Travel today was crazy. Checked out of our hostel at 8am and this was our vehicles of transportation: Tricycle, boat, tricycle, plane to manila, plane to Boracay delayed for 3 hours, bus, bus, boat.

We’re staying at coral bay resort which is on its own private island and we had to be at the main town by 4pm to take the ferry to Popototan island. We didn’t take off from Manila until 3pm and arrived at the airport at 4:30 so we were SOL. I was really worried we wouldn’t have any way to get to the resort but when we walked out of the airport, there was a guy with a sign with my name on it. I felt very important.

We got on a bus and drove for about 15 minutes. There was a group of people on the bus that I was having a good conversation with when the bus pulled to the side of the road and told Alex and me to get off because we were parting ways.
The landscape on Busuanga is really beautiful just tons of rolling hills which looked even better in the setting sun. The roads were half paved and half rocky dusty road which were in the process of being paved. Some bridges were just wooden planks that we had to drive over.

The driver pulled up to a river and told us to get out. I felt like this was out of Rambo or something because a few minutes later, a guy drove up in a speedboat to take us to the island.

At this point, I’m actually glad that we were delayed because we watched the sun set behind the islands, it was breathtaking.

The bouys you see in the water are pearl farms. There were tons along the water while we drove the half hour to Popototan Island.

About 15 min into driving in the boat, the driver said something’s wrong and had to take the cover off the motor. I was a little nervous that we might have to row the rest of the way but he was able to fix the issue.

We got to the island and I couldn’t help but be SO excited for this leg of the trip. The environment is completely the opposite of Boracay. I think there are only 8 guests staying here including us so it’s going to be a very quiet few days. Unfortunately the internet is absolutely slow here and it’s frustrating just to load one picture, so the blog posts for the next couple days will be pretty light on the pictures.

I have my open water certification for diving scheduled for tomorrow at 9am and I can’t wait to get started.