Wanderlust Heaven!

There’s more to Puerto Galera than meets the eye…not that what meets the eye is that bad, as you’ve heard and seen from last week’s post. I took a ride to the west, from Sabang, to check out the rest of the area. Puerto Galera town was nothing special – although the harbor itself was picturesque and the yacht club that overlooks it is probably a nice spot to sink a few beers as the sun sets.

But the beaches to the west were far better…White Beach was a solid beach with blue waters and plenty of lodging and food joints…and Talipanan Beach was just beautiful, a fairly short stretch of white sand with aquablue seas and not much else…just a couple hotels and a great little Italian café, Luka’s, which has great pizza and pasta, and sits right at the foot of the High Rolling Mountains. Lodged right in there between mountain and sea…a fine place to spend a few days after diving like mad. Next time I come back, that’s my plan – dive for 4-5 days non-stop, then ‘decompress’ on Talipanan and do very little. The motorized trike/tuk-tuk that brought me to Talipanan couldn’t make it back up the rocky road…so I had to get out and walk the short stretch up the hill. First time I’ve had to do that without snow on the ground…

A few shots of these beaches…certainly proves that Puerto Galera is not just for divers. Mea culpa!

On Saturday I concluded my diving at PG with a group boat trip, with Team Britain, out to Verde Island, a famed dive locale that requires a special trip on a largish boat. We dove the same spot twice – called The Pinnacles, it’s a wall drop-off that has challenging currents – at one point we were all holding on to a piece of hard coral, trying not to get blown out in the nether deeps…had to turn back and admit defeat. But the underwater environment was stunning and it was well worth the trip out there. Check it out:

Laura had her dive portfolio with her and showed me her dive insurance and PADI cards.  I decided to get off my lazy ass and sign up for those two outfits.  And I actually followed up within a few days and did so!

Had a ‘farewell dinner’ that night with the Brits – went to Bondi seafood restaurant, which had great crabs. But they tend to overcook the fish and the tuna we ordered came out like a tennis ball – way too chewy and dry. Complained and on the 2nd attempt it came out right – but by that point we were all exhausted from the diving and drinking and we parted ways soon afterwards. Enjoyed hanging out with this gang and will stay in touch with a few of them…

Had a drink after that with Vera, who works in a restaurant I frequented in PG. She’s from Masbate Island, a rural place that has a cowboy rodeo every year – apparently there are Filipino cowboys too. But somehow I doubt that Brokeback Mountain made as many waves there as overseas…

Vera’s cool and we get along well…quite well. We’ve been flirting since I met here. Will probably miss her when I move on…

Called it an early night as had to get up at 5 a.m. Sunday to travel to Boracay, a place I’ve long wanted to visit. The overland trip is grueling – involves taking a jeepney from Sabang to the provincial capital of Calapan (2 hours), switching to another jeepney to Roxas (2-3 hours), taking a boat to Caticlan (4 hours), a small ferry to Boracay island (10 minutes), and finally a trike to White Beach (5 minutes). And that’s pretty much what I did…although had to transfer jeepneys twice to get to Roxas, adding 30 minutes to the total). And there were a few delays along the way…so entire journey took 12-13 hours. Was nearly shattered by the time I reached my hotel in Boracay. Went right for a swim and that made things better.

Boracay has been called the longest happy hour in the world. The main beach, White Beach (how imaginative…but I suppose it works) is probably 4-5 km long…packed with bars, bars, bars, restaurants, hotels, tattoo parlors, etc. I was pleased to notice that The Hobbit House, the Manila mainstay, is also here. ‘The Smallest Waiters in the World!’ show cannot be stop, it seems. The entire place is an experiential overload – endless options for eating, drinking, diving (30+ dive shops here), you name it. But somehow the place has kept its underlying beauty and sense of fun – even though the commercial aspect is ascendant. A couple shots for your viewing pleasure – more to come bext week:

Still, I might prefer Puerto Galera. The combination of hard-core diving (Boracay’s is just decent – more on that shortly) in Sabang, followed by a do-nothing beach like Talipanan, is probably more my style than having everything right there, laid out along a 3-mile beach. But really, why be picky? Both places are very cool.

Lots of Internet cafés here, some with wireless – was able to catch up on my emails and download a bit of 24 as well. I’ll be caught up this this season a few months after it ends. That’s not too bad, given my wanderings.

Didn’t take long to realize that Boracay is a ‘couple-y’ sort of place. There are places to meet and pick up members of the opposite sex, but it does seem that most people here are with families/lovers. Went to a few of the ‘singles bars’ and music clubs/nightclubs, but only managed to go home with my various personalities, no others. Was resigned to having the solo experience here for the balance…which is OK, but given that so many of the restaurants are nice affairs right on the beach, with torches and white tablecloths (and nice wine), it would be good to have an attractive companion. So I decided to invite Vera from Puerto Galera. Called her up…she sounded surprised, but intrigued. Said she’d see if she could escape from work…she hadn’t been to Boracay before…wanted to see it…finally called me later that night and said she was coming and would set off next day. It took her a day and a half to get here…she got stuck in Roxas for the night. But Filipinas are hardy folk and I wasn’t worried about her.

In the meantime, I went diving. Wasn’t sure which of the 30+ outfits to go with, but my new Manila friend Bettina recommended a shop at the far north end of the beach. Called them up and booked a couple dives. Enjoyed ‘em immensely – first was on a wreck called the Camia II. This ship, only submerged for 5 years and resting upright in 28 meters of water, was found floating without a crew in the ‘Pirate Alley’ between Indonesia, Malaysia and the RP some years ago. After much red tape Boracay dive operators got ahold of it and sank it to create a dive spot here. Good wreck to check out. Second dive was at Friday’s Rock, a series of coral reefs with lots of small wildlife – lionfish, boxfish, moray eels, Moorish idols, snappers, and nudibranches. The diving was certainly not as good as Puerto Galera’s, but more than sufficient. Will go back in a few days to dive Yapak, the premier divespot here, and perhaps 1-2 others.

This is probably an obvious statement, but I’ve gotten heavily into diving while here. Before I was a real punter – 5-10 dives/year, that was about it, despite being in the midst of some of the world’s best spots here in Asia-Pacific. But being in the RP for such a good strech of time has hooked me…this country probably has both the most and the best divespots in the world…and I’m going to dive a lot more of them in coming months. And I will probably get my advanced diving certificate this time round.

While waiting for Vera to show up, had some time to kick back and do a little (very little) thinking. One thing I’ve noticed since leaving Manila is how much simpler life has become. My dayplanner (Treo) is much less full of tasks – now there are only 2-3 things per day, and those include diving and making travel plans, hardly the most annoying tasks to hit. Being in cities makes me a little crazy, I guess – I’m always adding things to do and while they’re necessary (e.g., getting mefloquine for malaria prevention in future locales), they’re not much fun and they tend to swallow the entire day. Being on the beach, or in the mountains, or under water, lets you blow off those things…of course, they don’t really vanish and thus when you are able to do them, they’re stacked up like cordwood.

Vera finally got here yesterday morning. She was beat from the trip (Roxas-Caticlan boat trip was 2-6 a.m.), so she slept for a few hours. Then we went for a nice long swim, relaxed on the hammock at the hotel, and had an early dinner and drinks at the wonderfully-named Hey Jude (esp. pertinent given that it’s Holy Week here). Went back to the hotel fairly early to listen to some music and……………………………………………………………………………………..

What else to relate…have noticed that some of the restaurants and hotels here still aren’t busy, despite this being one of the busiest weeks of the year. I’ll bet some commercial turnover is coming up after this week – the place is overbuilt and shows no signs of calming down.

Got a comment on my Slog from an old fraternity brother, Eric Steiner, he of the chicken in the library story. Haven’t heard from or seen Eric in close to 20 years, since we graduated from Tufts. Somehow he found my Slog and saw the chicken story, in which he was a key player. Eric, were you Googling yourself? I always suspected you of being self-referential (and self-reverential), but this may be proof…

For some reason I had a flashback to my weeks in Boston earlier this year – specifically, to a visit I paid to Jack’s Joke Shop in Chinatown. Jack’s has been around for scores of years and sells masks, teeth black-out, whoopee cushions, those sorts of things. Noticed it while walking around Chinatown in January…went in to see if they had any Richard Nixon masks. I used to have one…once came out of my apartment on Malborough Street wearing it and hopped into Charles Collier’s waiting car. He didn’t bat an eye. We rode around Boston with it on…walked around a bit…that got some stares. Well, Jack’s is finally going out of business…not much was left in there. No Nixon masks. Walked out feeling a bit sad – when I was a kid my father and I went in there (different location back then) a few times and I always loved the stuff they offered. Another piece of my past, irrevocably gone forever, except here in this blog. Yet another reason to keep it going…eventually most of my childhood memories will be recorded in some form here, whether you like it or not, gentle readers…

That’s about it for now. Feel a bit guilty about leaving Vera along to type this up – so will get back to her now. Heading off to Cebu on Sunday, which is Easter – a big deal here. Might even go to Mass to check it out. But will probably stay away from the well-known churches – you never know when the bad guys will target one of them. Enjoy the spring weather (if you’ve got some) and see you next week. Over and out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.