11th - 13th March 2012
Arriving in the town we got a tricycle to our hotel and then promptly went in search of dinner. I have to say that in the culinary department the Philippines disappoints, unless you nurture a preference for everything fast and sweet, most of the meat is served injected with sugar or some kind of sweetened sauce. We went to Jollibee's, a fast food chain specialising in burgers and fried chicken. Kate and I ordered the only burgers that came with some salad and were pleasantly surprised, Djalma ordered one too after polishing off his first dinner. There wasn't much to keep us up and we were all in bed and asleep by 9.30.
The next day we made our way to a place recommended in the LP, more often than not we are disappointed when we arrive in these places, despite the smallish portion sizes and lack of soy sauce (almost unheard of in the Philippines) we had great coffees and iced teas then went for a walk around town. We stopped by the tourist information centre to find out about getting to the twin lakes, a hike around which was the main reason we were stopping in town for longer than a bus change. It turns out that the hikes I'd read about were actually just a stroll around the lakes and you had to drive up there first.
We wandered into the local church which has awesome blue and green sky lights as well the usual numerous depictions of Christ suffering horribly (what is the Catholic obsession with pain and suffering?!), on the way out of the church we bumped into a short chatty lady who greeted us with 'hello tourists' like she'd been expecting us. She was like a well meaning bossy Auntie and when we replied no, we hadn't been up the bell tower, she stopped a young guy and told him to take us up the bell tower so we could have a look out over town, with that she was off. We followed this cheery lad past the candle sellers and up the winding steps to admire that much graffitti'd walls of the, rather short, tower and look out over the town and the surrounding mountains.
The bells were pretty cool although there was a microphone which sent out horrible electrical buzzing sounds ready at any moment to broadcast the ringing bells in a 20km radius. After a suitable period of time admiring the rather average and very grey town we descended and went in search of some scooters to take us to the lakes.
The sun was baking by then we'd managed to kill most of the morning and we didn't get under way until 10.30. Sorting out scooters was fun. Not. Actually the scooters were fine but getting an extra helmet was a pain, only one was included per scooter rental so I was sent down the road to find one. I was handed something that didn't fall into either a category for head protection or fashion statement, it was a major fail on both counts. *Writing this reminds me of some of the dodgy helmets I've worn, in particular the glittered and beribboned spectacle, complete with sun visor no less, that I was given when Djalma and I rented out a scooter in Kampot (home of the worlds most wonderful black pepper)
When I flexed the helmet in my hands and told the guys that I rather needed my brains to live and that head protection was no joke they had a chuckle and we all had a good old laugh while I fervently hoped that the traffic wouldn't be all that bad and that we wouldn't have an accident that day, at best the roots of my hair would suffer least.
We set off and spent a good while riding in several wrong directions and up dirt paths that nowhere but to peoples houses before finding the right road out of town and up to the lakes. The road was just gorgeous we passed rolling hill after rolling hill covered with green. The drive up took about two hours because we kept stopping so I could lots of photos. The last few kilometres up were on mainly unmade road and were slow going, we were overtaken several times by the local guys who took tourists up on the back of their bikes, they roared past while we slowly puttered on.
We pulled up at the ticket office where we paid our entrance and parking fees and I burnt my leg on Kate's exhaust pipe. Having avoided any kind of burns during the whole of our trip I was royally pissed off that I'd managed to do so then with a only a few weeks to go before returning home. It also hurt like hell and I will confess to a few tears and feeling very sorry for myself. Luckily for me I'd packed Berna's wonder cream, a propolis cream that has excellent healing properties. I slathered that on and kept an eye on it all afternoon. My day rather spoiled we continued anyway, after one last stretch on our scooters we reached the starting point of the little walking trail and decided to have a couple of light refreshments and some more of the snacks we'd picked up along the way. After a little prompting from Djalma we indulged in some San Miguel shandies which put a proper spring back in my step (if I look a little tired/drunk in the photos that's because I was). We ended up renting out a kayak for an hour and Kate and Djalma paddled us across the lake to where there were some short paths to lookout points.
We tied up the kayak and climbed the loose mossy rocks, as per usual Kate was miles ahead and leaving me gasping behind. I had hoped with all my working out that I would have improved enough to keep up with her on this visit (our energy and physical tolerance levels were too mismatched in Nepal) but it seemed that all my effort had been for nothing. We reached the little hut that looked out over the lakes and had little rest. The lakes were pretty but nothing spectacular and we climbed back down after a few minutes, after taking plenty of self shots. The ride back down was a lot quicker and much to our collective relief we weren't stopped by the police at any point, when we'd rented the bikes out the guy giving them to us explained that we should have our drivers licences with us otherwise we could have big problems with the authorities. Say what you like about corrupt traffic officers but you can get away with a lot more for a lot less hassle!
That Djalma and I went around a couple of pharmacies trying to find suitable dressings and cream for my leg, between two places we found what we needed and then we went for dinner. We ended up in a lively Mexican place and while Kate went her usual pina colada, Djalma and I had beers, we all had delicious food and then trundled back along the coastline to bed.
The next morning we went back to the same good coffee place and then got the bus down further South where we were dropped off at a small jetty. We arranged a small boat to Apo Island which was a 45 minute boat ride away, I tried to keep my burn dry but failed miserably, the boat ride was choppy and very wet, it was one of the boats that have a thin body with long bamboo arms either side that stabilise the boat. We pulled up, Djalma carried me ashore, and set off in search for affordable accommodation. We found it at Mary's House, a light and airy home stay with lovely people, it was also home to several pairs of small birds possibly swifts/swallows that had built themselves nests in the corners of the living room.
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