhat brackish pool housed by a cavern filled with swallows
nests and bats. Sunbeams let in through multiple outlets to the sky
lend the cave a mystic quality and help to illuminate the dramatic
stalactites dripping from the ceiling.
The historical portion of the tour covered the "Sandugo," which marks
the place where Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (Spanish conquistador
extraordinaire) and Rajah Sikatuna (chieftan of Bohol) reputedly each
drank a cup of each other's blood to cement an early Hispano-Filipino
peace accord. Whether it was a barbaric native practice or a barbaric
Spanish practice we're not sure. Next we visited the massive stone
church in Baclayon, built in 1596 and covered all over in fine green
lichen. There is a museum attached, full of amazingly well-preserved
garb worn by the priests, massive old latin hymnals, and assorted
religious relics, buried in millimeters of dust. We're not sending any
pictures because we weren't allowed to take them.
The road we were taking then left the coast and dived into the lush
interior of Bohol. Along the Loboc River we reached the site we were
most looking forward to seeing: Bohol's tiny mascot, the tarsier.
Although the tarsier is the world's smallest primate, he is probably
not among the more intelligent, since each of his eyes is larger than
his entire brain. Intellectual prowess aside, words are inadequate to
describe the sheer cuteness of the tarsier. However, his cuteness to
intelligence ratio may have something to do with his status as an
endangered species. Needless to say, the tarsier's meeting with our
own little tarsier involved a lot of staring on both sides.
When we had stared our fill at the tarsiers (not knowing if Axa was
done), we continued on our way, pausing to cross the Indiana
Jonesesque hanging bridge to the accompaniment of a typical sappy
Filipino rendering of "Yesterday" by a young guitarist. An almost
surreal twist in the road led us into the man-made forest, a large
planting of mahogany trees that for a few hundred meters turns the
tropical jungle into a copy of the California coastal forest. As we
continued inland, we came upon rice fields just at planting time. The
planters were happy to show us their work. The rice is first seeded in
a small area. When it has filled that area with a beautiful lush green
it is pulled up and separated into clumps. Each clump is then
painstakingly replanted far enough apart to allow the rice to grow.
The result is an entire rich field of rice from just a few seeds.
We were nearly to the Chocolate Hills. Jojo explained to us how they
had been formed. Two giants loved the same woman (we can only assume
she was also a giantess). They fought a fantastic battle all over
Bohol, until one was finally vanquished. The winner went off with the
girl, and the loser's tears fell on the ground and calcified into the
startlingly shaped hills. We are told that in summertime the foliage
on them dies, making them look like huge chocolate kisses. They were
still green when we arrived. We had planned to reach them just before
sunset, when our guidebook had assured us they would be at their
prettiest, but we arrived a good two or three hours early. We climbed
to the lookout point, took some pictures, and sat down to wait it out.
We eventually decided it wasn't worth the wait, so the picture you see
is not of the chocolate hills at sunset. You will notice that Axa is
very pleased. She is gleefully demonstrating with her fingers how much
time is left until sunset.
Saturday we got up at 5:30 to go out dolphin watching and island
hopping. We went out in a little boat and we watched and watched, but
no dolphins were forthcoming. We did, however, visit the island of
Balicasag, where we went snorkeling and took pictures with our
disposable underwater camera. We also landed on Virgin Island, after
circling the whole island in our boat. It is mostly beach, and
inhabited only by ghost crabs and a few coconut palms. When we boarded
the boat to return to Panglao, the engine made only ominous sputtering
sounds when the boatman tried to start it. After several tries, he
said, "sira" which Tony translated to me as "broken." Starkly
confronted by the hopelessly cliche-ish probability of being stranded
on a desert island, we looked at each other and shrugged. But the
boatman gave one last mighty pull, and the engine roared to life, so
our trip concluded relatively uneventfully.
We slept on Alona Beach for the last time last night, and we're now
back in Cebu City, before we head for Malapascua Island tomorrow
morning. We hope you are all doing well and enjoying your summer.
We'll see you in a month or so!
Love,
Tony, Sarah and Axa
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Baclayan Church and "Blood Compact" site |
loboc river and hinagdanan cave |
Axa measuring the Chocolate hills |
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our room at Isis Bungalows |
the mighty loboc river |
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talking with grandma familia on the phone |
the stages of rice |
notice the dog-faced puffer |
tarsierland |
Trudy's |
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