Monday, July 2, 2007

Puerto Gallera

Yes, I am reporting about another amazing weekend vacation. I'm sorry, I can't help it. This place is just too amazing to not share with everyone.
This weekend we went to the island of Mindoro. There is a famous tourist spot Puerto Gallera, with many surrounding beach towns. We got on the 3:30 am bus and headed down to Batangas to catch the ferry. We being, Jeanette, Fatoumata, and my friend Kate. The ferry took us to White Beach. It's a darling beach town with beautiful scenery and plenty of tourists. The second we stepped off the boat we were smothered by people selling trickets and such. I'm not kidding when I say smothered. They hounded us and followed us. Even after we said no, they continued to follow us. Some waited while we ate, others walked far, just to try and convince us. Some of the kids thought it was funny that we kept saying "no thank you" that they started saying it too. So soon we had at least five people following us trying to sell us something and five kids following us saying, "no thank you" every few seconds. We couldn't stop laughing at how they would just not give up.After finally breaking free and placing our stuff in our beach front hotel room (yeah, only $20 for 4 people), we headed out snorkeling. We hired a boat to take us to a popular cove to snorkel. Once there we hired a boat to take us in closer on the reefs. The current is really strong and so you just hold onto a rope and watch the fish as the boat takes you all over. It was the best! It's amazing to me how different and even more beautiful these reefs were compared to others we have seen.
We spent the rest of our day eating great seafood and traveling to the different beach towns on the island. This island is famous for the diving and the pearls. We didn't go diving, but I certainly spent plenty of money on pearls. (So if you want some, you might want to start being extra nice.) We even went to get some mango shakes at a popular restaurant and had some quality entertainment from some hilarious Drag Queens. I was dying at how funny they were, and how talented too.
As if our day wasn't good enough, we ended it by getting an hour, full body massage. Yeap! In our beach front hotel, we laid down, listening to the waves, and got full body massages with homemade coconut oil. I'm telling you, this is the life!

The next day we just spent relaxing on the gorgeous beaches and watching other people be followed by the people selling their goodies. It was a great weekend.

2 comments:

ej said...

Kohen was sitting on my lap when I was reading this and he goes 'I go there?!' I wish! You certainly are living the life! Good for you. This whole trip sounded perfect except for the 3:30am departure...boo. :)

M. said...

ah!!! i miss my Kate! I love seeing the amazing places you are going. My friend will be down there soon, i guess he is going scuba diving where you were- yes jealous.