Last November 19-23, I finally got the chance to go and see for myself what the famous Boracay is all about. Even though it's basically the rainy season (starting June) in Philippines, my friends and I still went ahead on this trip to avoid the usual large crowd during peak seasons (December to May). Despite having rains during the evenings and overall slight downcast weather, we weren't disappointed and were able to Banana Boat, Sail, Island hop, and Snorkel. I really enjoyed this trip, and I'm already thinking of going back some time in the (near) future.
Day 1 - 11/19/2007Our journey begins by air via Cebu Pacific, and we boarded the plane at 9:30am. The flight was a bit shaky due to the rain clouds we passed through but that's fine. This did not lessen the excitement we feel. After about 40 minutes, we arrived at Kalibo Airport. Kalibo Airport has this nice "booth" about the Ati-atihan festival Kalibo is known for. From here, we traveled for 1 1/2 hours by Van to Caticlan. At Caticlan, we met Ate Lea who is to serve as our guide and help us get to the place we're going to stay at. From Caticlan, we rode a boat to Boracay. The ferry/boat ride is about 20-30 minutes.
At around past noon, we arrived at Boracay. We rode a tricycle that took us to the house we'll be staying at (very near Boat Station 1, southern tip of White Beach). After quickly dropping our things since by now we are hungry - we headed to D'Mall (this is where popular "fast food" restaurants are located, as well as other souvenir shops, located between Boat Station 1 and 2) and ate at Mang Inasal ... where we sampled the place's Chicken "Inasal". :D
We then headed back to unpack our stuff, and rest a bit. Before we know it - it's already time to eat dinner and we went back to Mang Inasal in D'Mall. On our way back, we passed by numerous sand castle built by the locals where you can have your name written on a space on the right side and have your photo taken - for a fee. But, it's free to take a photo of the sand castle. To commemorate our first day in Boracay, I took a photo of it:
