♣ midsummer madness ♣

before all the hype and the rules and the debates surrounding the protection and the treatment of the largest fish in the world, several of whom decided to make oslob, cebu as their playground, we were there.

and by "we," i mean ram and me, who basically crashed grabbed the opportunity to hitch on the plans of my sister and her friends to go and see these gentle giants of the sea. (no, i didn't mean for that to rhyme. watching little einsteins with my niece these last couple of days has reset my brain to that of a 3-year old's, except that the the 3-year old's can hold information much longer and use it much more effectively than somebody my age can. i may have expanded my vocabulary but the moment i learn them, pffft! gone. just like that.)

so anyway, it rained on and off for days in that second week of december last year. it worried me that the whale sharks mights not show up because they didn't wanna get wet in the rain and all.

just as it worried me that my photos would end up with... just me. pathetically looking out into the dark and unfriendly horizon wondering where the hell the whale sharks go when it pours.

amphitrite, the goddess queen of the sea and wife of poseidon, from whom spawned the sea's abundant creatures, had been more than kind. she arranged for the sun to shine upon us on that day, blessing us with a little too much vitamin D, harmful ultraviolet rays, and deliciously itchy red rashes that lasted for five days.

but hey, for these babies, i'll take those rashes anytime!

okay, maybe not. but for that one time? let me just say IT WAS ALL f*cking WORTH IT, man! (nevermind that i still carry the countless scars on my arms and legs until now. they'll fade. in about three years. not that i'm worried, although they look kind of ugly, honestly speaking. if you see me and you notice them, don't ask. if you do, at least be polite about it. i'll explain it to you but don't expect me to talk to you again ever. nothing personal.)

with all my nonsense blabbering as an introduction, i don't know where to start. like, you know, how did those whale sharks get there? what do they eat? do they eat you? stuff like that. i'm sure you have a lot of questions and you can bet your kidneys i would not be able to answer them in a way that would not insult your intellect.

but for starters, no, they don't eat humans. well, sure, they can swallow you whole but they probably would not waste their time on junk food. (they're watching their weight. if you're dying to know, they're into plankton. so unless you look like a plankton, fret not.)

and yeah, they may have all these teeth but they're more for aesthetic purposes than practical ones. instead of going through the hassle of actively biting and chewing, they suck in the water with the plankton and the baby shrimps (and you) in it into their colossal mouths and filter out their food, with the excess water coming out from their gills.

now, we all knew we were not allowed to touch them and i'm sorry (am i?) if i did but that was me incapable of controlling myself from wanting to pet something that i probably might never be able to do again in my entire lifetime.

and that is ram losing his sanity with giddy excitement. lol. i love that boyish look on his face, by the way. that whale shark drove him crazy with happiness he would marry it if he could. (that's already a great pre-nup shot right there.) haha.

on a serious note, i am aware that there are lots of issues surrounding the industry that the whale sharks have created and you can read all about that somewhere else, but not here.

because being this close to them was one of the best moments of my life. this blog is about that.

happy vibes. =)

call me a softie but i love everything inspirational, from quotes to videos to the bullisht that comes my way, i try to find meaning in the true meaning of life, digging deep with my bare hands until my restless heart finds comfort in the unspoken message the universe whispers to me.

sometimes, i catch her drift. more often than not, i don't. but i never stopped believing that everything happens for a reason. even the shitty ones.

most especially the shitty ones.

sure, it's not disneyland but not counting the traditional local carnivals that sprout during fiestas, st. james amusement park is the only thing cebu's got in terms of fun rides, games, and food stands.

the wooden planks in lieu of concrete pathways suggest that the park may be temporary but who knows? the cebuanos might just want it to be a permanent go-to spot. although it's probably not the kind of place i'd want to go back to again, simply because i've been there already and there's nothing much to do and see. not much of an amusement park kind of person anyway. jelvin is, though. he was the main reason why we went in the first place.

the only ride i ever tried was called the black pearl which was like this boat which swayed from point A to point B, climbed higher and higher, paused for about a second, and then just dropped you suddenly. crazy ride. anticipating the drop was the killer part of it all.

among the four of us, only jelvin had the stomach to ride this. i forgot what this was called. i passed on this one, as i hate being spinned around. but jelvin said all it did was spin you round and round making you feel like you're flying. i didn't buy it, though. i figured he's one of those people who should've been a rollercoaster engineer or something, given his unbridled excitement for death-defying rides.

for guests who merely want to sightsee and take pictures of themselves as different characters, they have these. what do you call them, by the way?

the park wasn't really that big but i wished they had more benches, though. something for the oldies to sit on while waiting for their children or grandchildren.

i don't know if it's held every night but on the night that we were there (which was a saturday), they had this show presenting different performances and talents from different groups of people.

these guys were amazing! i mean, to be able to contort your body without breaking your bone and forming human pyramids without breaking other performers' bones -- that's tough! it's not an everyday talent that you see anywhere so these guys truly deserved my heartfelt applause.

although i have to admit that the fire dancers were my favorite. if you know me, you'll know why. =p

we may have missed the beauty of the sunset in camotes but at least we were given a few moments of its last moments before darkness took over.

a truly wonderful sight, although i might be a bit biased because i'm a sunset person and all. but really, i could just imagine that the sunset there must have been so pretty. prettier than these photos.

prettier than me and ram ruining the whole view.

lake danao is said to be the largest inland body of freshwater (that's the correct definition of a lake, right?) in all of visayas and mindanao -- 680 hectares of it!

i don't know if that's a really really big deal because i suck at measurements and 680 hectares doesn't mean anything to me unless i'm flying over it and estimating its size in comparison to its surrounding area visually, not numerically. i mean, that's just how my brain works, if it works at all.

and besides, it's kind of hard to appreciate it for what it is when all you see from the wooden platform is an endless view of stagnant water and long stretches of greens. other than that, there isn't anything much to see, honestly speaking.

so the next best thing you can do is take pictures of yourself after you get bored taking pictures of the still life before you.

if that doesn't work, you can rent a boat and go fishing. that's what the park really offers anyway. =)

from the outside, timubo cave looked unassuming and pale with the dark hole promising not to hold any promises that might disappoint those who venture in.

no extreme spelunking is needed when exploring timubo cave. no ropes either. just bring yourself, as stairs had already been cemented along the path to ensure a comfortable walk for visitors at the expense of the stalactites and stalagmites which i gathered were already vandalized before this place even became a tourist attraction anyway. oh, and there's no need for flashlights too. halogen bulbs lead and light the way.

you may, however, bring a hard hat. in case you're paranoid about scalp lacerations, contusions, concussions, subdural hematoma, epidural hemorrhage -- you know, those minor stuff. some of the stalactites do go pretty low in some of the cave openings but other than being extra careful with your head, all you need is common sense in lieu of a yellow hard hat which might make you look kind of silly unless you naturally, fashionably rock in it.

because we were the only people there at that time, the cave can be eerily silent and creepy if we stood still with it. i'm not a very superstitious person but some places, i believe, are enchanted. seriously. i respect that, as well as the invisible elements dwelling in those places. timubo cave was one of those places.

and really, with water like this, what supernatural being would not want to protect it from the foolishly destructive habits of man?

as the cliche goes, don't judge a book by its cover. the external facade of the cave may not have held anything much but such facade worked out fine because in not expecting, you get blown away by the things you never expected in the first place.

in short, i. was. f*cking. blown. away! although "bombed" is much more closer to the truth.

fyi: in the past, this cave was an important source of water for the folks living in the area. people used it for drinking, washing clothes, bathing, whatever it was they needed the water for. how they accessed it without the convenience of a cemented footpath is beyond me but hey, it worked for them so kudos to those guys!

with camotes being a relatively small island off of cebu, traveling around its tourist attractions is easy. that is, if you can find the transportation to do so. i'm not saying cars or buses have never been heard of in that part of town. sure, there are vans and motorcycles for rent. those things you have to arrange with your resort or upon arrival at the port. however, don't expect public utility vehicles to roam around the streets looking for passengers. that never happened the whole time we were there.

the motorcycles you can get for about 400 or so pesos and that includes the driver. i think you can get it a lot cheaper without the driver. i don't know if you can get it even more cheaper with just the driver, though.

with the main roads smoothly asphalted, the ride wasn't really that scary. it was actually fun watching the scenery go by. one thing i did notice was how green the plants and grasses were in camotes. no kidding, they were green green! you know what i mean? gawd, i can't even explain it to you. they were a different kind of green. the living kind or something. the kind of green that breathes in the day and snores at night. or something.

okay, i'll stop babbling now.

our first stop was in the island of poro, one of the four islands of camotes connected to pacijan (where we stayed) by a causeway which paved through a large area of mangroves. either side of the road were mangroves galore. if mangroves are your thing, you'd seize with excitement there.

what i was excited about, though, was the buho rock resort, a popular tourist destination in poro with slides and jumping spots for the daredevil ones. those who value their lives at all cost can take refuge in one of the many open cottages there.

nursing the muscle pains and the bruises i acquired from cliff-climbing in palawan five days prior to this trip, it didn't help that in order to get to the actual resort area, i had to climb down 56 steps. with my temporary disability, those 56 steps seemed like a hundred to me. one way. not counting the other 56 steps back to get to the top where the entrance was located. pure torture!

but then again, it was all worth it!

can i just say the water was mesmerizing? it was. and i mean that in every sense of the word. i had never wanted to jump into the water so badly in my entire life but that was just me being all brave and adventurous in my head. in reality, i was still the scaredy cat that i was. and am.

ram and jelvin would have taken the plunge had it not been low tide and all. they reckoned the water was too shallow for diving. either that, or they were scaredy cats too. haha. =p

the tourist-y spots i'll save for later. right now, allow me to share with you some photos of the things in camotes that caught my fancy.

if you live in the western world, the sight of stray dogs would probably raise your blood pressure to stroke level but for folks like me, these stray dogs deserve all the air time they can get. because they're not your ordinary city stray dogs. they're the cool, beach ones. those whose motto goes by the line of "life's a beach." (or "bitch," depending on how the last word of the sentence is pronounced.)

either way, these canines have it good. for 365 days they get to chill under the sun, unless, of course, if it's raining. then they're pretty much screwed.

the hermit crabs were also interesting. they were like a battalion of army resurrected from the depths of a quicksand.

these guys, they were really fun to watch. out of nowhere they appeared. any slight movement within their environment and they burrowed themselves back into the sand. an extremely paranoid bunch.

a deep red gumamela is a deep red gumamela, big deal. but to see something so vibrantly red in the middle of vibrant greens made the flower so attractive it definitely stood out from the world it was planted in. seriously. if it didn't, why would i even bother taking a picture of it?

and then there were the birds which greeted us in the morning of our second day. elegant birds playing catch with the waves. me and my camera's auto focus playing catch with the the birds playing catch with the waves. my lens must have extended itself too far out to capture a good shot and my arm muscles must have slightly atrophied from stabilizing the camera too much to reduce shaking and blurring but all in all, i took some pretty incredible shots of these feathery warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrates.

nevermind if out of all the pretty incredible shots i took, only one photo survived as evidence of my arms' tripod skills. the rest of the 10 or so pretty incredible shots i had to delete because they were either blurry or hazy, or turned out to be white-washed with none of my subjects in sight.

this lone birdie i loved. flying solo from his usual flock, i imagined him to be some kind of a cool renegade with white shirt, black biker jacket, and an aura of mystery that chicks his kind dig. 

although, on the other hand, that renegade bird's coolness would melt to nothing under this cat's menacing stare and sharp claws.

Quietly nestled in the northeastern part of cebu is the famed island of Camotes, baptized as such by the spice-crazy spaniards who first set foot on its cool crystal clear waters after they found that the island was practically pregnant with sweet potatoes growing in abundance inside the earth's womb like hydatidiform mole infestation.

In case you missed my point, the spanish word for potatoes is "camotes." i trust you're smart enough to figure out the relationship between the word, the island, and the husky spanish men with mesmerizing brown eyes who sexily pronounced the name "camotes" like it's the most romantic word in the spanish and portuguese dictionaries combined.

Of course, if i were one of the pretty exotic women welcoming sexy hunks invaders visitors into my land, i would have been simply stunned into mute stupidity. And with plump heart-shaped forms replacing the circles of my dilated pupils, i would offer them more than my share of camotes. I would offer them my hand. In marriage. hay, mi amor!

(At this point, i don't wonder why it was not my destiny to be there in that place and time. Even the gods cringe at the thought of me making a complete fool of myself. Either that, or camotes would not have been camotes at all -- with the spaniards rowing feverishly back out all the way to madrid to escape from my amazonian scandalous eagerly diplomatic advances.)

Amorous fascination for sultry guitar-strumming and tango-dancing spanish males aside, i have heard a lot of people raving about camotes island. Already about 3,257 times from about 5 people, as my social circle doesn't exactly ripple that far out into the ocean of congeniality. One of those five people was my mom, who praised the island's beauty like she had just been to heaven and came back to tell me all about its beaches. Mind you, this is the same mother who didn't bat an eyelash over boracay's stunning view. The very same one who slept right through that vacation. So to hear my own mother glorify camotes for its natural authenticity, that really was something!

However, it wasn't until 6 years later before i finally witnessed firsthand the kind of hypnotism the island's sea gods practice on you. It wasn't even planned.

Let's just say ram and i kind of crashed into what would've been jelvin's and roma's romantic getaway. haha.

you might want to read this: drought led to demise of ancient city of angkor.

sadly, even the most beautiful cities in the ancient world succumb to the forces of nature too. everything does, and will.

when i posted the books that i have read last year, i didn't know that it would be the start of a personal tradition here in my multiply. something to remind me of the various literature that somehow influenced my way of thinking and opened my mind to the realities of the world.

majority of these books are fiction but then again, isn't fiction based on some kind of truth? imaginary characters whose lives resonate with our own experiences; our own emotional turmoils; our own weaknesses.

drug addicts searching for redemption.
stranded kids learning to survive.
obese women yearning to be loved.
men and women finding and losing love.
daughters struggling to find themselves.

the characters may change but the plots are rife with everyday human experiences that are meant to make or break a person's soul. the conflicts may vary but the lessons they impart speak the universal truth.

love.

at the end of every story, it's all about love.

the day was winding down when we forged our way into helicopter island, the last in our itinerary in lieu of 7 commando beach because the tour guides said the helicopter island was better than the latter.

i may not have been to 7 commando beach to fairly make a comparison but the helicopter island was definitely not something to regret.

well, the waves may have been a little too rough but perhaps that's just the local nature's way of enthusiastically greeting her eager visitors -- with an overwhelming ferocity that made me scared that if i didn't  hold on and steady myself, i might find myself getting sucked into the open sea.

kind of like life, i guess, where we are always, always, at one point or another, on the verge of getting sucked into a nameless void. which is why we need to have a strong anchor to keep us from floating mindlessly away. holding on to the things that truly matter in life -- love, family, friends, and faith -- there is no need for a compass because where we are standing is where our true north is.

emo moment aside, helicopter island is so named because of the shape of its limestone cliffs. common sense would tell you that it's shaped like those of a helicopter's, although from up close, you couldn't really tell.

i doubt if this monkey could too. (yes, every once in a while, you'd see monkeys chilling out somewhere in the islands, which goes to show that the islands in el nido are as nature-y as they can get.)

the hole is easy to miss. i'm glad that whoever discovered it kept their eyes alert for any sign of a secret paradise.

the water here was warm. i love swimming in warm waters. the lagoon was also the smallest of the lagoons we visited. so small that your echoes reverberate around the rocky walls before disappearing into the white cloudy skies above.

i never thought about it but i don't know if this lagoon is accessible during high tide. in order to get in, maybe it would be necessary to hold your breath to swim right through the narrow opening or something. i forgot to ask jelly about that.

shimizu island is another gorgeous island in el nido. with its white sand, clear blue waters and with the same limestone cliffs as a natural backdrop, you wouldn't have guessed that its name was derived from a japanese diver who died while diving in one of its caves many years ago. locals said that he never resurfaced. nor was his body ever found.

we arrived in shimizu island during lunch time. as part of our package tour, we were served a mouthwatering lunch which consisted of freshly grilled fish, some grilled meat, and heaps of cucumber and tomatoes delicately arranged on a circular plate by jelly (that's the spelling. i asked.), one of the local guides i enjoyed talking to about the islands in el nido. it was one of the best lunch i ever had! (maybe because all that swimming and snorkeling in the small lagoon left me so hungry.)

while waiting for lunch to be served, i took in all these beautiful scenery:


we left the island with me whispering a silent goodbye to shimizu, whose spirit is probably still out there in the island somewhere, doing the one thing he loved which ultimately killed him.

and then i thought, i wouldn't mind not having an island named after me if the premise is for me to die to obtain it. sure, it's flattering to have such a pretty island carry my name but what's the point? i wouldn't even know if it's named after me because i'm already dead, and it probably won't even matter so much anymore.

if i could have it my way, i'd rather visit and enjoy all the beautiful islands named after all the dead people. haha.

i've been putting off this post for some time now, mainly because i feel like i don't have pictures that perfectly capture the beauty of el nido's islands. you know that feeling when you're looking at your closet full of clothes but in your head, you're like, "i have nothing to wear!" it's kind of like that for me. sure, i have all these photos here but really, they're not enough. they will never be enough. you have to go out there and see this wonderful paradise for yourself.

because i will disappoint you.

waking up to a cloudy morning with my leg and arm muscles screaming for the most potent analgesic known to man because of that little adventure the night before, i worried that it would rain. i could accept the muscle pains but i could not, for the life of me, accept being in el nido when it's raining. that would be like flying to the moon only to get there and realize that it's lunar eclipse.

the first 30 minutes were nothing but the blue sea, the gray skies, and the sharp-looking cliffs scattered left and right in el nido's sea like stars on the velvet sky. from afar, they were amazing to watch. silent. mysterious. dangerous.

i still worried that it would rain.

thankfully, the somber skies parted to let the light shine through. beautiful rays of warm light landed on the rocks and stones nature carved for her own amusement, radiating into the dark azure waters, transforming the color molecules to the loveliest shade of turquoise.

"salul!" the mother of a jewish friend exclaimed. indeed, the water was crystal clear, like one huge swimming pool except that there were colorful fishes and corals in it.

this is the entrance to the small lagoon. a truly enchanting cove which immediately had me under its spell.

to get to the small lagoon, you have to swim through a rather small opening in the rocks, snorkeling along the way if you want to so as to make the most out of the visual experience. inside, it was paradise!!! i fell in love with it the moment i saw it.

imagine the same magical turquoise waters enclosed by captivating rock formations on all sides. breathtaking!

it felt like nature enveloping me in a tight hug, with the strong boulders around me as her arms -- covering; protecting; welcoming. the warm water was her womb. i was her prodigal child.

i would go back there in a heartbeat if i could.

this is the part where none of our cameras did the glorious place any justice. we didn't have any of those sophisticated underwater cameras. good thing one of our tour companions had an underwater cam with her and we kind of hitched a shot before it zonked out later that day.

what the small lagoon really looked like? the closest photo i found on the web was this. taken from ronni's site, whoever ronni is. haha. big thank you to ronni. =)
lesson learned: when traveling to el nido, make sure you have a really good underwater camera. you'd hate yourself later for failing to take beautiful photos of something where the word "beautiful" is an understatement.

days before our palawan trip, my sister told me to pack some rubber shoes because we were going mountain climbing. Now, i'm probably the last person in the world you'd see climbing mountains as i am not the sportiest one either but then i thought it would be refreshing to try something new. I mean, it's just a mountain with definite, albeit muddy, trails and there i'll be, embracing the glory of nature with lots of pictures of the happy, smiling, and seemingly sporty me to prove it!

Let's just say that everything i saw and went through ran contrary to the expectations i cradled in my head. It wasn't exactly a mountain. It was a f*cking cliff! And i'm talking about the sharp limestone ones! Those that look like dragon's teeth from afar, with the ragged edges interspersed with sturdy green plants and just enough space for you to come crashing through. One false move and you're dead. An ugly, disfigured dead.


i'm not going to lie and pretend i wasn't scared because i was truly, madly, deeply petrified. i stopped counting the number of times i wanted to turn back but our local guide kept cheering us on, offering words of encouragement that we could do it and that we were almost there.

With no helmet, no harness, and wearing nothing but casual converse shoes (and ruining it in the process), i sucked in as much oxygen as my lungs could handle to ease the heavy pounding of my heart. I was virtually a heart attack waiting to happen.


with the climb getting steeper and more vertical towards the top, my feet and arms were aching but giving up wasn't an option. to give up was to let go and plunge yourself to the sharp rocks below where a gruesome death awaits you. And besides, we were almost there.

I cannot describe all the pain, effort, and sheer will it took to reach the top. with no experience in climbing, i relied on my instinct to survive, which was to keep my hands and feet planted securely on the crevices before taking the next move. Slowly but surely. I can do this.

thankfully, I did.

one and a half painful hours later, i stood on top of taraw cliff, 200 meters from the ground where we started from, surveying the gorgeous landscape i risked my life for.

I have to admit the panoramic view from the top was amazing, though. From there you could see the town of el nido and bacuit bay, with the boats looking like mere specks in the greenish-blue sea.

i'm too lazy to paraphrase so allow me to insert a little information about taraw cliff from this site:

Taraw cliff is situated on the left side of the El Nido town shore. It is a limestone rock formation that from previous centuries, maybe a home for thousands of sea creatures but today it holds nests for swiftlets also known locally as balinsasayaw. These are birds that can only be found in El Nido, Palawan and they only build their nests in mountain cliffs such as Taraw. As many would know, these birds probably have the most expensive saliva in the whole world, for each kilogram costs around 120,000 Pesos (3,000 USD). Their saliva is the main ingredient in the famous Nido Soup.

when all was said and done on top of the cliff, it was time to climb back down. thinking about the vertical parts of the cliff i had to maneuver made me queasy, as a deluge of possible freak accidents and other similar scenarios came storming through my mind. (years of watching rescue 911 could do that to you.) for a second i was angry at the local government for not installing ziplines as an alternative to climbing down but that was just me being a scaredy cat irrational.

with all my paranoia, something did happen, though.

we got lost on our way down. mainly because it was nearing nightfall and all, and you know how easily it gets dark in the forest (something i learned the hard way). so imagine having to maneuver the rocks in semi-darkness when your arms and legs are just about ready to give in. and, oh, we didn't have a flashlight. good thing i had my cellphone with me -- my humble nokia e63 with its life-saving flashlight.

of course i was scared! i was scared both for me and for my sister, as well as for the father and daughter team who was with us. as selfish as this sounds, i was more scared for myself because i knew my sister could handle all the physical stuff, being the sporty one. i was just this girly girl who didn't wanna die, at least not that way. in between panting, i prayed. i felt really close to God.

they say that in the face of death (or a possible one), you start thinking about things that mean the world to you. in my case, i thought about my dad and how disappointed he would be with me for doing something stupid like climbing a cliff late in the afternoon when all the risks are out there, or just climbing a cliff, period. i also thought about ram and how infuriated he would be. in my head, i was like, "i can't die. ram sure as hell will kill me if i die. then i would be a double dead."

pardon the sordid thoughts.

help finally came in the form of two other locals who brought flashlights with them after the girl who was with us called her mother to ask for help from the resort we were staying at. gawd, it was such a relief to see the houses and the dogs and the locals living at the foot of the cliff. i was just oh-so-happy to have made it alive!

that experience happened about a month ago. the numerous bruises and crippling muscle pains i acquired have long since healed but if you're going to ask me if i would do it again, i don't know. i probably would.

at sunset vistas where we checked in, it was a wonderful surprise to see a well-stacked bookshelf filled with books that have obviously been read and re-read a hundred times, their pages worn out from constant flipping. while waiting for our lunch to be served, my sister read aloud dr. seuss's oh! the thinks you can think! as a way of entertaining ruthie and me, at the same time teaching herself how to read in a manner that would place her reading skills above those of an average kindergarten.

on that afternoon, i learned about the colorful world of dr. seuss; where words can be used as playthings swirling around my tongue and my brain. hypnotizing. enchanting. enlightening.
 
and my favorite? something that relates to discovering myself by discovering the world. something that encourages. something that inspires.

oh, the places you'll go!