Boracay R&R

Dear Blog Readers,

I have been away for quite some time and apologize dearly! This past month has been quite busy, as I have been on travel, getting work done when I am in Davao, and preparing for David's visit. One trip I went on was to the island of Boracay with my workplace. Boracay is one of the top tourist destinations in the Philippines -- beautiful beaches, foreigners from all over the world, and delicious food. Boracay is in the Visayas, which are the set of island in the middle of the Philippines, south of Luzon and north of Mindanao. The staff went to Boracay for rest and relaxation and luckily there was room in the budget for me!

Here are some pictures from the trip, I put some up on facebook, but here are a few different ones and more description.

To get to Boracay you have to take a 10 minute boat ride from the main island of Panay:

Here is a pool side picture of our resort:

Here are pictures of the beach from the resort:


Later that night we went to eat dinner. We went to a place where there is a market with fresh seafood on one side and restaurants to which you bring your market purchases on the other and they cook it for you in any Filipino style -- this is about as fresh as you can get! Here is a picture of the market:

After dinner we walked around Station 2, the part of Boracay where there are a lot of restaurants and bars:

When we got to Station 1, where our resort is, I came across this restaurant and had to take a picture:

Sadly, every time I passed the Obama Bar and Grill it was empty :(

The next day we went on a boat tour around the island:


Our first stop was snorkeling, where we got to see lots of fun fish:

Our second stop was cave swimming. Here is the first cave:


We trek to the second cave:

This is the opening to the second cave:


But you have to crawl through a tunnel,


To get to swim in the second cave:

This is Puka Beach, full of puka shells. There are tons of women and men here selling jewelry made from puka shells to tourists. During our boat tour we stopped here for lunch:

While one side of Boracay is all white sand beaches, the other is rocky cliffs:

At the end of the boat tour we had the opportunity to do some water sports. Some went helmet diving (a light form of SCUBA), others went on inflatable floats attached to the back of the boat, and some of us went parasailing. Here we are on the boat getting ready to go:

Raquel and I in the air:

Parasailing was beautiful. It doesn't feel very fast in the air, just as though you are floating. You can see so far and it is so calm and peaceful.

So that was my trip! Goodbye beautiful Boracay:


Next up -- pictures from my trip to Thailand!