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Published: February 13th 2012
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Hello everybody,
We arrived in Dumaguete 2 weeks ago. The area is a little university town with not a lot of tourists so first impressions were good. We stayed in a place called Harolds Mansion which seemed to be the most popular hostel. The hostel had BBQ nights and this gave us the opportunity to meet lots of new people. Within the first few days we visited Casaroro falls. We got a Jeepney which is the local bus and then a haba haba which was a ride on the back of a locals motorbike up through the mountains. We then had 300 steps down to the waterfall. It was beautiful although there was a big flood last winter which had ruined most of what was a path leading to the waterfall so it was quite difficult to get to. We enjoyed a little swim although it was freezing, we were quite happy with the small watrfalls we had seen up to that point. We decided to go a little further, turned the corner and saw a HUGE waterfall! The only down side was the 300 steps back to the top and the scary motorbike journey back! The hostel has some
1970's style bikes that we used to get around the town, one day visting an animal sanctuary for rescied and confiscated animals. We saw huge fruit bats, deer, crocodiles, lots of exotic birds, but no pictires as our camera died...
We then decided to visited the Island Siqiuor. It is a very small Island with lovely beaches and only a short ferry ride away. We were feeling ok about the boat ride as the last journey was fine, how wrong we could be! From the first minute of getting on the small boat till the last painfull minute we had terrible seasickness. We took it in turns, (tag team like) even sharing the toilet on some occasions whilst we were being passed sickbag after sickbag and filling with ease, urghhh... I gave up in the end, slumped green faced outside the toilet half crying half gurgling, dignity out of the window. Julian took to standing up feet wide apart staring into an aircon unit to help him cool down. When we arrived, we sat on the pavement to recover for a while and then headed to Kiwi Dive Resort (not before having to push through ten or so tricycyle
drivers, each wanting to take us!). The weather wasn't brilliant while we were there but we read and ate lots! One day we hired a moped and drove around the whole island stopping at each of the sight seeing spots. We found a beautiful waterfall/lagoon pool, there was only ourselves and a few local boys there who were playing on a rope swing. We hadn't been there long and I was posing for a picture when the ground started to move. One of the local boys shouted earthquake then happily went back to his rope swing catipuluting himself into the water, whilst Julian and I were looking for escape routes and any falling rocks!! When we got back to our resort, it was confirmed that there had been an earthquake in Negros, about 70 miles from where we were, we later found out on our return back to Dumaguete, that the earthwake had been a lot stronger and some buildings further north has collapsed. To top it off I got a kidney infection when I was there, it was a bit if a bizzare trip..
We then headed back to Dumaguete to do our Open Water Dive Course. The
first couple of nights we woke to bed the bed shaking because of aftershocks, not a great experience to be woken up like that! So we dived for three days and passed the course. Julian enjoyed it more than I did, I couldn't really take in the beauty of the coral and fish as all my energy was focused on remembering to breathe. Julian said that through the mask all you could see was a panicked expression in my eyes. I was pleased to hand back the flippers put it that way! During our stay, we met some lovely people and enjoyed 4 nights eating, drinking and singing karoke together. One night we found oureslves in a petrol station, where a group of locals had brought their cars with huge lights and speakers in the boots, it was a bit weird looking back at it to be dancing to Rihanna at full volume in a petrol station.
We finally leave Dumaguette today, a boat crossing to Bohol, wish us luck...
Lots of Love Sarah and Julian
xxx
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Brenda Britnell
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Bet it was all hot and sweaty..... nice.