Busuanga Blog, Day 1 (of 3)

FRIDAY, June 24, 2011: Arrived at the airport an hour earlier than needed, but that was fine, as I saw the congested Cebu Pacific check-in lines were taking up most of everyone else's waiting time, as opposed to AirphilExpress' near-ghost town number of people in queue.  I had time to eat a semi-decent Japanese lunch while listening to Robopocalypse in audiobook form.

They climbed Mt. Tapyas while 

I was still in Manila.

Bagyong Falcon has not been kind the past couple of days.  First there was my drive through floodwaters after attending Batch '86 homecoming last night, now the storm's threatening to cancel my flight to Busuanga, as it had for those wanted to fly to Bicol.  My vacation partners Dee, Marilyn, Enz, Richard and Charles booked a much earlier fight, and by now are doing the city tour while I languished in Flight Delay Hell for 2.5 hours w/ a conked out netbook, something it always seems to do when I take it w/ me on out-of-town trips like it's being spiteful.

Eventually I'm on a freezing shuttle bus heading for the plane, w/c justifies my wearing a jacket for a trip to the beach.  My seat on the plane has a direct view of the right propeller, so at least I'll be the first to notice if something goes wrong w/ it.  And at this point I hope nothing does because I'm currently putting up w/ the loud whimpering of a couple of ladies seated slightly across from me, and this is while the plane is running normally.

Upon arrival at Busuanga airport I found a guy holding a sign that read Welvin Santos.  Then signholder/driver carpooled me and other arrivals, w/ me as the last drop-off to the rendezvous point where the gang was waiting for me before we all went to the Maniquit Hotspring.

This was actually elevated approx. 3ft. from the ground.

When we arrived the crowd of locals (and some foreigners) plus the overall look of the place made it look less like a naturally preserved hot spring and more like a community infinity pool.  (And we all know what kids do in community pools...) What the hell, all of us save for Charles took a dip into the warmer-than-warm and slightly salty waters, hoping the latter aspect wasn't connected to my last joke about the kids.  (Note to self: buy rubber-soled sandals to avoid future torment of walking over jagged rocks.)  We also hoped Richard wouldn't drop his unprotected camera.  When we sat under the mini-waterfalls immediate relief was brought to my aching shoulders.  It's no Ace Water Spa, but it'll do for now.

For dinner the restaurant we went to served well-cooked-but-poorly-cut liempo, spicy shrimp, steamed spinach, something Enz said was stingray but looked more like grey-colored Spam Spread, and flavorless lobster.  The gang planned the first late-night drinking session, so before driving back to Busuanga Island Paradise we stopped by a pharmacy for some required medication (Neozep for Charles, antihistamines for me).  After 3 glasses of Marilyn's cranberry-Absolut-Red Bull mixed drink I called it a night.