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Published: October 21st 2009
I still remember how my Dad used to tell us how he hates riding small propeller passenger planes and I wasn’t expecting that I was gonna ride one today. I could hear the engine roaring outside during the entire flight and the plane making a clumsy stomp when we finally landed at the Busuanga Airport. The flight wasn’t too bad, thanks to the good weather, but I’d still rather ride the Airbus!
Our tour guide Ate Cristy and Kuya Joseph
(our driver) picked us up at the airport. It’s about 45 minutes ride from the Busuanga Airport to Coron town proper on mostly dirt road. I was quite impressed with the unexploited country side and the rich greenery. As excited as we were, we started the tour immediately and went to our first stop at Mabentangin Watershed
it’s definitely okay to miss this and the Horse Valley
with the horses gone … hmmm …
did I hear anyone say pfff? It certainly started pretty slow but things started to pick up when we finally arrived at Coron.
We stayed at
Coron Village Lodge which was located at the center of the town. They have a lovely resto-bar with great food and
Boats
... going to Kayangan Lakenice ambiance.
After dropping our things off at our lodging house, we were off to Mt. Tapyas to climb the 719 steps to the top; now that’s some challenge! Our hopes for a beautiful view of the sunset vanished when it started to drizzle and the clouds covered our lovely sun. Nevertheless, we still enjoyed the full view of the town and the nearby islands when we reached the summit. We had dinner hawker style somewhere in the middle of the town
because we were starving after Mt. Tapyas and we needed food fast! The food was in fact unexpectedly good.
We went to the cashew factory tended by Nanay Lita who gave us lots of samples of her cashew products. After buying cashew nuts, we went to our last stop for the day, the Maquinit Hot Springs. It was indeed HOT, that my head ached and I actually wished for rain! If the night was colder, it might have been great but then again, it might have just been me because Janet, Martin and Roger seemed to have enjoyed it.
After cooking ourselves at the hot spring, we were hungry again so we decided to have
Beautiful View
... on the way to Kayangan Lake a second set of dinner at Kawayanan Grill Station which was just a few minutes walk from our lodging house and treated our driver Kuya Joseph and our other guide Kuya Nyoy for a drink. Again, the food was good, they also served beers, cocktails, and shakes and they had a live acoustic singer entertaining patrons that night.
It was a goodnight sleep for everyone and we were just as excited to island hop the next day. The first stop was the Siete Pecados
(The Seven Islands) where we spent half an hour chasing and luring fishes into eating the bread we brought specially for them. The next destination was the Kayangan Lake where we had to hike 10-15 minutes up and down one of those massive rock formations to get to the actual Lake. Of course it was worth the climb. The lake had Über friendly
or maybe hungry fishes waiting to be fed. There was also a small cave which can be reached by swimming across the lake; it was dark inside and we didn’t know what was in there but we went in anyway,
nah, nothing scary. A bamboo raft can take you on a tour
Clear water
... more boats further away but with a fee. The next stop was the Twin Lakes which had oily-ish look of water and the smallest amongst the lakes that we went to. We spent one good hour swimming across and back this beautiful thing.
We had our home-cooked Lunch at Malwawoy beach, a small white sand beach where the Skeleton of a sunken Japanese ship can be seen a few meters swim away. There were lots of sea urchins around,
one of them we ate, thanks to Kuya Nyoy for making us try it, and a lot more fishes, bigger and even more colorful.
The last stop was the Barracuda Lake. The lake thankfully didn’t have any barracuda in it but we have a theory on why it’s called “Barracuda” lake. We believe it’s because the massive rocks around it forms like the teeth of those barracudas … ehm … that’s the best theory we have =)
hehe The big downside about island hopping in Coron is there’s always an entrance fee to every single island/lake that we went to, ranging from 100 - 200 pesos which
(by Filipino standards) is OVERPRICED considering that you won’t be staying very long
on those certain areas! We actually asked Ate Cristy why there’s such thing when there’s no need to maintain the places and they’re free gift from nature anyway ~ we were told that it’s actually the tribes living around the area who imposed these fees. The President gave them the land title to these areas which make them the rightful owners of those beauties. Yet again we have a presumption about why these fees are imposed, either they simply want to make money out of these natural resources or they just want to control the crowd coming to Coron … you see, these fees is quite a turn off to tourists … if you know what we mean. Although despite this, we still saw lots of local/non-local tourists around.
And still, the day was just how we wanted it and more.
Before hopping back on the four-seat propeller plane
aarggh!, Kuya Joseph took us to this waterfalls which was just a few steps away from the main road, near the Busuanga Airport.
Why didn’t you bring us here earlier?!!!, that was said in unison. It was gorgeous, one of those few waterfalls still on its most natural form.
We would have loved to swim, if only we didn’t had a plane to catch. Since Kuya Joseph said it didn’t had a name, we called it Busuanga Falls 😉
The people were nice, we unexpectedly had a very relaxed time in this laid back town and we can’t help but plan for a comeback!
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liliram
liliram
looks like a good adventure to me...
Hi tinnie. Another nice blog. I share the same "phobia" with you about propeller planes. That explains why I have not been to Busuanga. Perhaps i will, overland and a ferry hop from Puerto. Longer , roundabout trip, but it will get me there. Please PM me the contact details of your guide and rates for the hotel, if you don't mind. If and when I do the trip, I might bring family. Thanks, safe travels[:)]