Boracay Island: Last Fling with my summer for year 08

May 2008

Our company finally decided to give us a break! wuhooo!!! We flew to Boracay Island for 3 days and 2 nights of booze, beach, and hopefully a nice tan.

We left Manila at around 9am, it was a one hour flight from Manila to Kalibo, then 2 hours land trip from Kalibo to Caticlan, from there its 15 minutes boat ride to one of the most beautiful islands in the world...aaaahhh i can smell the salt water already.

group picture at the old Cebu Pacific terminal

bus ride...with my seatmate G :)

This is my nth time to visit the island, the place is just amazing, and of course its the "IT" place to be every summer. We stayed at Le Soleil de Boracay, a nice hotel in the middle of station 2. We arrived an hour past 12, we were all starving, thirsty, and we couldnt wait to hit the beach.

Ina and I changed into our dear swimsuits right after a not-so-nice chicken lunch at D'Mall. D'Mall used to be a wet market, fresh seafood in every corner, there were only wooden tables and chairs around where you can order for your fresh seafood and have it cooked anyway you want it. After only few years, more and more people from around the world discovered the place, the more hotels and spas were built on the island...they grew like mushrooms! it was sad in a way that the natural beauty of the island was gone, but of course the advantage was that its not as exclusive before, now you have a lot of options where to stay, to eat or hang out.

We went paraw sailing that same afternoon, i wasnt able to take pictures, too bad. Paraw is the native sailboat (you'd see a lot of it in Boracay). It's a narrow hulled boat with outriggers and sails. Their difference from pump boats, they dont have outboard motors to give power, the paraw relies only on the wind. So no wind...no paraw sailing. The excitement is how you ride it. You can only sit on the netting stretched over the paraw's outrigger as it skim's the water surface, legs dangling over the "katig" or outrigger's edge...there you can enjoy your feet splashing your feet against the waves...so strong wind, the better paraw sailing experience...and yes, you'll be wet all over, that is why all the cameras and bags were hidden underneath a covered space of the small boat.

getting ready for our paraw sailing...i dont wear a lifevest...makes me feel like traffic police

Sailing lasted for an hour, it was fun..i'll do it again and i highly recommend it.

We all went back to our hotel and checked out the pool inside. The girls and i had fun playing around before we went back to our rooms and showered. First dinner for that trip was not how I expected it. The place, Aria, an Itallian restaurant. When you're on vacation, you dont want to eat green salads for appetizer and pizza or pasta is not appealing when you see other people eating huge grilled squids and lobsters on the other table. Since its a company outing, there's one person who organized everything, and the way she did it...SUCKS BIG TIME! this is according to all the staff who were there. So, what I did was I ordered champagne, since we cant order the food we want, we ordered the booze we want and champagne it is. I'm not saying the food was bad, but its not for me when your on vacation, its like eating fine dining with sands underneath your table...the feeling wasnt right. I mean champagne and cold beach night...now thats perfect!!! :D

We head out to Guilly's after, located at station one, we had few drinks, fake laughter to humor our boss and we went back to hotel after midnight (actually thats not really what happened...we stayed at Cafe Del Mar after our boss called it a night)

dinner at Aria

The next day, island hopping.

Buffet breakfast was great, although I told myself to avoid eat all you can buffet-type sets, this one I cant resist. Im a morning person and I like to have that kind of energy to start my day. Anyway, food was great at Le Soleil, had too many cups of brewed coffee and fruit platter...of course only after I ate pancakes, sausages, rice, tocinos and more that i dont want to remember anymore or ill get hungry.

For the whole day, we went from island to island. Had lunch to another island, tried the fly fish ride...which i dont recommend for someone who cant grip hard. To give you an idea this ride will be pulled by a speedboat that would go so fast it would make this thing stand because of the wind, now you have to hold on tight, if you dont it will drag you like a rag doll like what it did to me, and I thought I have pretty great arms to hold on to. The highlight of the ride is when it goes really fast, you will look like you're standing up and you can feel your body weight is trying to make you lose your grip.

The Fly Fish ride, cause you'll be flying like a fish and if you cant hold on any longer....a very ugly fish

Back in the hotel that night, we had our dinner at Le Soleil right in front of the beach. It was again, a buffet serving, but this time the food was absolutely delicious! oysters, crabs, grilled fish and pork, red and white wine, margarita, kebab....now im seriously starving.

We head to MO2 Wave after, listened to some live band, ordered more margaritas and then my friend who was also there on the island to dj at some party sent me a text message asking me to hang out.

Met up Jase at Cafe Del Mar, he was there waiting with a beer. I ordered my guava margarita which is so yummy, its a must-try. We set into some comfy chairs in front of the beach. Hang out for like hours, talked about our failed relationships, dogs, family, babies, sex, broken marriage (his, not mine) and songs... until I can feel my eyes dropping and I was yawning every 3 seconds.

with Jase

my guava margarita, beach front of Cafe Del Mar bar

For our last day, we didnt do much, we head out to the usual Jonah's Fruitshake, hang out, swim, spent hours baking (tanning myself) and just taking pictures. We left the island before lunch, head back to the airport and had a quiet flight back to Manila also called as reality.

for more info about the hotel resort: http://www.lesoleil.com.ph/