The memories come flooding back in. Horns honk from every direction, cars and motorcycles zig zag through the streets and the thick air, heavy with smog and diesel fumes, envelops everything.
After checking in at our hotel, we headed up the block to the Hobbit House where our little hosts were happy and cheerful. The Air Conditioning was a welcome relief and the man on the guitar was playing everything from Jack Johnson to Johnny Cash. A special request for a Beatles tune yielded a great cover of "Here, There and Everywhere" The music was great but the pizza was not.... not that we had high expactations.
With a great night sleep in our AC room, we woke at a strange hour (4am Manila time) and were wide awake.... nothing a few ham sandwiches left over from our flight on Hawaiian Airlines couldn't cure!
A few more hours of sleep, a nice continental breakfast and an hour walk around Manila put us on schedule to grab a cab and head out for the islands. In fact, that hour walk was about as much as we could handle as most of the time Michelle was drawing eyes from everywhere and even got the nickname "Ms. America"
Our 1 hour flight to the island of Busuanga was fantastic. 11 westerners on a 20 passenger plane where we could see the two pilots and the blades of the props were buzzing next to our heads! The views were stunning out both sides and as we left the sprawl of the 15 million person Manila behind, small islands poking up out of the ocean could be seen within minutes.
Midway through the flight we crossed over Apo Reef, a 35 sq km atoll in the middle of the Mindoro Strait. An amazing sight to see from above, reef everywhere in the middle of the deep dark blue!
We continued on and after skimming countless small islands, made a great landing at our little airport. After the plane came to a halt and the engines were turned off, the group was struck by an amazing silence. After the insanity that is Manila, this was quite a turnaround!
Here's one of the many small islands from above...
We are now settled in the small town of Coron and have a few days of diving booked. We are off to explore the Japanese wrecks that surround the islands. Our room is simple, the staff is friendly and life is great.
We spent some time lounging in a hammock this AM and befriended an Aussie named Gareth who is stoked to dive too! Terrible coffee and fantastic banana pancakes for breakfast today.... all for about $4 for both of us. On Wed we will take a boat for 7 hours to the small town of El Nido. Don't think we'll be watching the Superbowl as we have yet to see a TV here and that's just fine.
A great resource for all things Coron (wreck history etc.) is Philippine Diving
More updates in about a week.... keep checking back in!
All the best,
Michelle and Gabe
