Wednesday September 17, 2014
6:15 a.m. San Juan, Siquijor
Room 2, Casa Miranda

I had an absolutely lovely day yesterday with even some perfect moments sprinkled in. I started the day with a bike ride into town for breakfast. My favorite “carenderia” was open, and I got a tasty and simple meal of rice and vegetables and boiled eggs. It came to just over a dollar.

Originally, I unlocked my bike and rode away from the restaurant. However, looking down the coast south from San Juan gave me the idea of walking along that stretch of beach, and I returned to the restaurant to ask if I could leave my bicycle there. I had been a regular customer, and there was a convenient spot for locking up my bike. They were fine with it, and after sorting through my camera gear to mount the 45mm lens with the polarizer filter, I set off on foot. I hadn’t really thought about this stretch of coastline as being worth exploring, but it turned out to be as beautiful as anywhere on the island, and in some ways it was more interesting, as there were so many beach resorts and businesses backing onto that stretch of coast.

The skies were clear and I took a lot of pictures of the coastal scenery as I walked along. There were almost no people on the beach or in sight anywhere, so I took no portraits. Even if there were people, I don’t know that I would have taken portrait shots. Siquijor being something of a tourist island, I feel a bit more self-conscious about my camera. I don’t want to subject them to my camera if I’m the fiftieth tourist to point a camera at them that year. Though, to be honest, I don’t think that would be the case. I never see other foreigners out on the remoter stretches of coastline where I’ve done most of my wandering. The popular activity here is to rent a motorcycle and drive around to a few local attractions, such as waterfalls and the well-known beaches Kagusuan and Salagdoong. I’ve thought about this quite a bit because I am continually surprised at how beautiful the coastline is. All the action is there. Yet, I doubt that many tourists ever see much of it. If you travel by road, you see nothing of the coast. I’ve ridden my bike up and down this stretch of coast southeast of San Juan at least thirty times. Yet, I had no idea how beautiful it was down at the water’s edge with limestone cliffs, white sandy beaches, and green tidal flats. I can see someone visiting Siquijor on their trip and never really seeing the place. Yet, the beauty is right there if you just fight your way from the road to the water. And that is the key. You have to get through private property to get down to the public beach area. I’ve done it by starting in villages and then walking for several kilometers along the water. I doubt that many people would voluntarily do that – especially with the brutal sun beating down.

My body continues to suffer from the strong sun in funny ways. I used to wear cycling gloves, and those covered up parts of my hands. But my hands have toughened up over time, and I don’t need the cushioning of the gloves anymore. I took the gloves off, and suddenly I had fresh skin exposed to the sun. The backs of my hands turned almost black with the burning of the sun. I lost all the skin from my left hand and it is just now growing back all pink and new. My right hand fared better for some reason. I already mentioned suddenly wearing a tank top – an unusual garment for me. And that exposed fresh skin around my shoulders and down my sides. That area burned quite badly as well. I applied sunscreen, but you can’t do that forever and the moment I didn’t apply sunscreen, I burned to a crisp. There is no avoiding the burn for me. And lately, I’ve started dispensing with the tank top altogether in an attempt to frighten the locals with my hairy chest. I thought my torso had been exposed sufficiently to the sun, but apparently not. I was careful not to burn yesterday, but I went shirtless for long enough to end up a rosy pink in places.

My route took me past Tori’s Backpackers Paradise, and I climbed up the resort’s pathways to the main bar to see if Tori or his wife were there. They were both there along with a construction crew, the two kittens Icy and Duckling, and their several dogs. I had a cold beer and chatted with Tori for a bit and then with his wife. I eventually went back out into the sun and continued my walk along the coast. A dog from Tori’s came with me and stuck with me no matter how rough the rocky path became. I tried to send her back at one point because the cliff was too steep. I could get down because I could use my feet and hands. But it seemed too dangerous for her. However, there was nothing I could do to keep her away. I don’t how she did it, but she eventually got down and came with me. I thought that perhaps she swam out into the ocean and went around the cliff.

Just a short distance from there was the incredible Coco Grove Resort. This resort is a clear example of how things work on Siquijor. On the road, I kept missing the entrance to the resort. I would ride past it without even seeing it, so the resort made little impression on me. But it turns out that this place was huge. It controlled a long, long stretch of beach and it was easily the nicest of all the beach area on that side of the island. There was no comparison, really. The sand was white and clean and the beach was very wide. The classic palm trees everywhere with shade huts and beach chairs around. It was a picture-perfect paradise. As a resort, the one problem was that the water itself was not that great for swimming. The shallow tidal flats went out a great distance. One could paddle around at high tide, I suppose, but it would be with rock and seaweed underfoot. At low tide, there was hardly any water at all and you could walk far out to sea. To do any real swimming, you’d have to walk a long way out, and then it might be too dangerous. I didn’t go into the resort itself to see, but I imagined that they had a very nice swimming pool if not several swimming pools.

It’s interesting that the dog stuck with me over dangerous cliffs and sharp rocks, but she absolutely would not go past a human. There was a Filipino on the beach ahead of me doing something with a boat, and the dog stopped dead in her tracks and would go no further. The natural world held no terrors for her, but a human with his ability to throw rocks was too dangerous to risk passing. She sat down in the sand and just watched me walk away.

At the end of the Coco Grove Resort beach, I found myself at some very high cliffs. There probably was a way around them, but that would have meant going through private property. There was no access along the shore unless I wanted to swim. I didn’t mind the barrier, because I was pretty worn out by that point and now I was faced with returning the entire distance I had already come. I sat down and took the time to switch lenses. I put the 12mm wide angle lens on for the return journey, and this process was like NASA putting a space station in orbit – so many adapter rings, filters, lens hoods, and lens caps to work with. It’s crazy complicated. I was glad to do it, though, as the 12mm lens offered up a brand new perspective on the coast, and I shot another hundred pictures on my way back.

My one human encounter was with a group of three fishermen hauling a fish net aboard a boat in shallow water. It was an amusing encounter because I totally misinterpreted it. I was a tourist out to capture the sights with my camera. That was my view of myself. Then when one of the fishermen called out to me and indicated that I should come to the boat, I assumed he wanted to show me something interesting – perhaps something I’d want to photograph. I waded out to the boat, and the man held out a long, thin fish. I’d seen hundreds of these fish in the market, but I pretended to find it fascinating and interesting. The man could have cared less whether I found it interesting. He wanted me to buy it. That’s why he called me out to the boat – to sell me some fish fresh from the ocean. I suppose a normal person would be interested. Normal people buy fish and then take them home and prepare them, cook them, and eat them. For me, fish are things to look at in the ocean and photograph in the market. I could live for a thousand years and never once would it occur to me to buy a fish and cook it. But this man didn’t know that. He assumed we were on the same page and since I had waded all the way out to his boat, I must have been interested in buying some fish. It was quite funny.

He made no sale with the fish. He then offered to take me to Apo Island on a day trip on his boat for 3,000 pesos. I did, in fact, want to go to Apo Island to go snorkeling, but not for 3,000 pesos. Later, after my long walk was over, I asked around Casa Miranda about possibilities for going to Apo Island. No one there could help me out beyond saying that I should check with Coco Grove Resort. They offered regular trips there and to other places on Siquijor. When the sun was lower in the sky, I got on my bike and rode to the entrance to Coco Grove. This was the first time I had been inside the gates, and I was surprised at how nice it was inside. I didn’t see any of the cottages or rooms, but the entrance area was nicely landscaped. I spoke to a very nice woman at reception (our conversation being constantly interrupted by the deafening screeches of a large parrot) and she said that they had very few guests (it’s low season), and they had no scheduled trips to Apo Island that I could join. They needed a minimum of 12 people to fill a boat, and they charged 1,600 pesos per person. I was expecting a high fee like that, but even so it seemed like a bit much – like price gouging. Twelve people at 1,600 pesos each was a fortune. But that’s life in a fancy resort. Everything is convenient but it costs ten times as much.

5:08 p.m.

Waiting for some spaghetti to cook, so I fired up the NEO. I was writing the other day about all the slogans one sees in the Philippines, and how amusing they can occasionally be – as if sometimes creating a slogan is all that is necessary and there is no need to actually do anything. Anyway, I just wanted to mention some slogans that I have seen painted very large on various schools. The ones on Cebu and on Siquijor all say “This School Is A Zone of Peace.” I always smile when I see that because it is such a meaningless slogan. What, after all, is the alternative? Are there schools that are zones of war? Is that an option? The other big slogan I’ve seen painted on schools is the just as amusing “This Is A Child-Friendly School.” It hardly seems to be a strong recommendation. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that a school by definition should be child friendly. Again, what is the alternative? A school predicated on hating children? I don’t think you’d want to send your kids to that school.

Anyway, I got that off my chest.

Today has been a pleasant but somewhat uneventful day. The weather was very nice this morning, and I set off on my bike with my snorkel gear in tow for a nearby marine sanctuary. I’ve had trouble figuring out these marine sanctuaries, but I was told that it was possible to snorkel at this one and that even if no one was around, I just needed to go out into the water and a man in a boat would come by to collect the fifty-peso fee. This fact also made me smile. I smiled more when no one understood why I thought this was amusing. The idea is that I’d be out in the water with a mask and snorkel swimming with the fishes. I wouldn’t exactly have my wallet in my back pocket, so how I would be able to pay this phantom boatman that would appear out of nowhere? This hearkens back to my earlier tale of nearly but not quite purchasing an expensive waterproof neck pouch for just such an occasion. I did not buy that neck pouch and that led almost directly to my being robbed of 2,000 pesos. Now I wanted to go snorkeling again, and I needed a way to carry money, but without a waterproof neck pouch, I had to find an alternative. The best I could come up with was putting some money inside a Ziploc bag and putting that in my pocket or jamming it into my swimming shorts somehow.

On my first visit to the marine sanctuary, I found no one to take my fifty pesos and no safe place to put my pannier bag. I simply locked up my bike and spent an hour walking along the coast and taking pictures. The beach was spectacularly beautiful, so that was no chore. There were some random fishermen and some teenage girls along the beach, and they all succumbed to long gales of laughter at something about my appearance. I am apparently a very funny-looking person.

I wasn’t that worried about my pannier bag because my back-up plan was to go to the Danish Lagoon and Restaurant and see if I could store my valuables there and then return to the marine sanctuary. The Danish Lagoon and Restaurant was owned and managed by a poker-playing man I’d met the other day. I was unusually lucky in this attempt, and I ran into this man – Johnnie – just as he was pulling out of the resort’s driveway in a resort truck. We chatted for a bit, and he said it would be no problem to secure my pannier bag behind the bar at his restaurant. He offered to also lend me some fins, and that turned out to be a godsend.

I returned to the beach on my bicycle with just my snorkel and mask and the fins plus the bike lock and 200 pesos in a Ziploc bag. This time, I found a small shack at the beach open and a man there who sold me a fifty-peso snorkeling ticket, and I was all set to go.

Getting into the water and snorkeling took some effort as the water was so shallow for so long, and there were some dangerous sea urchins around with their long pointy spines. I finally made a bit of progress, and I thought to check my pocket, and – no big surprise – the Ziploc bag was gone. Within seconds, it had floated out of my pocket and vanished into the ocean. I turned around with just a forlorn hope of retrieving it. It wasn’t 2,000 pesos this time, but I’d prefer not to lose the remaining 150 pesos that was in the bag. I got lucky this time, and when I stood up in the shallow water, I got just a glimpse of something foreign in the water. It was my Ziploc bag already quite far away and getting further with every wave. I swam after it and managed to retrieve it. Now I had to swim the rest of the morning while clutching that bag in my hand.

The ocean is never a boring place, and I happily spent a couple of hours out there checking out the coral and the fish and the various other marine creatures. There are so many bizarre creatures in the ocean that every time I go snorkeling, I think I’ve discovered a new species. I see such bizarre monsters that I imagine that no one on earth could ever have seen one before. Even so, it was far, far from the best snorkeling I’ve done. I wouldn’t even call it mediocre. Compared to almost everywhere else I’ve been in the Philippines, it was quite poor. Still, it was the ocean and there is always something to see.

I returned to the Danish Lagoon afterwards to retrieve my bag and drop off the fins. Johnnie, was there, and I had a chance to chat with him. He’s quite an interesting fellow. He themed his entire resort along Hans Christenson Anderson lines. He had designed every building on his resort along with all the chairs, tables, fences, and other furniture. He liked to try out new things and had done things like install hanging beds and design a circular house with quite a unique layout. He was currently working on a new round design for some cottages that he intended to look like giant whiskey barrels. He was also drawing up plans for a type of portable set of chairs and bar on wheels. He was very proud of the work he had done, and he showed me some old magazine articles that featured his resort with nice photo spreads. I was impressed with the place. Everything was well-designed and very thoughtful. He took great care in getting things right and making things work properly as well as look good. It’s an odd experience to come across such an oasis of thoughtful design in a country where nearly everything is just tossed together with no thought or even attempt at quality control. It was no accident that when I ordered a cup of coffee, it was brewed coffee and could be served black or with cream or with cream and sugar. It was also served very hot and in a large mug. All western style. In 99.999999% of the Philippines, ordering a cup of coffee will get you a tiny cup of lukewarm water with a packet of extremely sugary Nescafe 3-in-1 coffee mix floating dourly on top.

That was pretty much my adventure for the day. I rode my bike to my favorite carenderia for lunch. I was too late to get any of the rare vegetable dishes. They were all gone. So I had to content myself with rice and meat.

The weather had turned sour by this point, and I returned to Casa Miranda as rain sprinkled down. The rest of the afternoon has been spent hanging out around here. There are lots of chairs and hammocks of varying degrees of comfort strewn around the place, and I sat here and there and watched the ocean activity while sipping on coffee I made myself on my little stove.

Not much for Negative Nelly to talk about. There is one funny thing. The previous morning, I’d noticed a young guy who works at Casa Miranda using a handheld type of whisk broom to clean the sand. He had obviously been assigned to do this by the resort owners and he hadn’t really thought through this task. For one thing, the little broom really wasn’t an efficient tool for the task. Plus, the kid was simply sweeping all the garbage and seaweed on the sand down the beach and into the water. So when the tide comes up, it will all be deposited right back on the beach where it came from.

This morning, I saw a different approach. An older man was doing it, and he had done the smart thing and cleaned the beach with a big metal rake. Unfortunately, he was old-school Filipino, and he was of the opinion that the only way to get rid of detritus is to sweep it into a big pile and set it on fire. This annoyed me because I had deliberately gone out of my room with a hot cup of morning coffee to sit by the water and enjoy my coffee out there. I had a clear idea of exactly which chair I was going to sit in and I pictured my perfect moment – sipping my coffee, listening to the waves lapping on the shore, watching the fishermen on their boats, and petting the local dogs. However, there was so much acrid smoke from the garbage and seaweed fire that it was impossible to sit anywhere outside Casa Miranda. I had to retreat back to my room just to get out of the smoke. Call me crazy, but a beachside resort should resist the urge to keep a garbage fire burning on their tiny stretch of beach.

Tags: Apo Island, bike, Casa Miranda, Coco Grove Resort, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, Siquijor, The Danish Lagoon