Life’s a beach… 🙂 And I am spending it at Isla de Gigantes.
I am in El Nido, Palawan in February 2015. I happen to join an island hopping tour in which my companions are from Iloilo. While we are having lunch, they mention Isla de Gigantes. I ask few questions as to how to get there, what can I expect from there; they merely tell me to see it for myself. Just don’t compare it with El Nido.
In March 2015, I try to search in the net for Isla de Gigantes and I happen to see The Gigantes Experience in Facebook. I send an inquiry and come up with their tour fees and itinerary. At first, I wish to join a group tour and then at the same time I want to organize a group for them to customize our trip. The package will depend on the number of participants. For us, a minimum of 10 persons, we will only be paying Php 3150 each all-in plus airfare. Not bad for a 3 days and 2 nights experience in the island including round trip van transfers and island activities.
I start telling my friends on the plan. Then I check for promo airfares. I also try to quantify the costs and the extra expenses in order for me to draft the budget.
In short, in a span of one week, I am able to convince five friends (Larry, Meong, Mia, Maan and Erlyn) to come with me. Meong already have an idea on what Isla de Gigantes is because he shows me once a picture of the island. Mia also convinces Florante. Maan invites Macor. And we book our round trip tickets via Philippine Airlines for only Php 2500. Now I need to make it into 10 so we can be one group and they can customize our trip. I also invite my aunt and mom to join us. As the event come closer, Maan invites Aileen and a week before the trip, Aileen invites Ate Vilma. Total headcount now is 12.
In October, I reconfirm with the organizer regarding our trip. They cannot finalize the trip until a week or two before departure because they will also be depending on the weather forecast. November as we all know is still rainy, worst with the presence of typhoon. They assure me that we can push through with our trip even if it is rainy. However, they will surely cancel and reschedule our trip when there’s a typhoon.
According to my contacts, I can organize up to 15 persons maximum or else we will incur additional cost for a bigger or second boat and van if we exceed 15. As of the third week of November, headcount is already 12 and are still open for three more joiners. One wants to join, unfortunately, due to high airfare cost, she’s not able to get a flight ticket same with our schedule. And on the last day, Erlyn informs me that she cannot join the trip so we are only 11 who make it to the FINALS.
My mom and aunt arrive in Iloilo City on November 27, 2015, a day before our island trip. Florante also comes from Cebu and arrives in Iloilo City early morning of November 28.
November 28, 2015
Eight of us are coming from Manila. Seven are taking the first flight of Philippine Airlines and Ate Vilma takes the dawn flight of Cebu Pacific. The very good thing is, Meong arrives from Saudi 6 hours before our travel time to Iloilo. PAL is suppose to depart at 5:00am yet is an hour delay due to some technical problems at the cockpit, so we arrive in Iloilo at 8:00am
Our tour guide is Ryan and he’s expecting us to arrive at 6:30am. Ryan is thinking that our group have joiners, that makes him worry upon knowing our flight delays. When we meet at Iloilo Airport, he feels relief upon explaining to him the situation. We can adjust and be flexible with our schedule since we’re one group only. Since Florante is coming from the port, we advise him to come to Go Hotel to have one pick-up point to where my mom and aunt are staying. They are also preparing early, expecting an early pick-up due to our suppose to be early arrival. Lol
Oh well, since we’re an hour delay on our schedule, we don’t want to waste our time. We have our breakfast take away and decide to eat on the boat or anywhere when hungry. We also have a quick restroom break, buy some water and other stuff to bring with us.
Initially, I plan to sleep along the way but we’re seating at the rear end of the van and it’s quite bumpy. I am awake on our 2-hr van travels. We arrive at Estancia Port at 10am. We already have boat assignment but we need to do the registration at the Coast Guard. I go to the Coast Guard with Ryan and Meong. We also have a quick photo opportunity in the area. The rest of our group hop ahead to board our boat and just wait for us to come back.
We set sail going to Isla de Gigantes. It will be another 2-hr boat journey to the Islands. We will be staying at Antonia Beach on a tent accommodation. Food is included on our package as well as our tour guide and boat to be used for island hopping.
While on the boat, we eat our breakfast. We are not that stranger to everybody since we have common friends. A bit of bonding moments, sharing thoughts and laughing at jokes while on the boat. As we get closer to the islands, dark clouds start to form and in fact rain also starts to drop. After passing the Tangke, we already have a glimpse of Antonia Beach and it excites upon seeing the tents on the beach. Though we only have tent accommodations but it also comes with mattress and pillow.
Finally, we reach Antonia Beach. The crystal clear waters are inviting. The water is calm since it was hidden in a cove. On the other side of the island have rough waters. Our tents are right on the beach. They don’t have fine sands, but it’s white with mix of pebbles, corals and shells.
Immediately disembarking from our boat, we go directly to a vacant shed. We still don’t know which tent we are staying so we just keep our things on the shed. They are serving us fresh seafoods for our late lunch. The food are delicious. It’s my first time to taste fresh “wasay-wasay”, I don’t know how to exactly describe it but it was like an oyster and it’s delicious to be eaten raw. Isla de Gigantes is also known for its scallops. We also have lots of it, cooked in many different menus.
It is raining when we finish our lunch. We change into swimming outfits since we have a schedule to visit Cabugao Gamay. I told our guide to proceed to Cabugao Gamay as soon as the rain will stop because it will be nice to take pictures with blue skies. And the obligatory pose when in Isla de Gigantes is taken at the small hill of Cabugao Gamay. So while it’s raining, we just enjoyed ourselves at Antonia Beach, ran out of the sand and danced in the rain.
The rain stops shortly and we are off our first island hopping activity at Cabugao Gamay. Boat trip is about 30 minutes. Before reaching Cabugao Gamay Island, we pass through Cabugao Dako. From afar, we see some boats at the shore, signs that there are other tourists also visiting there. We can’t wait to get there and climb the hill. As we dock on the shore, we are eager to climb the hill yet we will be waiting for the other groups to come down to avoid traffic at the stairs.
While waiting, we just roam around most parts of the island. They have coconut trees, they have this pieces of stones piled on top of each other. It is beautiful. As the other tourists start to go down from the hill, we also make ourselves ready to climb. Just a short climb, they provide ladders for the steep portions of the rocks. The first part of the hill is a semi-crawl portion under the huge rock, all the rest are just a short walk and climb.
It is awesome on top of the hill. The view is perfect. Oh well, the hill is ours because we are the last group to visit the island. We have enough of our time posing at the obligatory view. Lots of “selfies”, “groupfies” except for jump shots which will not be possible to jump on top of the rock. We also have videos for documentary purposes on our craziness. Lol.
We go there almost at sunset because we wait for the rain to stop. Now, we are suppose to drop by at Bantigue Sandbar but we opt to have it on the sunset the following day. We just head back to Antonia Beach for our first night.
It’s almost dusk when we arrive at Antonia Beach. From afar, we see a disco light from the second floor of the house. We’re thinking of a party. When we got closer to the beach, we hear the music of the 70s and 80s. At first we make a joke that it is really fit for our generations. Oh well, we sing with the music and sometimes do the moves on the popular dance music. I can’t forget Mia’s “shake body body dancer” moves.
After a while, they serve our sumptuous dinner. Another scallop thing for us plus the sautéed vegetables. While having dinner, the owner of the island comes to us and asks us if we want to rent the videoke for Php 150/hour. We cannot decide yet but tell them we will just advise them.
We decide to have a drink for our socials, then go on a karaoke night. The store have various drinks available do we place the order and borrow the songbook for us to choose our songs in advance. They let us transfer to the table in front of the karaoke and start queuing our songs. We encourage everyone to sing and have them choose their songs. Different genres are in queue, we had love songs, alternative, “hugot” songs and dance songs. Who would forget the “Buttercup” sang by Macor and the “Don’t cry for me Argentina” by Ate Vi? We called it a day after more than an hour of singing session.
Continuation… Part 2
Been here: November 28-30, 2015
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