Siquijor - we love waterfalls, but hate tsunami warnings!

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We left Alona in the morning after a last breakfast at Trudis..

We arrived at the port waaaay too early, the ferry did not leave untill 6 in the evening and the ferry was quite expensive, 700 pesos per person. So we went for a walk aroung Tagbilaran to see if there was anything interesting to do. We found an internet café were we spent some time talking to people back home. Then we sat on a bench at the marina but it started pouring down and we were lucky that some of the locals who worked at the marina let us into their office.

When the rain stopped we went to a local restaurant and the food was really horrible, the meat in my pork adobo was almost just fat, skin and bones. We ate the rice and drank our cokes and that was it. Very cheao though, so not too much of a waste.

When we went back to wait on the ferry we talked to an amercan guy named Joe and his Fillipinno girlfriend Sheen. We talked to him for a long time and he had been on some really exiting travels, they invited us to 'pizza night' when we came to Dumaguete.

We arrived very late at Siquijor and the japanese resort 'Villa Marmarine' was fully booked and there were us and three other couples who wanted a room there, so we went back to a small place near the port where we found a room, but it was very expensive, 850 pesos per night.

The next day we woke up around 8 o'clock and hurried packing our things so we could move on. We found an elderly tricycle driver who would take us to Islanders Paradise for 200 pesos, and the driver from the day before had said 300 pesos so we went for it.

We got a room for 700 pesos and a very good breakfast. The owners stayed in England at that time, but the manager was very nice and arranged for her nephew to drive us around the island the day after, he only needed around 1000 pesos for a whole day driving us around - this is around 30 euros for a private driver all day.

We spend the day relaxing at the beach, playing cards and so on. This is not only paradise for us, but dogs too, so I walked around playing with and petting the dogs the whole day.

We had to kill a lot of mosquitos that night before going to sleep, the place was full of them and I think we sat some kind of record that evening, but then we could also sleep peacefully. The next day was full of good experinces, but also bad news. We had our driver for the whole day and we started of visiting San Juan where we wanted to see the natural swimmingpool. It was very beautifull but i only went in with my legs.

After this we went to the Po-o river and saw some beautiful waterfalls. At the waterfalls we could jump about 4 meters down into the very nice water. We spend a lot of time there, it was so fun and the water was all blue from the limestones.

After that we went to the southcoast and a small beach where there only were some local fishermen. We found a small corner of the beach by some rocks and went in for a swim. It was really beautiful as well. Afterwards we continued to the next beach, here we had to pay 15 pesos as entrance and the place was a little too touristy for our taste. We had some nice lunch which wasn't too expensive. I tried snorkelling a bit, but the water was not clear enough, but I did see some fish.

Stefanie saw that someone had tried to call her and had recieved a text message that said 'tsunami warning'. 'They' called again and told us to go somewhere high and get away from the coast. Later we found out that it was my father, but she thought that it was her insurance company, since she did not know his voice that well.

We asked the locals if they knew anything but they didn't have a radio or TV and they didnt really care even though we told them there might be a tsunami on the way. We talked to Claus who suprisingly also was on Siquijor, he told us not to worry since we were sheltered by other islands, it was nice to hear him so calm. But we still didn't want to take any chances so we went up to the mountains. What a day not to have battery on my phone! Stefanies sister called and she was very worried and upset, but we tried explaining her that we would be safe in the mountains.

There was no signal up there so we were cut off from contact with our families. We decided to go cave hiking to take our minds of things. We went into a hughe cave with a 800 meter long trail. It was very beautiful and there was clear spring water running down many of the stones. There was a place were we had to swim through, and even though Stefanie tried walking along the side - all of her things got wet, including her phone! So her phone died too. Now we were in the middle of the mountains with a tsunami warning the locals did not know anything about and without cotnact to the outer world.

Luckliy - it was so much fun walking around inside the caves. Really ecxiting. Unfortunately we didnt get to see the bats, they weren't at their normal hangout spot that day. When we came home it was already dark and we had a quick shower since we were all wet and muddy from the cave hike.

We had some dinner and when my phone came back to live we got some updates from my father that the first wave had already hit the northern parts of the islands, but it was not as bad as feared. So luckily we were save, and after an exhausting day we could go to sleep.

The next day was very relaxing, it stormed a lot so we decided to relax and play some cards. We had a really nice pizza for dinner and Stefanie learned to mix cards that night, very important skill when on a long travel! We had a really nice day after the more stressful ending the day before. Early to bed since we had to get up early the day after.

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