Please Tell Stacey We Don’t Have to See Everything!
Our first fun-filled day in the Philippines
After breakfast at the Panglao Sea Resort, we packed up and headed to the first item on Stacey’s list — Hinagdanan Cave. Stacey was driving and I was navigating. We got lost even though it was only a 7-minute drive from the Resort. We drove straight past! I’m blaming the lag on the blue dot and not a single sign. Stacey U-turned and found the track to the cave. It was signposted from this direction.
It was a lovely limestone cave for swimming if there had not been crowds of people already in the water. The descent down was difficult for me, but I did it with Stacey’s help. It was well worth the 50 pesos (90 cents USD).
The next item on Stacey’s list was the Nova Shell Museum which was even more difficult to find than the Hinagdanan Cave! There were no signposts at all and it was hidden in the middle of a backlot. There were flags out the front of the property but no signs. Whereas the cave was inundated with people, we were the only tourists to actually find the Shell Museum.
There were several people sitting on the verandah, one of whom was fanning a very old gentleman in a wheelchair. The old man was the collector of all of these shells over a period of more than 50 years. It was truly an amazing collection. But the heat inside was stifling so I didn’t look at every shell. Stacey talked to the woman about the collection. The entry fee was 180 pesos which was obviously this whole family’s sole means of income.
We had been lost twice and we hadn’t even left the town so we decided to skip the two recommended churches as we still had lots to see and do, but we found both accidentally. Both of them were massive structures but we didn’t go in. Maybe we should have to ask for guidance to the next place on Stacey’s itinerary — the Tarsier Sanctuary. Now I’ve never heard of a tarsier so I really didn’t know what to expect.
I entered the Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary into maps and followed the road to where maps said it was located — nothing! The worst thing was we’d been bush-bashing through mountains on a very bad dirt road for more than an hour thinking this can’t possibly be the way. We were truly lost!
Stacey then pulled up Googlemaps on her phone which gave us an entirely different location. I’m never using Maps again! We eventually found it hours later than we’d planned.
Only 150 pesos for a unique experience seeing tarsiers in the wild. We had a guide who pointed them out to us. They were so tiny and well-camouflaged that we would never have spotted them. They were so cute but we weren’t allowed to disturb them at all — no talking or flashes. They are an endangered species, have one baby each year, and can’t survive in captivity at all. The tarsier baby has the greatest baby-to-mother weight ratio of any mammal. Poor Mum!
The Loboc River Cruise was the next activity on Stacey’s list. We thought we had probably missed the last sailing but were lucky enough to catch the 2.30pm tour. This is a totally professional operation — 1400 pesos but totally worth it. We were seated at a table right at the front of the boat — I believe it’s called the bow in nautical terms — and ate a sumptuous buffet lunch — fish, pork belly, prawns, noodles and salads followed by several dessert items. The milky caramel with gelatine balls — delicious! And coconut milk (juice) in a real coconut.
The boat cruised along the river until we reached a small waterfall where we headed back to port. The boats were huge flat decks on catamaran floats pushed along by little motorised boats. We were entertained during lunch by a band of musicians and singers who sang lots of oldies. The Filipino people love the music from the fifties and sixties, as do I. Everyone seems to have such good voices! ( Even Maria, my daughter-in-law, sang as part of her wedding ceremony and blew me away with her voice!)
We stopped at a pontoon along the river where the villagers — mostly women and young girls entertained us with singing and dancing and tinikling — rhythmic dancing with sticks. I learned tinikling many years ago as part of my Phys.Ed. teacher training and had completely forgotten doing it. They put donation buckets out and many passengers contributed. This money probably sustains the whole village and they were good. Everyone must have really struggled through the pandemic when there were zero tourists.
Stacey had a waterfall on her list but he had developed a massive headache and body aches. She diagnosed herself with dengue fever, but I was pretty sure she was simply exhausted from driving and getting lost so often. We found our cute cottage Casa de Corazon down a long dirt road way off the beaten track.
Here’s the first story I wrote about our first stay in Bohol.
