When we woke up the next morning, though, our plight didn’t seem quite so desperate. We walked up the street, which during the day was a totally friendly, fun place, with brightly colored funk buses (called jeepneys) running up and down, roosters crowing, and people smiling. We got breakfast at McDonald’s, and I looked at the paper, enjoying a glimpse of a free press for the first time in a while, and then we found an ATM that took our unionpay debit cards. After that, we went into a travel agency and got a flight to Boracay that left in three hours, and got a taxi and went to the airport (which is plastered in signs reading DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS), chatting with the taxi driver (which was cool, because we could actually have a conversation with the guy).
While we were walking down the street in Manila, every bar seemed to be advertising for a GRO. I thought that it was a waitress position, but Chris decided to ask the family in the travel agency, which positively made their day – it stands for Guest Relations Officer, and means prostitute. We also kept seeing money changers EVERYWHERE – George’s Restaurant and Money Changer, and the Priceless Roca Funeral Services/Money Changer. I don’t think we even made it to the real Metro Manila area, but I sort of wish we had, because I suspect that it’s a really cool city if you’re not panicked and unsure where you’ll be able to sleep.
However, if you’re ever traveling to the Philippines, MAKE A RESERVATION IN MANILA AND ARRANGE AIRPORT PICKUP. Or better yet, skip Manila altogether. This exact same thing happened to Leif and Lily, we knew about it, and we still fell into the same trap. No good.
Once we got on our tiny little propellor-driven plane, I started feeling great, especially when I looked out the window and saw things getting increasingly unreal. It was a short, short, short flight, and next thing we knew we were landing at the Caticlan Airport (which is about the size of a gas station and looks like something out of Jurassic Park). From there, we were herded like obedient little sheep through the process of getting a ferry (which, incidentally involves a lot of financial surprises, like terminal fees, environmental taxes, and god knows what else). We got on the ferry, which is a kind of boat called a banca boat, and then we were on Boracay.
We got in a tricycle and asked him to take us to Boat Station One, after fending off hotel vendors left and right. Once we saw White Beach, we decided to just get a hotel for a night so that we could drop our stuff and get in the water as soon as possible. We settled on Casa Fiesta, a clean, friendly place right on the beach. Then we went swimming and played with my camera’s underwater housing, which worked really, really, really well.
It started raining really hard, and we spent most of the night waiting that out. Then we went for a long walk on the beach in a light drizzle, which was PERFECT. The beach was really emptied out due to the weather, and as cliched and silly as this sounds, it was pretty damned romantic. It was dark, the sand was soft and perfect for walking barefoot, we were tired and quiet, there were entire civilizations of ruined sandcastles strewn around, and it was absolutely beautiful. At the very end of White Beach, we found a classy bar without a single customer in it called Heaven. We had a couple of drinks there and talked to the waiter, who’d grown up on Boracay, and then headed back home, feeling extremely optimistic about everything. After finding a little salamander hanging out in our hotel room, we decided to just stay there for the duration.
We woke up early the next morning, and decided to jump in the ocean to wake up, since it was right outside our door and we could. We saw some pitiful-looking Chinese ladies taking a swim - in long pants, long sleeves, and gloves, with their faces painted entirely white with sunscreen. White skin is extremely desirable here - the only sunscreen lotion I could find in the supermarket was sold with skin whitening cream. Appearance-conscious women will go to ridiculous lengths to keep the sun off themselves. Then I had an awesome bacon omelette, and we hopped on a tricycle to check out Puka Beach.
In China, going places via taxi can be a hassle - you either have to speak Chinese, have an address that you can point at, or be able to speak a reasonable approximation of the name of the place. Even then, there’s no guarantee that your driver will know where it is, and it can get a little stressful. I don’t have words for how nice it was to just say “Puka Beach,” and hear, “ok,” and take off.
Puka Beach was my favorite beach we went to. There were only a few other people there, and no vendors, except the occasional kid wandering around selling ice cream. We brought peanut butter and guava jelly sandwiches and swam for enough time to start a good sunburn going.
After that, we went parasailing, which was fun.
Then we ate dinner at a tasty Mexican restaurant with a table almost on top of the shoreline. It started to rain, and we hung out under our umbrella sipping fruity cocktails until it stopped. Perfect way to spend an evening.
White Beach Daytime flickr set
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