And arduous it was. From Cebu City, it took us around 4 hours to get to Maya port, and another 30-40 minutes via a slow moving boat (I swear, I can probably swim faster than that thing). The van ride cost 200 per head, but we were literally packed like sardines. One person was even standing up the whole trip - if you can believe that. I wish I took a photo, but I was too cramped in my own little corner and unable to do much.
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| A nice spot in Malapascua - not a photo of the docks though. |
When we finally arrived, it wasn't exactly a sight to behold. It looked like Puerto Galera with all the hotels and the boats, and I didn't see a lot of people swimming. It looked like the place had a wide wide variety of options for tourists - places that provide basic amenities for backpackers, and the "high end-ish" resorts for the altas. There were restaurants all over the place (yahoo! We won't starve!), and the area was crawling with foreigners (mostly European, I think). It looked like a place where divers converge, so I should probably consider getting some diving lessons soon. We ended up booking with Ocean Vida, but more on that on a separate post.
The highlight of the Malapascua trip (aside from the Kalanggaman Island tour of course) was the 3 hour snorkeling tour around the island. You can rent a boat for 1500 (1200 with excellent haggling skills) and have a guide bring you around the island. Yet another opportunity for me to test my new full face snorkeling gear. Yay!
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| This kid is just like me - born to go to the beach! |
The plan was simple: go around the island, take some photos, make a couple of stops, and swim/snorkel for a little bit. The tour was slated to last for 2-3 hours, which gave us enough time between early morning work and a noon time check out. The sales pitch was exciting and I was looking forward to spending a few hours with my underwater buddies. The weather was cooperative, so I was ready for some fun and excitement!
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| I wonder what lurks within the scary cave. |
One of the first things we saw (aside from the crystal clear waters and some floating seaweeds) was an islet with a cave. No, we did not dare get too close as the waves may force us to the rocks. But my imagination has gotten the better of me, and my mind was thinking about Blake Lively, a buoy, and her friendly neighborhood shark. Fun fact - at least 50% of the people in the boat were more terrified of sharks than me, so you can imagine how many shark jokes were thrown here and there.
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| Trivia - there used to be more hotels on the island. Then came Yolanda. |
Next stop was a diving spot with a ship wreck. It was in a wavy part of the island, so I was thinking long and hard as to whether I wanted to jump in - I had my share of stressful snorkeling in the past and I know how painful my body would be in the next few days. My friends dove in, and within a few minutes one of them came back screaming. Okay, maybe screaming is a strong word, but she was in excruciating pain. Apparently, tiny jellyfish got to her sensitive skin, and she was itching like crazy. She was begging me to pee on her (haha!), but luckily the neighboring boat had a bottle of vinegar. That helped a bit, but we all decided to move on to the next spot - the coral garden.
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| Don't let the smiles fool you! The "invisible" jellyfish are lurking. |
Expectation vs reality. Expectation: since it's named "coral garden," there must be a loooot of fish and a looooot of pretty corals. Exciting! Reality: the water was crystal clear...and that's about it. There were some fish and some corals, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting. The swimming was fun though - the waves were pretty steady and the dip was relaxing. We got about 20 minutes of fun until the jellyfish started attacking. I got some Oh well, it was almost time to check out anyway.
We took a less stressful route on the way back to the city. First off, we took a private boat (of sorts) going back to Maya port. It cost us 1200 (and some violent reactions from the resident backpacker) but we got to the port within 20 minutes or so. We also arranged for a private van to take us back to the city for P3000. It was super relaxing, but again, resident backpacker went nuts.
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| Can you tell from this photo who "backpacker" is? |
On a sad note, beware of scammers. First, we found out that the boatman who offered to find us a private van got a kickback of Php700. We probably would have gotten a better deal if we just went straight to the port and looked for our own van. Then, the van driver tried to extort more money from us because he "was told" that the drop off point is SM Cebu and not Mactan (we were told that the van can drop us off anywhere in the city). I will leave how the argument went to your imagination. Let's just say that they ended up dropping us off where we wanted to be dropped off. Don't mess with the Angry Backpacker and the Stingy Maartourist.
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