After our first visit to Boracay together some years back, my good friend Rhei and I decided to make a pact- to pay homage to the most beautiful island beach in the world at least once a year. Since then, we have been religiously coming and going with different groups of friends and family members.
1. MEANT TO BE
All was set that this year, we will go on Oct 8 to 10 (Sat to Monday) with her high school friends. As early as Aug, we got our tickets and hotel booking. But a week before the date, I backed out because I couldn’t get myself to ask my boss for a leave on that Monday. We’re busy that week and I am relatively new in the office. So, with a heavy heart, I decided to forego the trip. Much to the dismay of Rhei. She even texted me, “I hate (my boss’s name).” That’s because I told her my boss asked me to attend meetings on the 6th (Thu) and 10th because I couldn’t tell her I was being a sissy.
But somehow, things worked out for our good. As it turned out, my “wish” (rather lie) came true. To make the story short, same week, I was assigned to attend meetings on the 6th & 7th in Iloilo (and 10th in Manila.). So, I thought, no sweat after my meeting in Iloilo, I will just take the bus to Caticlan and join Rhei and Regin, who went ahead Thu.
2. FREE PLANE TICKETS
Since I was attending meetings in Iloilo, I got free plane tickets. I just had to do was ask for my return flight to originate from Kalibo. I just had to pay for my fare from Iloilo to Boracay. Perfect!
3. SCARY
But things didn’t go smoothly as planned. My afternoon meeting in Iloilo finished at past 5. By the time, I got to the bus station, the last bus to Caticlan has already left. So, my assigned driver suggested I take the van instead. Fortunately for me, the public transport was new, with wide leg room and the seats were comfortable. Nothing untoward happened except for the heavy rain that drenched the city in a span of half an hour. And we waited for an hour before all seats got filled up. After that, we were off for a 4-hour long ride.
We finally got to Kalibo at quarter to ten. This was the scary part. All 12 passengers got off except for me, which means only the van driver and I will go to Caticlan. I thought what if, he decides to cancel the trip to Caticlan. After a while, one man passenger got in to my relief. But when I asked, he said he will get off at a nearby town. True enough, after 10 minutes, the man passenger got off. And it got scarier. The road was so dark, with only a few houses dotting the side of the road and fewer cars passing by. I was praying the whole time, even to my ally saints in heaven. ;p Fortunately, we got to Caticlan safely at close to 11.
4. INCONVENIENT
Despite the late hour, I was still hoping that there would be boats going from Caticlan port to Boarcay island. I didn’t want to spend the night at the pier. But I did. Boo-hoo.
I was told the next boat will leave at 5 am the next day. I called up Rhei to tell her about my misfortune and not to wait up. We were supposed to go to the bar for drinks. We both laughed at my tragic situation. Oh well, between getting stuck in Kalibo bus terminal to this, I preferred this. So, I still considered myself lucky.
Like the other 10 or so stranded passengers like me, I had late dinner and coffee at nearby Andok’s. When I got my spaghetti and coffee, I realized I was starving. They could’ve served me sand and I would’ve still eaten it with gusto.
After dinner, I settled for the night. I stretched on 5 blue plastic seats with my backpack as my pillow and fell asleep as the rain poured down. After a few hours of sleep, I woke up with more passengers around me and no more rain. The place was abuzz with people anticipating to ride the first boat. Finally at 5, we were told that the ticket booths were opened.
5. FANTABULOUS!
My disappointment over the previous night’s episode dissipated as I was led inside Discovery Shores. All the more, when I got to our room. Wow! The room was spacious and I liked its modern design, the minimalist bathroom, the comfortable bed and pillows. I hardly slept though because after my quick shower, my two friends were already up. We started chatting and spent the whole morning inside our room except when it was time for breakfast.
The buffet spread was lovely. The place was lovely. The swimming pool was lovely. I took a peek at the beach and yes, it was lovely. I was in beach heaven.
6. IT RAINED.
Everything was lovely except for the weather. It was windy and the sky overcast in the morning forboding of bed weather. And it rained later sometime noon. From then, it would abruptly rain at different times of the day and even at night. But I was in Boracay, my favorite place on earth. No rain can ruin my day. Except when we changed hotels.
7. TO THE BOONDOCKS
The next hotel we checked into was also nice except that we came from Discovery Shores. For me, nothing could match it. Not even Boracay Regency. And the second hotel was far away from the beach.
8. DAMPA
No visit to Boracay is ever complete without a visit to our favorite corner resto at Dampa. We had our heavy and sumptuous lunch there.
9. BEER, SHISHA and VIDEOKE
It was Saturday night and our last (at least for Rhei, Reg & I. The rest are staying until the 10th.) at Boracay so we went for Thai dinner, then at Bom-Bom Bar for drinks, music and shisha.
No shisha pics, censored hehe.
By wee hours of the morning, we walked to a videoke bar and sang and danced.
10. SUN
The sun was high up when we woke up the next day; we almost missed breakfast. Fortunately, we managed to get to the breakfast table before everything was packed up.
Boy, was I glad to see Mr. Sun. Off we went to the beach and spent our last hours in the white sands of Boracay.
11. AMAZING RACE TO THE AIRPORT
Rhei, Reg and I were seduced by Smoked’s delicioso Sizzling Bulalo for lunch. We ate leisurely and next thing we know, we were scrambling to get back to the hotel. We negotiated with a mamang trike driver to take us to the hotel, wait for us and take us to the port. That was the start of our Amazing Race Boracay.
We took the shortest shower ever in our lives. Mamang driver was surprised to see us in different clothes, and all packed in 10 short minutes. We put pressure on him to drive as fast as he can while we put on our make-up.
Everything went smoothly. When we got off his trike, he introduced us to an agent who sold us tickets to the boat and the van to take us to the airport directly. Big mistake, we shouldn’t have bought those tickets from him. Anywho, no harm done till we got to the van on the other side of the port.
We got to the van by 4pm. We told the van driver that our flight was at 7 and we need to be in the airport by 6. He said no problem but we’ll have to wait for passengers since there were just 3 of us. We needed 7 more to fill up his van.
My two friends used their Macs to find flights for their NZ trip to while away the time. By 4:30, we were antsy. After another, 15 minutes, we started bugging the driver. By 5, we were a bit furious. We said, we really had to go. And tothink he himself said Kalibo was an hour and a half away! He started the van but still kept waiting for passengers. Luckily, he got 2 and one of those was our angel in disguise.
To our dismay, the driver wasn’t driving as fast as he could. He was still on the look-out for passengers. I tried to sleep to get my head off our current situation. I left the nagging to Rhei.
But I prayed the rosary when I woke up and realized we were eons away from the airport. It was a big help getting my mind off killing the driver. You see, I had a meeting the next day, I had to board that last flight out to Manila. But I still managed to make one snide remark at the driver later.
By 5:45, one of the passengers offered to call up his sister who works at Zest Air to tell her of our predicament and see how she can help. Since the sister was off duty that day, she called up her colleagues at the airport, gave our names for pre-checking. But she also told her brother that we still had to get there by 6 or so. When the driver heard that, he drove like a maniac.
All the while Reg was pretty cool. And he shared we us later while we were having hotdogs and chili lumpia, a local delicacy for dinner, that he knew all the while that our flight was delayed because he was monitoring the flights online. I wanted to kill him. He could have spared us the useless anxiety. But I ate the last lumpia instead.
My favorite pic for this trip:
Renz in Motion
I hope he landed on his feet ;p
