My travels, pictures and stories: March 2012

All together, it has been a good month on Boracay, with a welcome break to breathe on the Carabao island for a few nights. There is definitely a difference in activity between the first week I spent there and the last few days. When I arrived in end of February, I could count to over 120 kitesurfers on the bulabog beach on a good day. Towards the end of March, the number had gone down significantly to about 30-40 at most. It is not just a coincidence, because the wind has been steadily going down as well, especially the last few days didn’t have much in store for wind addicts.
So, what do kitesurfers do when there’s no wind? They go to the bar! In the last few days, me and the other guys downed a countless number of san miguel’s and red horse while losing game after game of pool to the locals. A funny detail about having a beer in the Philippines is that they put a tissue around the top before serving, and that means that the day after you can count the number of tissues in your pocket. I was quite desperate towards the end, and finally there were some good days of surfing. It is not so often you can say that you “had it” of drinking beer at a palm fringed white beach, but that was it.
Another activity you can do on the no-wind days is scuba diving. It was my first time ever, and the location for doing it was pretty much perfect. There’s a lot to see, and the water is very clear. I felt like I was in a big aquarium! I have practiced quite a lot of free diving before, and I think I’m pretty good at holding my breath, but being able to look at things with more calm was really cool, and you can see other things as you go deeper. For example a big sea turtle that was resting at the bottom at around 10m depth.
On another calm day I just took a book with me to the beach, to read under a palm tree. Not bad that either.
All in all, I am really glad I got around to buy the 12m kite, as the wind got significantly weaker the last two weeks. I got time enough to get the back-roll to the left working good, and some pretty massive jumps going right. Progress is simply so much faster when you can practice 3-4 days a week than as home in Sweden it can sometimes go weeks between the occasions. And having the water temperature at 26-27 degrees helps too!

During the last week it was raining quite heavily, like the rain you get from a thunderstorm, and it was going on for hours at a time. It was of course connected to the absence of wind as well, so it meant little or no kitesurfing.
This had a number of side effects. For example, sometimes when we were out at night in the bars we got caught while waiting for the rain to stop. And this could mean several hours. It created quite a special mood. We spent several nights caught in the “Exit” bar, but as there was no wind, it didn’t really matter that much that it was impossible to get up in the morning after.
Another side effect was that the streets got so flooded that they connected to the nearby dams, ponds and streams. So the other day when I saw a group of fish swimming around in a puddle in the street it took me quite a while to figure out how they got there.

With all this rain and strange weather I expected a really bumpy flight to Manila and I wasn’t looking forward to it, but surprisingly it was very calm, one of the calmest in a while. The only effect I could see of the rains were a mud slide on the road between Caticlan and Kalibo.

Oh darn! Not enough wind! What to do, what to do… :-) This shot is from the Freestyle Academy where I spent most of my time in between the sessions.

Gustav doing some distance studying at the Levantine bar, while trying to end the stock of chili chicken.

Whohoo! My brand new Slingshot Rally! The hang-time of this baby is simply greeeeat!

´Markus first night out I believe! I can’t believe he made the 10.000+ km journey to come over. Here we are with a couple of dive instructors, my room mate Roxane and Dean who got the most crazy one-strut kite I ever seen.

A hard knock life, here at the beach with Markus.

Markus, Nicole and me having some fresh fish from the fish market. Yummy!

Some garlic shrimps perhaps?

The view from the hotel, before leaving.

A stark contrast, not only in this photo. We had probably the worst Indian food ever, with the best view ever.

Freestyle academy poster!

Hmm. I have a drivers license for car, light weight truck, and military fire trucks. I guess I have to look for another job.

Our home composed hotel bar. The only liquids you need – Boracay rum, sunscreen, disinfectant alcohol and mosquito repellent. All in a wide variety.

Yehaa! Approaching speeds of 30 km/h! This trike driver was either crazy or in a big hurry.

The yard of the new hotel, pretty fancy, don’t you think?

I contemplated getting some facelift at Dr. Mendez, but in the end decided not to.. Anyways, here’s his number if you should feel the urge.

Puka beach. Not bad…

27 degrees in the water, just enough to refresh from the heating sun! :-)

As you can see, a lot less wind, you can just barely plane sometimes.

In a hurry, but still need to get drunk? Get an Antonov “Vodka on-the-go”! I just can’t believe this advert, we laughed ourselves silly over it!

Hey! Wait! Is that the wind coming back there at the horizon? Uh, no… This is what bulabog beach looks like at low tide with absolutely zero wind.

And sometimes it rained and the wind came back. Geeez!!!

Most of the time the weather was good. Here reading a book under this very palm at the white beach.

I had this view practically every morning for almost 10 days straight. Either breakfast, lunch or dinner. Japolitaly was the name of restaurant serving me countless pasta alla arabbiata and mango shakes.

Some of the backstreets close to Bulabog beach.

One of the narrow alleys to pass from the bulabog beach back to the main road.

Dinner with the guys at Pinoy Delight the night before going to Manila. David, Me, Suresh, Clement and Stefan. David entertained with his countless stories from living in the harsh Australian outback.

Oh shit! I’m on the pool list! David talked me into having a game against him. Bad idea.

David crushing his opponents before Red Horse took over and humbled him.

The main road of Boracay, on my way to Manila.

Taking the wooden boat to the main land.

Some construction work on the way, check out all the guys with T-shirts on their head.

The island of Boracay is a really cool place to hang around on. It has got great beaches, nightlife and excellent kitesurfing. However, it is pretty far from the “real” Philippines and the hustle and bustle can get too much in the end.
I was really happy when Markus came over a few days ago, now I had someone to travel with to see a little bit more genuine destination. After careful consideration, choosing from many options – Siquijor, Malapasqua, Panay, etc etc the choice finally came to Carabao. This because of several reasons, it is really close to Boracay, just a short boat ride away, and it is also not mentioned in any guidebook I have seen so far, which is a great plus! If it is not in the Lonely Planet, the chances are significantly higher it is more genuine.
Now afterwards, I am really glad we went just there and not to Malapasqua for example, as these “off the beaten track” islands seldom are just that. I am 100% sure we would have encountered lots of tourists on all those islands, just a bit different ones than on Boracay. Instead on Carabao we encountered… None. Well, almost. If you count the German guy running the hostel and the two dive instructors, then there’s some. And yes, there were some other guests passing by as well. But all in all we were never more than 5 non Filipinos on that island, and the difference was felt.

This island was the closest I have been so far to the untouched Philippines. We got there by hiring a boat from a guy on the beach in Boracay. He took us for a bumpy ride across the straight on his wooden boat and a little less than an hour later we approached the island.
From the first look one could tell that it was not at all as Boracay. The beach looked natural, with coconut shells spread over it, and plenty of plants stretching over the sand. Well on the beach, the boat captain helped us to arrange for a room. We got one directly facing the water with the porch located about 5 meters from the breaking waves.
That first day we settled for just walking along the beach looking at nature and the houses set along the narrow path leading to the north-west. It was just stunning. So natural, so quiet, and so genuine. Wherever we came people were smiling at us, and all the small children waved and said “hello!!”. I guess they really don’t get a lot of foreigners around there, and more than us actually being the tourists, we were the real tourist attraction that day!
After a good walk, we returned to order some food from the kitchen, and we ate it up on a kind of bamboo platform they built about 3 meters above ground. And yes, as this being the real Philippines, the cooking was running on Philippino time as well, so we were really hungry by the time we got it.

Sleeping that night was great, you could hear the sound of breaking waves through the thin walls of the room. Electricity stopped at 23.00, and I barely made it out of the bathroom before that happened. Lucky me I didn’t go 5 minutes later!

At 4 in the morning the electricity came back on again and stayed on until 6. As as we weren’t used to just having 12 hours of electricity a day, we forgot to turn off the lights, and got woken up.

After snoozing in a bit that morning we had our breakfast in the garden, one of the best and biggest I have had here so far.
At about 9 in the morning we were ready for some adventure and called Howard, the guy on the island that could make things happen, and asked for two mopeds so we could go see the island.
I think we both were expecting some kind of professional rental service, and didn’t realize where we were until he turned up at around 11 with two mopeds he lent from friends and relatives. They were OK though, and after some fiddling around we got used to them and set off down the coastal path, and then up the “main road” to cross the island to San Jose. This main road was the only road on the island made out of concrete (asphalt is not common here), and it was about 2 meters wide. After a quick stop to fill up our tanks with 2 coca cola glass bottles of gas for 68 pesos each we sped across the island and its fantastic nature. Well in San Jose we took a rest to see the ocean and the beach, and had a chat with a local that just didn’t stop talking. :-)
Going back we chose to go on the inland track leading around the island. This proved to be a lot tougher than we thought, and we had to concentrate really hard to not mess up on the narrow track leading us through the palm tree forests over rocky terrain and loose sharp volcanic stones.
After going back to the hostel for lunch, we headed back out, this time along the coast track, passing some incredibly beautiful beaches set between volcanic rock formations. The road turned inland, and in the end we found ourselves at a big plain, and turned back towards the hostel. As I mentioned earlier we were seen as the tourist attraction here, and it wasn’t long before we were followed by hordes of children running after us, laughing and screaming “Helloooo, hellooo!!!”. Incredible. I felt like I was in one of those movies.
The children followed us for a good 10 minutes, and we found our way back, to have yet another relaxing night under the stars accompanied by the sounds of the breaking waves.

After a sweaty night we woke up at 8 for breakfast, American style. Eggs, bacon and toast accompanied by some instant coffee. I like a bit of sugar in mine, and it turned out I wasn’t the only fan of sugar on the island. It was a close race between me and the Carabao ants who could eat it faster.
We wanted to check out the coral reef that day, and the clock approached 10 before we lost patience and woke the hung over divers up so we could borrow masks and fins. It seems like they were a bit bored on the island, as there were no clients around, and spend most of the nights drinking and listening to Frank Sinatra (or whatever that was), so it was under certain protest they dragged their sleep-drunken bodies down the stairs of their little house and gave us what we needed.
Well out in the water, we swam for only about 20 meters before we came across the first sea eel, striped in bright blue and black. There were plenty of fish in all strange colors, bright blue starfish, and those fish you all recognize from “finding nemo” but no one knows the name of. Really funny little buggers, they came up full of curiousity and bumped their little head towards the glass of the mask. There’s some pretty good pictures below, check it out!

After yet another snorkeling session and some pasta “Filipino style” our ride came over and we headed back to Boracay. This time, it really felt like a different world when we arrived, and even now while writing this and a couple of days have passed, I still get seriously annoyed by all the tourists and hassle over here. The Carabao island was definitely worth the trip and is something I won’t forget.

Boracay scenery. This is a quite expensive resort we passed on our way to Carabao.