Visit to Puerto Gallera

(This blog is two weeks old – we got distracted by the typhoon, so I haven’t managed to put this on yet, but we have some nice photos, so I thought it was better late than never…)

We met just after school on the Friday afternoon. Most of the new staff plus some others then loaded our gear onto the bus, and headed south. We arrived at Batangas, on the southern coast of Luzon around 6pm, then hopped on a few ‘Banca’s in the dark to take us across to Mindoro. We were staying at Sabang, not far from the town of Puerto Gallera.

It was a rough crossing, and bancas are designed to sit on top of the water, so we were up and down like a yo-yo for an hour. To my amazement and relief, the girls were so tired by that stage, that they fell asleep in our arms! (The passengers on one of the other Bancas were not as lucky – they were accompanied by one of the children screaming the whole way! His mum was glad that he was at least screaming in Spanish, so most of the others couldn’t understand what was coming from his mouth!)

We arrived at the resort, put our bags away, went down to the water-front restaurant for a light meal, then headed straight to bed. (Suffice it to say the single staff members did not go straight to bed. I believe the local pub got quite the workout that night, but hey – it’s not really our scene.)

Actually, the whole area around Puerto Gallera is a diving haven, so come Saturday, most people were off on boats to take them for a dive, or else having diving lessons in the pool. Diving is not ‘our thing’ right now, and the girls were perfectly happy playing in the sand by the resort, and learning how their new water-wings and goggles work. We didn’t enjoy the hecklers, though, who wanted to sell us things, or take us to other beaches etc, so for the Sunday morning, we booked a small boat to take us to a more secluded beach. There was some nice snorkeling to be done there, just offshore, so Nigel and I took turns looking at the underwater world and looking after the girls.

Saturday afternoon, after the girls’ rest time, we put the backpacks on and headed inland to explore Puerto Gallera township. We caught a local jeepney, and got quite a nice intro to the place from a local school teacher who was squashed up next to us. She recommended we go look at the church, so we did that, and were pleasantly surprised to see a wedding had just taken place. The neat thing was that for the wedding cars, there were a couple of decorated Jeepneys! We witnessed the Bride & Groom sit up front, while other guests/wedding party members squashed in the back, and some even on the roof! IT was quite a sight, but we felt it inappropriate to take pictures.

After our wee wander around, we hired a tricycle to take us back to Sabang. Nigel and I squashed in and put the girls’ backpacks on the floor in front. And held on tight! Back at the resort, we again ‘chilled out’ and had an early night. Holiday time when the girls are asleep in bed is the perfect opportunity for Nigel and I to catch up on our reading.

Sunday afternoon we headed back. The sailing was much smoother, and the ride fine, but long, due to the rain. We got back around 8pm, had just enough time to get the girls to bed, the bags unpacked, clothes in the wash and to bed at a reasonable time.