July 15, 2018

Boracay trip

This worldwide famous island has always been very special to me because of several first time experiences. My first work after graduating from college was in this island wherein I first had a taste of freedom and independence having to live and work for months away from my family. Freedom and independence for I get to decide on my own, whether I will stay out late or where to go during sundays; do my laundry and other personal errands.

After a decade, I am glad to be able to go back to this island. It was actually a spontaneous trip with former colleagues from comelec. We had a late afternoon flight so we were able to arrive at Boracay at about 9 in the evening. We checked in our bags, had dinner at one of the restaurants in the front beach and turned in early for the night to prepare ourselves for the activities we planned for the next day. Early morning, we decided to avail of the island hopping tour offered there.

Atty. Peng was with us :))

we saw a cruise ship docked nearby

So first, we went to this crystal cove island. They have an entrance fee of about 200 pesos per person since this is a private resort and actually it's my first to be able to visit this one. Your money is worth it for there are lots of photographic places in this resort like cliff rock views and underwater coves.

one of the coves

have a glimpse of the pathways within the island

took shots of some of the beautiful flowers in the island

Next stop is the crocodile island. I was a bit nervous on the way there since I had a bad experience here before when I first visited boracay during my high school days. Back then when we went to the crocodile island, we weren't able to dock for the waves were too strong that time. The boatman tried to use the anchor but still the waves almost flipped our boat. We prayed so hard that time and fortunately we were saved and our boatman decided to just go back to the main island. Going back this time, I enjoyed it for the water was so calm and the sun is up. Most of my travel buddies went snorkeling there.

on our way to Puka beach, we were amazed by the color of the water

The sun was scorching hot when we arrived at the Puka beach and fortunately there were chairs with umbrellas there but there's a catch, several stores owned these chairs so you need to purchase something from them to be able to hang out there. So we decided to order some fruit shakes from one of the stores in the beach. To be honest, Puka beach is now different from what I remembered. It seems like the shoreline is now wider compared before but the clearness of the water there remained so I'm satisfied. Puka beach is just walking distance from the shangri-la's staff house that's why I used to frequently swim and hang out on this beach before with my former workmates.

Since the water there looks clear and inviting, me and my friends enjoyed swimming for hours. On our way back to the white beach, we passed by the resort where I used to work, Shangri-La's boracay resort and spa.

Getting back at the white beach, I asked moneth to accompany me to Lemoni cafe at the D'mall to have some coffee and a taste again of their delicious cheesecakes. I have always been a cheesecake lover and still I think this is the best cheesecake I've ever tasted.

Come dinner time, we were all treated for a dinner buffet at astoria by Atty. Bea and sir toby. After that, we decided to have some drinks at one of the bars by the white beach.

The next day, Moneth and I decided to have a taste of the famous calamansi muffin from Real Coffee. The muffin tasted really good though it was a bit pricy. While killing some time, we decided to walk to station 1 to take more pictures and for moneth to be able to see the Grotto since it was her first time to visit Boracay.