moalboal memories

After not seeing my youngest sister Elaine for almost a year, she finally visited me here in Cebu and on her first weekend here, the guys and I (guys here refering to Jimmy, Paul, Aaron, Rowie, Julius, Michelle, Dionie, and JT) decided to go to Moalboal to enjoy the sea, sand and sun! We agreed to meet at PIPC at 6am because the route that we decided to take was not the usual drive throught the south hi-way but rather through the mountains, seriously. We climbed up Busai Hills and went through Ayala Heights, them Balamban, Toledo and finally exit the aweful, dusty road and coasted through the hi-way. As usual, 6am meeting time was too idealistic. I set my alarm clock at 5:30am but honestly, didn't hear a thing at all! Had Paul not rang me, I swear, Elaine and I would have slept through the entire morning. Paul called me at 6:45 and so Elaine and I hopped around the house, not bathed, just brushed our teeth, washed our face and vamoosh, gone from the house in 15 minutes! And of course, when you need a taxi, you can't find one! Finally a cab passed by (just when we were about to take a jeep) and took us to PIPC. We got there around 7:15, hehe, sorry guys. But our case was not the worse! Dionie and boyfriend JT were waaaaaaaayyyy more late than me and Elaine. They showed up at 8am, beat that!

Anyway, up the mountain we drove and the point of taking that route was to stop by the Island in the Sky perch point in Balamban. What's so speacial about this is that from the mountains, one can see the lights of 2 cities: Cebu City and Toledo City. The guys from Cebu said that before, the perch point use to be free of charge and a group of friends can just sit around some chairs and bring beer along and just enjoy the view. When we got there however, the place was kinda developed already, there was a gate and a canteen of sorts and a pool to boot! And an entrace fee of P50, which isn't much actually but heller, we weren't really up to paying that amount to just stand for 10 minutes to enjoy the view, and after all, Moalboal was a-waitin'! So we stopped the car (revo actually that we rented and Paul drove) and looked out for a while, like say 5 minutes and then drove on. We finally reached Moalboal at around 12 noon, after 5 stops for CR issues, food hoarding and just stretching. Dionie took care of the accomodations, he rented a 2 room cottage through a friend and aside from the food we bought from Carcar (lechon and lechon manok) we brought along pork for grilling!

So anyway, Moalboal is not like Bantayan wherein it's all a long stretch of powdery sand shore. Moalboal does have white sand but was damn rocky!!! When we got there, it was high tide, the current was kinda strong but who cared! 5 steps into the beach, sand-slash-rock-slash-corals gave way still to a sand-slash-rock-slash-corals slope of sorts. So it sloped down and all of a sudden got really deep which is baaaaddd for people like me who cannot swim! Thank god for my pink raft which Jimmy inflated himself! We had fun with that hehehe. Let me narrate different story that took place some 6 summers ago. My friends from CDO and I went to Camiguin to again, enjoy the tropical heat. The beach was kinda the same as that of Moalboal's rocky and steep coastline and fish actually swam towards us! While my friends were shrieking with glee at the colorful fish ("flounder!" they'd say in awe, mine was "FLOUNDER!" said in a horrified voice) I was running away from it! I mean it! I know they couldn't possibly bite me and hurt me but I dunno, I find it wierd for a colorful slimmy little creature to nib at my legs! So since the beach can't help it, it is after all the habitat for fish, I avioded the beach during the entire week we were there. Pathetic, I know... Anyway, back to Moalboal, the raft became boring after a while but JT and Dionie had some snorkling gear so I borrowed one just for the heck of it. I always aviod goggles in the beach because I honestly don't want see and know what was under water. But on this instance, what the hell, I tried on the snorkling stuff and my god, it was beautiful!!! The fish were sooo colorful and I dunno, they weren't scary to me anymore. The corals were interesting and the holes in the sand ground where filled with sea urchines! And one time, I saw an urchine out of the hole and I panicked and drank mouthfuls of seawater! Schools of little fish actually swam near my friends' legs! And there's one very curious fish that wasn't scared of me at all trying to reach for it! It was by far, one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced... aside from being able to float the right way, which always shockes me with a smile, by the way, it's like, I can't get over being able to float, hehe.

We had a pink sunset that Saturday, beautiful again... made me miss someone again :( Anyhow, towards night fall, the guys grilled the meat and we had a yummy dinner but the bad part was I had a pounding headache around 8pm and slept early. Sunday was just as fun. At around 6am, Paul and Jimmy and Elaine drove Rowie to San Tander for her to catch the fast craft/pump boat to Dumaguete and we then just waited for her in Moalboal since all she planned to do was greet her parents a happy wedding anniversary anyway. She got back around 4pm, we picked her up near the Moalboal market place and then drove to Cebu City. Funny thing, we ran oout of gas!!! The next gasoline station was 4km away but the people in the area where the car died out on us were so nice. One guy drove Paul to the gasoline station to buy some 3 litres of diesel and Paul just paid him. What was hilarious was that Paul hates motorcycle rides! So while he was riding, he was already picturing his guts splattered along the hi-way with blood everywhere! hehe, poor Paul... we finally had things going so we sped back to Cebu, dropped Dionie and JT off, picked up Kang from her place, had dinner at Manila Foodshoppe, went to Mountain View to enjoy the view of Cebu City's lights... perfect end to a perfect weekend...

some pics of the weekend: