Cagayan to Siargao Island & surfing cloud 9

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We said goodbye to our luxury and headed South to Surigao City. We jumped on a bus for 5 hours to Butuan then caught another bus for 3 hours to our destination.

Surigao is nothing to write home about and offers little to do, we checked into a hotel that was close to the ferry port called The Tavern. The next morning we boarded the 11am ferry to Siargao Island which promises to be backpackers paradise "we shall see".

As on most ferries we have been on, there was a tv to entertain the Filipinos (usually a DVD of some American pop singers concert) disappointed this time that we didn't get to experience another 3 hour ferry with the Filipinos singing along due to the NBA championship semi final ( Filipinos are crazy about basketball) We decided to leave them to it and go sit on the deck, we settled beside a man with 2 live chickens in a plastic bag "odd" we thought but this is the Philippines. The views of the various islands dotted around as we passed were breath taking and made the trip to the Philippines worth it.

We arrived on the island to our tricycle fans but we had already arranged transport through our accomodation. We hit the road in our tricycle and took in the sights of the beautiful island we had just arrived on. After a bumpy 20mins we arrived at The Boardwalk and where shown to our room (fan room, twin beds, shared dirty bathroom with 8 staff) "this is budget accomodation" I thought.

Once settled we took a walk down the boardwalk (the hostel took it's name from this attraction) A fat little dog named Mary-Joy followed us like we owned her and she continued to be our protector for the duration of our stay. The boardwalk is a long wooden walkway (see pic) which allows surfers to get out to Cloud 9 (A famous surf spot out past the rocks) it makes for a very pleasant viewing point to admire some of the best surfing in the world and also a beautiful sunset too. We went for a sunset swim whilst Mary watched our bag, just what was needed after a hot and humid day travelling.

On our way back to the hostel we met a local surfer called Dodo who we arrange board hire of P350 per day ( Our hostel charged P200 an hour or P500 per day) We also arranged an hours coaching session with him for the next day at 10am.

At the bar we introduced ourselves (as you do when travelling) to two guys Kevin an adventure writer and Max, the hostel staff took us out to a fashion show that was on at a local bar and we went "why the hell not!". Mary-Joy a accompanied us for protection. The bar was empty except for Dodo and a few other locals playing pool, naturally Kate being Kate needed to play and beat them all and she did.

Holly and Kate walked home arm in arm with Mary-Joy close behind.

We woke the next day with blinding hangovers and convinced Dodo to take us out at 1.30 high tide. Unfortunately the hangovers were worse than anticipated and we barely lasted the hour, exhaustion and sickiness affected holly's balance and mood rather dramatically, so Kate's performance excelled this time..this time!

After a banana shake and a couple of hours recovery we took a stroll down the lane, accompanied by Mary of course. We stopped for a fresh coconut water at a rather plush, clean, shiney resort and decided that if the cottages werent too ridiculously priced we'd treat ourselves for a night...they were! At £112 per night we logged onto their free wifi to discover how they could justify such an amount. We slagged off the oversized rooms with aircon and rain showers and headed phone with a pizza pie to make ourselves feel better.

A second day of surfing followed with Dodo trying to teach us how to catch our own wave. "trying" being the operative word. His broken English and our newbie eyes lead to many try-and-fails, but we had fun!

We watched the actual surfers while the sun went down, consoled ourselves with a massive plate of spaghetti (accompanied by bread with literal garlic on top), packed our bags and settled in for the night, thoroughly exhausted from 2 hours on the water!

Next day would involve us heading back to Surigao city. Yawnsville...

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