One night in Marikina, we spoke to one of our team members, Berrn, and he showed us pictures from different places in the Philippines. We were feeling so envious of him when we spontaneously decided… let’s go to Cebu! Most of our time here in the Philippines has been spent out in the field. While Benguet, Ilocos Norte, and Marikina were nice, we didn’t really have many rest days or time to ourselves. So we thought we deserved to treat ourselves with the three days we had between Marikina and our second trip to Ilocos Norte. So, we did some planning, and booked the tickets to Cebu!
The first thing I feel I should note was how easy the airport was. We had never really been in an airport here, besides our first arrival, and security was a breeze! We had plenty of time to spare while we waited for our flight. After a few hours, we got on the plane and flew to Cebu, landing about 2 hours later.
On day one of our vacation, we had a chill beach day. We had talked to another team member, Jave, who was actually from Cebu. She told us to go to a beach resort in Mactan. Well, we grabbed the hour to get there, just to find out someone had rented out the place for the day. So, we had to ask around where another nice beach would be. Happy Beach was what was recommended to us! We drove to Happy Beach, which was about 15 minutes away. This beach was very happy! There was a lovely pool and a little poolside restaurant. We got nachos and sat by the pool. At night, they had a fire show. It was so shocking… these people just threw torches around! It was kind of terrifying, but really cool to watch and a nice way to end the day. We got a picture with them, too.
Day 2 was the most exciting day. We started the day at 4 am and drove 2 hours to Moalboal, which is near the southern coast of Cebu. Here, we took a boat to Pescador Island. We got out of the boat and snorkeled. This was one of my favorite snorkeling experiences ever. The water was so clear, and we got to see so many fishes! We all got to hold a starfish, which I unfortunately didn’t get a picture of. Then we got back on the boat and got off near the shore, where we saw sardines. They were so cool and there were so many of them! Then we got back on the boat again, went to a different side of the shore, and saw the sea turtles. They were huge!
After our snorkeling adventure, we got back in the car. This time, we were going to go canyoneering. I really didn’t know what canyoneering was at this point. At the end of the day, though, it became one of the coolest things I have ever done! Canyoneering basically consists of jumping/sliding off of cliffs of all sizes in a canyon. I was scared at first, but it was actually amazing. We ended up at Kawasan Falls, which was a beautiful waterfall. The water was super blue in the canyon, and it felt so nice in the scorching hot weather!
Day 3 was probably my favorite day in Cebu. I was sad it was our last day, but we made sure to pack a lot of things in before we left later in the day. On this day, we did a tour of Cebu City! Shoutout again to Jave and her brother, who gave us an itinerary to do. We started out the day going to a cute café, called Yolk Café. Then, we went to the Taoist Temple. This is such a sacred place and is full of beautiful architecture. We then proceeded to the Temple of Leah. This place truly blew me away. It was on a mountain, so there was a beautiful view of Cebu City, and then the temple itself was absolutely gorgeous. This temple was built only a few years ago, and it was built by a man for his wife who had just passed. Our next stop was the Sirao Pictorial Garden, which was also stunningly beautiful. This had cute little sculptures and beautiful flowers. They call it “Little Amsterdam”, I guess because it resembles Amsterdam. After this, we went to the Basilica del Santa Niño and the Magellan’s Cross.
Then, it was time to head to the airport. I was so sad to be leaving Cebu, but we had a big day the next day. We were heading out the Ilocos Norte part 2! I will write all about that experience in my next blog.
Kate in the Philippines 