Summer is about to end. Me and my friend haven't had a blast yet. We wanted to go somewhere new but not too far from Metro Manila. Somewhere that doesn't require plane ride but worth the visit.
Upon keen searching on the web, we discovered Cagbalete Island. A tranquil place in Quezon Province where you'll find serenity.
We started our trip by riding a bus at Buendia going to Lucena. 4 hours travel. Fare is P210. Got off at Diversion (Jollibee) then rode an ordinary bus going to Mauban, 1 hour travel for P54, In Mauban, a lot of tricycle drivers will invite you to ride tricycle going to the port. No need. You may want to buy food or water before riding the boat so just walk. Go directly to Tourism Office to buy tickets. Boat fare cost P70 plus environmental fee of P50. It will not leave until a total of 70-75 passengers are riding. Travel is approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Upon reaching the island, a small balsa like will fetch you from the boat going to Sabang port. No more extra fare. It's a little nerve wracking because everyone is just standing and It felt a bit overcrowded. Good thing its just few minutes away from the shore.
You may want to ride a smaller boat to bring you to your resort. You can also walk but the trail is quite long. In our case, we opted to ride motorcycle @ P50/person/motor to bring us to two of the resorts we wanted to check because we don't have reservations. We tried to call a lot of resorts but all of them are fully booked. The first we reached is Pansacola Beach Resort.
As expected it's jam packed! I wanted to try another resort but it's too far and maybe it's also fully booked. They offered us their only vacant AC room for P3000/night. Pricey but better than nothing. It just made me think twice when they told us that we are required to pay P1,000 each person to cover our full board meals. Meaning no choice to what food they will offer. I don't like a set-up like that and we already brought food for our dinner and snacks so we just decided to pitch a tent! Isn't that exciting? No forced payment for food, rental is just P300 and entrance P200/person.
Tent pitching by the beach is new to me while it is a norm here in Cagbalete. I know it'll be hot and tight and uncomfortable but I really wanted to try this :) This is quite challenging!
We then told the motorcycle drivers to pick us up 9 am the next day.
I was kinda board looking at the beach this afternoon because it's low tide.
The weather is very good but we can't swim. Good thing we love photos so we just roam around and below's the evidence.
Low tide created a sand bar.
Look at the sand. So white and fine, formed into waves glistening with the sunlight. I am in love :)
Because the water is hot we cannot swim by this time. But the others are enjoying so I think it's temperature is bearable.
Here comes the challenge. After a very sunny afternoon, the rain poured. We were at the shower room then, when we came back, there's already flood inside our tent. We felt a little misfortuned so please don't ever go tent pitching after April. The rain lasted for about an hour. Some of our things are soaking wet except those inside our bags. We were very hungry after clearing the water. We ate dinner then decided to wear our rash guard while sleeping so we will be prepared to swim just in case it rains again :)
We still can't sleep. We are hearing loud sound coming from the reception area. Whoa! there are fire dancers. We still watched even if we felt awkward in our rash guards :)
We woke up to a very beautiful morning. The beach is in it's normal state. We are so excited to swim.
There are floating leaves in the water but it's fine. This is maybe because of the heavy rain last night. There are small creatures forming a hole in the sand. I was scared so we ask one of the locals if the creature bites. He told us -- > sometimes :) Luckily small creatures did not bother us at all.
While swimming, we begun to tell each other that we like this place already. This is like paradise. No need to air travel to experience fine white sand and nice beach.
It's nine in the morning and we are ready for departure but the motorcycle drivers did not show up, good thing there is a lady vendor who is kind enough to help us. You cannot get out of the island unless you reserved a boat or in our case we contracted a motorcycle (no show) or walk 30 minutes with your feet under the sun. We walked for few minutes and we reached the house of the lady vendor. She told us that they owned a small boat and her husband can bring us to the port so we immediately agreed. We gave them P200 for that.
While we are on our way back to Mauban, we planned to go to Lucban, Quezon to see Kamay ni Hesus and have our lunch at Palaisdaan. I'm gonna have a separate blog for that.
We left the island with all smiles in our faces. We are so astonished that an island like this exists in a place not too far. This trip is one of my favorites. Will definitely come back next summer and try tent pitching again ( minus the rain ☺)
