Cooling Down
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2011
1
174
217
Trip End
May 05, 2012
Where I stayed
Diamond De Siquijor
Siquijor, Visayas, Philippines
Friday, March 23, 2012
The only tiny tiny downside to yesterday was that because it was windy on the bike we neglected to put sun cream on, stupid mistake to make at this stage but a mistake nonetheless. Subsiquently it means my forehead, nose and forearms are pretty raw. With a day of glorious sun ahead of us I would need to be careful. Charlotte isn't as bad because I was protecting her from the sun on the bike.
The plan today was simple. Drive the bike back the first beach we visited yesterday and get even more fucking burnt. We woke up naturally at 9am which is very rare for a day that has nothing in particular laid out. I had a tuna omelette for the third day running and we fill up the bike with the funnel for the 80th time and then off we go. We half expected the weather to be shit but quite the contrary.... it's not.
There are a few more people knocking around today, mainly local fisherman who spend time staring at Charlotte but once they disappear we have the beach to ourselves. It's hot so there's only so much realistic time that you can spend just laid out. Normally you can cool off in the sea but the sea is warm, shallow and full of jellyfish so there is little respite. We messed around wandering about in the sea further up and shot videos and things to pass the time. There's some amazing sealife like 2 yards out to sea here. We had rented a snorkel from the hotel but it didn't work, I smashed it on the ground and the front popped out. I spent a good 30min fixing it up enough so that when Charlotte gave it back he wouldn't notice.
Around 2ish we were incredibly hot and tired of the sun. We literally needed to cool down. We consulted the map. There is a falls about 15min away up in the hills. We found it pretty easily and it was nice to see yet another part of this amazing island. The walk down to the falls is through a cool forest and then at the bottom is a big waterfall with no one but 3 girls who were doing other things in the smaller part of the falls. The water is cold but not too cold, it's perfect, the definition of cooling down. The girls leave and we have the place to ourselves. We mess around for about 40min shooting videos and I cut my foot on the rocks below which was nice. When we think this island can't give any more, it does, it gives a waterfall.
The only reason we didn't spend longer there was we had to have the bike by 4:30, well that and because there wasn't much more to do beyond frolic about in nice blue water for a while. So when I said only reason I meant, why am I even writing this? We took the bike back but the owner wasn't around, the mongy lad told us to come back in 30min. It wasn't worth riding back to the hotel so we went for a wander around the square. As we have taken to having just two meals a day we were both pretty hungry at this point.
The Philippines has one type of food/food house that stands out above all others (apart from bakeries), lechon manok places. I don't know the literal translation but I know that out front they always have loads of whole chickens on spits going round and round over a flame. It's only like £2.50 for a whole chicken so we go for that and some cheap rice, I get some additional sauce and spice. The chicken and its skin is amazing, I don't know what they baste it in but the taste goes all the way through. I sort of ruin the taste with the stuff they gave me. Charlotte ate the bones and the plate and then we went to return the bike, he didn't have change as usual so we were made to go get him some.
I spent the rest of the night drinking a few beers and making a video in the restaurant. It's tempting to get drunk for the third night in a row but we are leaving on the 6am ferry so it probably isn't too wise.
