Boracay Getaway {Deetour}

After four long months of waiting, July 8 finally rolled around and found me and four of my housemates headed for Kalibo inside a Cebu Pacific airplane.

It didn’t start out well, though. Since it’s July and not exactly summer, it was raining on the morning of our departure, that’s why during the first part of our trip, Maya, Gay and I held hands, closed our eyes and prayed as the plane bounced and swooped in a thunderstorm. It felt like a roller coaster in EK, with my stomach’s insides plunging — only worse, because here, the fear is real.

Eventually it stopped raining and I was able to take a pretty picture through the window, and while my back was turned, Maya and Zenie each won a shoulder bag from the airplane “show me” game.

Upon touching down in Kalibo, our friends from Zamboanga, who had flown on an earlier flight, met us at the airport. We had a pre-arranged transfer package with Southwest, so we followed the guy bearing my name on his signboard and boarded a bus bound for Caticlan.

After two hours, we had arrived, and this time we rode a ferry to Boracay itself. So to get there, we had to travel via air, land, and sea ! ✈️🚌🚣

Once in Boracay, we were brought to our resort, Villa de Oro, in station 2. The family room which we paid for was composed of two floors. The living room and bathroom below was connected by a winding staircase to the bedroom above. Not exactly top rate, but then again, what did we expect from P1,600 for two nights?

After a bit of freshening up, we set off to find food. While trekking through the island, I realized why people compare it to Puerto Galera. They are pretty similar, except that Boracay is way bigger. Covering the entire three stations is probably like walking though the entire Mall of Asia or something.

Eventually we reached D’Mall and started looking for Smoke, a food place that Chu had read about on the net. It supposedly served delicious yet affordable food. Indeed, you can go as low as P50 per set meal, which is not bad at all. I liked the taste of my Spanish Salpicado, which the waiter recommended, though the beef itself was not tender enough to my liking.

After dinner, we decided to get henna tattooes. Chu used his bargaining powers to get the price down to P80/tattoo. After much deliberation, I decided to get the rose design instead of the Superman logo.

Then, ensuring that our still wet tattooes wouldn’t get smudged, we had a LONG walk towards station 1, thinking that Jonah’s shakes would still be open. But it was closed already, so we headed for Cocomangas instead.

Cocomangas is one of the more popular bars in the island. We sat down on pillows around a low table and ordered a huge pizza (the best on the island — so it claims) and cocktails. In order to try everyone’s different cocktails, we played 1-2-3 pass and passed our drinks around the table, taking a sip of each drink that came our way. It was funny to watch everyone make a face after each new sip.

Then we paid the bill and hit the dance floor at Chu’s initiation. After about an hour, we were exhausted and decided to go home and hit the bed.

The next morning we had complimentary breakfast in our resort’s restaurant. Then Chu made a deal with one of the boaters to take us island hopping for P1,700.

After changing and slathering ourselves with sunblock, we bought our lunch from the wet market, then rode tricycles to the docks. We pushed off to sea, and after a few minutes, reached and anchored near Crocodile Island (an island that is shaped like a crocodile), where we donned life vests and snorkeling gear and jumped into the water to gawk at the underwater world world, disposable cameras hanging round our necks.

We had brought some bread, and we took pieces of these and held them in our fingers to feed to the fishes. Chu and Rodel and I were so intent on taking pictures that when we resurfaced, we realized we had been carried by the current far far away from our boat. What followed was the very difficult ordeal of attempting to swim back to the boat against the current. Halfway through, we gave up, and the boatman had to come get us with a mini-boat.

Our next stop was the Crystal Cove, where the boatman cooked our food for lunch. While waiting, we explored caves 1 and 2, led by two very energetic guides.

In cave 1, the water level was so deep, but there was a rope tied from the cave to the rock in the open where we could sit down and have our picture taken.

One of the guides offered to take us snorkeling, and since we had left our life vests on the boat, we had to rely on his swimming skills, and we jokingly said that the theme song for this event is “Let Me Be Your Fins” (parody of Thumbelina’s “Let Me Be Your Wings”). It was way more beautiful there than at the first snorkeling stop. The water was clearer and the aquatic life was prettier.

After that, they also took us to cave 2, where we had to walk through a small tunnel to get to the other side. The tunnel was short, we had to hunch over to half our height to prevent our heads from hitting the ceilings. At the end of the tunnel was the sea, and this one was shallow enough for us to be able to navigate without need of a rope.

We swam for a bit before realizing that our stomachs were growling. So we walked back to the dining area of the resort. The food was not yet quite ready, so when I saw dozens of pigeons fluttering about, I had the idea of feeding them with the leftover bread. Chu and I plucked some and threw them on the ground, and the birds gleefully swooped down and gobbled them up.

After a moment, we were surprised to see that a duck had also found its way to the feeding area. It was so funny seeing that duck with the identity crisis, and funnier still when we realized that one of the tiny birds was actually a half-grown chicken.

Finally, it was our turn to feed when the boatman served our lunch of rice, grilled fish, roasted chicken and green mango with shrimp paste. We were so hungry, we devoured everything so fast.

The last island stop was the cove, and so our boat headed back to Boracay’s main land. Once there, our boatman asked us if we wanted to ride a banana boat. Everyone was game at P200/person.

We strapped on our life vests and sat down on the floating colorful banana, clinging to the straps on the seats. We told the boatman that we wanted to be thrown over only once before he pulled us behind his speedboat. Once we got on the water, though, we realized that we wanted to get thrown over twice.

After that, Chu really wanted to try the fly fish, which is a similar ride to the banana boat, only more exciting and more expensive at P450/person. Zenie and Maya didn’t want to go, so they ended up riding on the speedboat, while the rest of us found ourselves straddling a floating flyfish. Gay and I were in the middle, with me behind her.

Then off we were, and at first I thought it was a boring ride until the boat speeded up and we found ourselves perpendicular to the sea.

It felt like flying, and unlike the banana boat where you let go of your grip once you feel the banana tip over, our instructions were to never let go no matter what happens.

I got unseated twice, but since I had a solid grip on the handles, I didn’t get thrown into the sea. In the end, Rona got thrown off, and she pulled Rodel down with her. Wow, that was exciting!

Afterwards we walked back to our house, showered, and headed to the shore for some pictorials.

Then we went on another long walk to station 1 where thankfully, Jonah’s shakes was still open. We each had their bestselling choco banana peanut shakes except for Rodel, who hates chocolate-flavored food.

After that we went to D’Mall to buy some souvenirs then had dinner in the most expensive restaurant in the island, Mango-Ray. We were all so exhausted that some of us fell asleep infront of the table.

On the way to the house, we had pictures taken with a sandcastle.

Then it was off to bed because we had an early trip the next day.

Yep, Boracay was definitely a trip worth remembering and worth doing over. Anybody wanna go back there with me?