visayas backpacking: boracay

July 22nd, 2007

two weeks ago, my sister and i went to the visayas for a little trip. since my sister wasn’t able to join me in my past “tripscapade”, we’ve decided to go on a mini island hopping spree. here’s a sketch of our route to give you an idea:

based on this experience, i’ll be posting some tips when traveling during off peak season (june - october). you’ll know why hehe!

GETTING THERE

there are many ways going to boracay, and since we have a lot of free miles, we used it to book PAL’s business class, devoured nice plane snacks and landed in kalibo. i personally prefer landing in caticlan because it’ll save you more time and money. there are lots of vans and buses going to caticlan at the kalibo airport, so it shouldn’t be a problem. vans travel faster than buses but it needs to be filled with passengers before it leaves. if you’re travelling during off peak season, expect to wait a little longer. vans going to caticlan charge P200 per person.

when we arrived at the caticlan jetty port, the wind was blowing hard and we could hear the waves splashing against the port. we were informed that we could not take the regular boat route to boracay because of the weather condition so they took us to an alternate port 5 minutes away. the shore was calm and the boat ride to boracay only took us around 5 minutes. instead of the usual station drops, we disembarked at boracay’s “backdoor”, road a tricycle to station 2 and walked all the way to our resort.

tourist vultures are extremely hungry during the off peak season, and they’d do anything to milk the money out of you. when in doubt, ask a staff from the department of tourism, they are present in most air and sea ports. tricycle fare costs P20 per person if you ride in fours. if you want the tricycle all to yourself (express, so to speak), it’ll cost you P100. tricycles are not allowed to enter the resort areas, you may take a pedicab for P10 per person or walk (around 10 minutes i guess?).

WINDY BORACAY

we could hear the waves crashing as we neared our resort, and we could see that almost all of the resorts assembled high plastic walls to prevent sand and wind from getting into their establishments. it was already dark when we arrived, too tired to look for a nice place to have dinner so checked in at la carmela de boracay and had dinner there as well.

there wasn’t anything special about the food, the price and the live performance that night. i guess people find it more bearable than taking a night stroll in the rain.

the following day, the weather was better and we were able to look around. the tall plastic walls are still all over boracay, making it hard for us to find jona’s, but because we thirst for the holy grail of all shakes, we were able to locate it.

even if it’s pretty obvious that the ocean can eat your tiny boat alive, boatmen were still trying to persuade us to go snorkeling and island hopping. if boats from caticlan jetty port were not allowed to bring passengers across that route, what more a small snorkeling banka? wtf.

GOOD EATS

the free breakfast buffet that came with our accomodation package sucked. by lunchtime, we headed out to look for a nice place to pig out and discovered don vito. it was divine, i tell you. this cozy restaurant serves authentic italian cuisine and the serving is really worth your money. when the menu says seafood pasta, they mean business and will shove neptune’s bounty down your throat. i learned later in bacolod that the patriotic chef/owner of this restaurant left bacolod because he wasn’t able to compromise his price with city’s average price range. too bad, no?

another place to try is true food indian cuisine, also in station 2. nice curry, nice bread, nice dips and nice ambiance. so likey :)

ON TO ILOILO

the weather worsened on the day we’re leaving. the tide was higher than ever, the ocean looked fierce and rain poured. we were glad that we had the chance to enjoy the beach yesterday when it was sunny, and partly glad that we’re leaving soon before the situation gets any worse. we can’t obviously use the regular boat route to caticlan so we retraced the path that’ll take us to the alternative caticlan port.

there are lots of vans, jeepneys and tricycles at the port that will take to to various destinations. the van going directly to jaro city, iloilo will cost you P250 per person. the travel took us 5 butt-torturing-bladder-bursting hours.