Geeky Yet Waterproof

A few days ago we took a half hour flight in a small jet from Manila to Boracay. Boracay is a tourist attraction, because it’s located on a white sand beach of a small island in the Visaya province.
When we landed, we had to take a boat out to the island, and then ride in a van across the island to the other side where the hotel was located.

When we got there, I was amazed by how much everything looked just like a movie or a postcard — Caribbean-blue water (which, to our surprise, got shallower as we waded out farther), a long strip of white beach, a curtain of coconut trees, a mob of street vendors, and an endless row of cafes. There was even a mall area behind the cafes, called… D’Mall.

We spent most of the day swimming, lying on the beach, and trying to convince the vendors that we didn’t need an ATV at the moment. It felt good to relax, after all the things we’d been doing for the past few days.

The next day, we got up early to go on a boat tour around some of the islands.
We stopped to go snorkeling for a while near some island where the water was shallow enough to reach the bottom. It was again, amazing. There seemed to be less "landscape" than at Hundred Islands, but there were a lot more tropical fish. It’s too bad I don’t have an underwater camera case, because some clown fish (I found Nemo BTW) were letting me get up really close, without them swimming away.
And even if we didn’t expect it, it was bound to be: that’s right, street vendors exist even offshore. While Christopher and I were snorkeling and everyone else was relaxing in the boat, a guy pulled up in a small vessel selling buko coconuts.

After we had snorkeled for a while, we continued on to another island, whose main trait was a network of caves. To enter one cave, you had to climb down a frighteningly steep set of stairs, and after the stairs you had to take a walkway leading through the water, and then into the cave. But inside the cave was a tunnel, no more than about four feet high, leading into another cave!

Our tour lasted about three hours, and by the end the sun was almost at full heat (which is a thing you want to avoid at the 12th latitude). When we got back, we spent the rest of the day lying on the beach and shopping for souvenirs at D’Mall. It was a good weekend.