There are these waterfalls called Can-Umantad Falls and we really wanted to see them but we also really didn't want to end up in a ditch. Again. We spent ages bouncing along an unsealed road that, of course, got worse and worse the further we got from the main road, but then you reach a [...]
We decided to fly from Legazpi to the Visayas rather than travelling overland/water via Leyte just so we could spend those extra few days up in north Luzon, and so we could squeeze a cheeky little trip to Caramoan in. Flights here aren't going to have your bank account curling up in a dark corner [...]
We duly rocked up to Bicol Adventure ATV by 7am, shuffling past the touts because shuffling is the only forward movement possible when you've been up since some god awful hour again, easily fending them off this time with a grumpy, "yeah we've already done it." Rowel was ready and waiting for us with two [...]
One of those "oh you simply must!" places near Legazpi are the Cagsawa Ruins. Cagsawa was a town from 1587 but Mayon gave no fucks about that and on the 1st February 1814 she erupted and rained rocks and sand down on the town. The township was moved to Daraga, and Cagsawa deteriorated until the [...]
There's no direct way of getting from Caramoan to Legazpi so we endured the mission back to Naga but this time we took a jeepney from Sabang to Naga to avoid paying the extra for our bags because we really are that tight. It took a bit longer but you can't really bitch over ₱100, [...]
With Matukad being closed our boatman tried for another island but we were shooed away by Survivor security. He exchanged a few words with the boy then started heading towards a cove on the mainland which looked way too populated for our liking. There was even a fucking house there. Our guys didn't speak much, [...]
Not far from Naga is a place called Caramoan which has a group of islands made famous on account of many of the Survivor programs being shot there. I've not seen any of them, I like reality TV about as much as I like being stabbed in the face. Oh and when I say "not [...]
I pretty much had to be dragged away from north Luzon. I'd have been kicking and screaming but it's unseemly, plus I had no fucking energy left from climbing up and down hills that could legally be defined as vertical. Germaine's cousin portered our bags up the hill from Batad to the end of the [...]
We did want to check out some manner of lookout way up yonder but Germaine quickly talked us out of that by simply pulling a face like we'd just told her we wanted to hop to Manila on one leg. Backwards. Naked. She well and truly pissed on that bonfire when she followed this face [...]
Getting from Buscalan to Batad is a three jeepney effort with Francis, our Buscalan guide, getting us to Turning Point in time for the 8.30am public jeepney. The walk out is mercifully less traumatic than the walk in and was completed with minimum crying. We immediately scrambled to the roof of the jeepney to top-load [...]
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