A weekend getaway to Camotes Islands ~ An other day in paradise (part 1/2)

Dreaming away by the clearest waters, the whitest beaches on the sunniest days. Waking up as the sun will raise and drinking under the brightest stars before falling asleep in a tent

It was 5 O'clock still very early in the morning. I looked up to the black sky but unfortunately there were no stars to see because all the pollution in Cebu city. Tonight it will be different, imagining a sky full of stars shining bright like diamonds up there while drinking a beer on the beach. Yes, I am on my way to leave Cebu city. Time to go to a beautiful tropical island called Camotes Island!

As if I wasn't lucky enough yet, a motorbike taxi arrived in the street to drop off a neighbour. I grabbed my change and asked the driver to drop me of by pier one, the pier where the boat to Camotes leaves at six and where I will meet my sweet German friend Miriam aka @m1r1. There was barely traffic on the road in this early hour, so I arrived way to early. I was just about texting Miriam to tell her I arrived already and bought the tickets already until I heard a voice behind me. Miriam!

It was still just Friday but I could feel that this weekend was about to be awesome. This was the first island around Cebu I wrote down on my list, and the last I am actually going to visit. Why? I don't know, Maybe I was just supposed to go here with Miriam and Adong, Ohh jeah before I forget.. Adong aka @Adongknowyou will arrive on Sunday to celebrate his Birthday on the Island. Such a lucky bastard, able to celebrate it with Miriam and me :p

After almost an hour of waiting for the boat to leave and 1,5 hour on the boat we finally set foot on the island while all guys tried to let us rent their scooter. We decided to take first breakfast by the pier and I ordered some veggies and rice. Right after I ordered, I noticed all the guys with a scooter for rent were slowly leaving what made us decide to rent one before finishing our food and it is a better way to spent our time than waiting for our dishes to arrive.

First they asked us 500 peso, but when we told we wanted to rent it for 3 days, the kind man offered us the bike for as low as 900 peso's for all of the 3 days. That is definitely a great deal to us! Happy as we were, we got handed the key, ready to drive away. But first finishing our breakfast!

After a 20 minutes drive, not sure if we were on the right way but enjoying all those views around, we finally saw the sign Santiago Beach, the place to be if I had to listen to my friend @iwanderela. After we parked the scooter, the time was there to finally see the beach. And yes, iwanderela was right.. It do is a gorgeous beach! Sand as white as the now closed but before most touristic Boracay and water as clear as well. Maybe the sea is not as blue, but it is definitely in my top 10 beaches I have seen in my 1,5 years of traveling. Why? It is so quiet here and it feels like my own paradise! And than it even is weekend, mostly the busiest time especially on an island which is so convenience to travel to as Camotes. Going here was definitely a great choice!

The beach

First, we had to search a spot for our tent. The decision to camp instead of just booking a room isn't only to save money, but to make the experience greater as well. Staying closer to the nature, to the stars and having the rhythm of the sun.
We found a beautiful spot next to another tent. Maybe not so quiet, but it is the only spot under a tree and that might be better on this hot, tropical days. And who knows, we might make friends with our neighbours!

Our house for the coming 2 nights

Setting up our tent and preparing our stuff did not take us long, but the suns rays on the tent made the temperature inside raising very fast. When Miriam asked me to take a dip in the sea I did not have to think twice. Let’s swim! So before we knew we were in bikini and walked into the direction of the quiet ocean, far away since it was low tide. We had to walk quiet far since the water is just until our ankles for quite some time, but it is the perfect beach to sunbath and especially if you can’t swim but still want to enjoy the water. And for us to play!

While chilling in the water Miriam called ‘’Hey I found this seastar!’’ Yes, indeed, seastar. We Germans(Miriam) and Dutch call it Seastar if we exactly translate it to English. Not much later, I also found one. Miriam put the star back into the sand and was really surprised and showed me why. She put the starfish upside down and it turned himself around! I never saw that before and I never expected that they are able to do that!

Since we were totally into starfishes now, we started to see them everywhere and catched them. A few cute kids which lived near the beach started joining us, even while they barely spoke English. We started doing a competition between two starsfishes called Patrick and Oscar. The one who turned around first is the winner. We had a lot of fun doing such a silly games in the sea with the kids and it made me think back to my childhood. We used to play slug races or lizard races back in Holland, in my good old days.. Ohh and underneath my blog I will add a video of our silly playings this sunny morning. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did!

We started to be a bit hungry and hot after hours of time in the water, playing with the kids and decided to search for something refreshing, Mango shake! There are a few nice but affordable restaurants located on Santiago beach. We choose one and ordered a shake. The few here was great and it made me feel like I never wanted to leave anymore. I wish it was possible for me to have this life for the rest of my life.

All you can see while eating is the blue ocean

The restaurant, hidden between the palm trees

While drinking our mangoshake, we had a short meeting about what to do next. We did not want to go to the highlights yet since Adong wasn’t here yet. We both agreed it was the best to go to the waterfall first. The research I did before did not say much about the waterfall so maybe it isn't even worth it to go there. Probably Adong doesn't mind to miss that spot.

Isn't it a paradise?

Not much later, we were on our way to the fall. It is located on the other part of the eight shaped island, which is connected with a bridge. Our maps told me the drive is around 25 minutes, so not too far but a nice drive since I really enjoy driving on the islands while passing by all those beautiful beach and farm views Camotes has. Anywhere you drive, you will see coconut trees with fresh coconuts in the tops, the sign of a tropical paradise!

As we drove further, we saw the road was full of coconuts cut in pieces, just laying in the sun. Miriam asked some guys what they would make out of it. They explained in the very small English they spoke they are planning to make coconut oil out of it. I really love coconut oil! It is definitely my favorite skin and hair product! But sadly, they did not have stock so we were not able to purchase some fresh Camotes island coconut oil.

Drying coconuts along the way

A few minutes later, we arrived already by the entrance of the waterfall. The waterfall called Busay Falls is just 10 minutes walking away from the entrance. The path isn't steep but during the walk you have to cross two little streams walking over the rocks which offered us a way to the opposite side of the river. The sun rays shined perfectly down on the plants and trees to show the nature to us on it's greenest. I felt like it just came out of a movie. And than we saw the falls, small but magical!

The fall is on the border of the jungle and the farm area, but with a Liana hanging in front of the fall, Iit really let me feel nothing else than jungle vibes. There were no people around at all. The whole blue colored pool was ours! This is definitely better than all those big, impressing falls full of people. Maybe the fall is just small but it feels like a place from a Disney movie.

Our energy got totally recharged while getting a back massage underneath the falling waters. A free massage and lots better than all those in the city. Here we had to enjoy the sounds of the water and the birds instead of peaceful music of the massage shops. Yes, this is the real life!

Ready to jump in

Miriam called me up to the falls. She found out a way to climb up on the rocks, to the top of the falls. I climbed up as a monkey would do, but probably lots more clumsy but hey, I was there! Up here is an other small, totally hidden fall. It did not look as great as the first fall but from up there we had a great view on the jungle scape.

More adventure? You can climb up on the waterfall!

Slowly it started to be late and we decided to go back to our house for the night. We walked back trough the greenest surroundings to our bike, leaving this fairy tale scape to drive back home while passing by the market in San Francisco to buy some fruits.

The green surroundings we passed by during our walk back to our motorbike

When we arrived back home, by our cosy tent, we chilled out for a while in one of the restaurants and ordered dinner. And not to forget.. Tanduay, Philippines favorite rum. We decided to drink it mixed with coke, while the locals mostly don't mix it. Tanduay is my secret for sleeping well on the beach. It helps for a good sleep in cold nights and it makes the hard bed of just sand underneath our tent feeling actually really comfortable for a good night of sleep. It is a must try!

A few hours later and quite some drinks later it was dark and time to sleep. my eye met the thousands of stars twinkling above my head. A smile appeared on my face. I walked to the beach with Miriam following me. I walked in the water, looking for planktons. It are very small organisms which light up in the dark with the movement of the water. While I was walking around, Miriam and I lost each other and she ended up back by the tent.

Our neighbors asked her where she left her friend and soon I heard them calling my name ''Sha, Sha, Sha''. Slowly I walked back but before I was back on the beach, I saw them already walking into my direction. The guys asked what I was doing there in the water and were very worried when they asked me what I was doing. Maybe understandable when I answered that I was searching planktons and when they did not know it, I explained them like ''planktons are lights in the sea, like stars or fireflies''. They were scare I would drown there as drunk as they were, since the water did not even reach my knees. Without listening to them, I walked farther, very carefully since there were some stones laying on the sea bottom which I couldn't see as dark as it was. And then, between the grasses we saw it! Every movement in the water answered into thousands of small pieces, lightning up like magic everywhere I walked. Those kind of nights feel like a dream and I would never ever get bored of that.

Love,
Sha