Monday, April 6, 2015

Days 31 and 32 - Hundred Islands, Philippines

A few hours drive from here is the National land of Hundred Islands which is comprised of 123 limestone islets that you can kayak around or some you can stop on and enjoy the beaches, zip lining, and beautiful caves.

We arrived and got a room at Villa Antolin for the 5 of us and ordered a boat and driver to take around the islands for just 1500P for the day.
Marcos island is where I got a huge bruise because I still didn't know how to jump into water correctly. But it was amazing. I finally got the courage to jump and when I rose to the top I saw the cave was covered in small bats, some huddled up together looking like one huge bat. We jumped from where the lowest guy in the photo is standing, but if you wanted to you could go even lower. One guy (maybe a tour guide) kept jumping from where this photo was taken!!!)
 We drove by bat island covered in huge bats clinging upside down in broad daylight.  We trekked around Governor's Island and went to the top for some good views.  We also snorkeled around here and saw cute Nemos fiercely protecting their anemones, and HUGE clams covering the sea floor!!  The one below is about 3 feet long!

Once we returned the mainland and had rinsed off, we walked around and perused the shopping areas and watched a large group of people doing Zumba next to the ocean.  =D
We ate at Maxine's next to our hotel and had the huge platter of grilled chicken, okra, eggplant, shrimp, squid, banana, fish, and other meat and veggies. We also had some warm white wine and watched the boats drive by (no lights on any of them!!)
The next day we picked up the food we had ordered from the hotel that they packed up for us to take on the boat (yummy curry, kaldereta and more), and asked for the same boat and crew (they brought a lunch of sea urchins!) and told them we wanted to see different islands and ones with less people on them.  They didn't speak very good English but understood enough of what we were asking and took us to Shell island (covered in shells of all kinds and where I found some pretty puka shells) and a few more places, and then we asked to go to the cave again so we could jump a bit more before we called it a day.  We were allowed to clean up in our room since no one else was coming that day and then headed back 'home'. 
I highly recommend Hundred Islands to anyone who visits the Philippines.  It was beautiful, natural, and so much fun.

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