Advertisement
Published: June 13th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Hair Salon
The women in the salon watched Samantha's every move! Arriving in Boracay last Saturday was a lot easier said than done. There are two airports near the island: Kalibo and Caticlan, the latter being closer (only 5 min from the airport to the harbor and the one at which we were supposed to arrive). Our flight was supposed to come in at around 16:30, giving us enough time to get to the island and search for a place to stay. Didn't happen though...
Because of bad (rainy!) weather, our flight was delayed so we didn't leave Cebu until 17:30. We also ended up flying into Kalibo Airport, about an hour away, and taking a bus to Caticlan. We met many people along the way who were also trying to get to Boracay. That's one of the best parts about traveling: Meeting people, hearing their stories, where they've been, where they're going, etc. Along the way, we met people from Canada, Switzerland, Philippines, USA, and a group from Kuwait. The group from Kuwait was hilarious!! A group of four, maybe 18 years old and spoke little to no English!! What a challenge to travel in a country and barely speak the language! Anyway, they had absolutely no idea what was
Fireshow
Full Moon Party @ the Jungle Bar going on, so I kind of took them under my wing. Everywhere we went, they pointed down to the ground and asked
"Boracay? Boracay?" With the little Arabic I picked up in Egypt earlier this year, I tried to explain to them the new route we had to take to the island. After arriving at Kalibo (not Caticlan), we jumped in a bus which would take us to the other airport. We were all sitting in the back of the bus, when one of the Kuwaitis passed forward an Arabic cd for the driver to play over the speakers haha they were so excited when the music started to play; they were dancing and singing all over the place!!
Long story short, it was still raining when we arrived at Caticlan. Here we had to take a tri-cycle to the harbor, and from there we had to take a 15min boat ride to BORACAY! So relieved when we finally arrived; however, still no place to stay! Along the way, we met a really nice guy from Switzerland, who already had reservations at the
Boracay Regency Beach Resort. He offered for us to come check out the place since it was already 20:30
and it was dark, windy and rainy. Since it was the two of us, we agreed. The resort was amazing! That evening we grabbed some food and went to bed. But let me tell you about the breakfast the next morning....glorious!! Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and they had so many options; it was amazing!
After breakfast, the three of us checked out the beach. Samantha and I then split ways from the Swiss and walked around the White Beach strip, looking for a place to stay that night. We ended up finding a place called
Alice in Wonderland - I promise our decision of staying here had absolutely nothing to do with the name.....haha after putting down our deposit, we decided to set out and explore some more. We stumbled upon a whole-in-the-wall hair salon. Since my hair was overdue for a cut, I had asked Samantha earlier if she'd be willing to cut my hair (she cuts hair and does an amazing job) - it was either that or dreads! So we walk into the hair salon and ask if we can use their chair and a pair of scissors. Sure enough they let
us use the place, free of charge! Side note: When traveling, always ask what the cost is or if there's an "extra" charge - some places/people love to get some extra pocket change. Three pairs of scissors and 45 min later, I walked out feeling 10 pounds lighter!
A couple years ago, I became an open water diver in Aruba; this summer I was planning on becoming an advanced diver. Since we were staying on Boracay for almost a week, I decided to look around for legit, fun dive shop. After walking around some more, we came across the
Blue Mango Inn, which is both a dive AND hotel resort - perfect! I walked in to see what they were about and immediately hit it off with the staff. Since we already put down our deposit at Alice in Wonderland, we couldn't stay at the Blue Mango that night, but "moved" in the following morning and stayed there for the rest of our trip. I started my "advanced diving courses" Monday morning with one of the greatest instructors; he's from England and is a lot of fun! Their whole staff is a lot of fun! We chilled, went out together, had
breakfast/lunch/dinner together - real tight knit group.
Two dives (my drift and wreck dive - was able to dive in and around a sunken ship) on Monday; two dives (navigation and deep dive) on Tuesday; and three dives (two "fun" dives and a night dive) on Wednesday. Wednesday's dives were a lot of fun. For anyone who goes to Boracay, not only do I highly recommend the Blue Mango, but definitely suggest diving
Yapak; it's a pretty deep dive with an amazing "wall" with lots of fish, sealife (stingrays, eels, watersnakes, etc) and sharks to see! This was my deepest dive yet, going to 37m/123ft! Pretty excited about that!
My week at Boracay was nice and relaxing. Soaked up some sun, did some diving and met some wonderful people with whom I know I'm going to stay in touch with! I've even had some talks about getting my dive master there...big dreams!!
One quote that somehow kept coming up was
life is good, which it certainly is!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.115s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 10; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0402s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
mj
non-member comment
life is good..
hey...heb je net aan de phone gehad....gek idee..jij gaat naar bed en wij staan op.12 uur tijd verschil. je schrijft echt goed Nikki......mooi. sharks...hey ????? morgen ben je alweer 4 weken weg..... love you, Mamma