I wanted my birthday to be fun, relaxed, and laughter –filled.
I was not able to escape from the blues prior my birthday, but it was
definitely not as bad as last year’s.
This year, coming with me on this trip are my friends from
graduate school. We booked different flights: it was Paully and me at first,
then Frankie joined a week later, then Aya booked the same trip on a different airline few months later
and finally Yeye booked the same date with a sister airline few months after Aya did. Yes, we went on
different planes and airport terminals and just met up at the hotel.
Few weeks earlier I got a text from the airline telling our flight was cancelled due to aircraft situation. Since we were already booked (filed vacation leaves, adjusted time table of projects, booked our accommodations, etc) we found a way to push through and luckily our flight was routed to Caticlan instead of Kalibo (which we booked earlier).
We got a glimpse of Boracay sunset on our ferry on the way to the island.
Aya and Yeye's flight will land in Kalibo because they were on a separate planes.
The ferries shuttle back and fort until 10pm so good thing Aya and Yeye will arrive at the jetty port at 8pm. We bought hassle-free tickets from Southwest accommodation (Php400.00) for hassle free travel. Ticket includes all fees and they drop you off at your hotel.
We all arrived at night so we only had dinner at DMall and explored the facilities of our backpacker's inn. It's our first time staying at a backpacker's inn and we love it! (Thank you for the recommendation Jla!!!)
Our stay comes with free breakfast, so it's a DIY breakfast kind of morning. You choose your bread, Toast it or not, choose from a variety of jams, get a hard boiled egg, get a banana, and you have the option for a brewed coffee or pineapple juice.
We were stationed 2 minutes walk from the Bulabog beach where all the kite surfers are:
Still a great place for a selfie, right Frankie?
A great day to shop for sunnies, right Frankie?
It was cloudy on my actual birthday due to Low Pressure Area warning but still I get to have a jumpshot by the beach!
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| Thank you Frankie for the shot |
We had lunch at Gerry's grill because we have the VIP card from MyBoracayGuide which gives you 10% discount and a free leche flan plus a birthday song when you go there on your birthday.
I told them I just want the leche flan and not the song, but my friends sang anyway.
Sun didn't come up so we played pool at the hostel...
On our second night we got to try paddle boarding for free.
By dinner time, my friend revealed that my sister and mom had a surprise for me:
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| Photo by Aya |
And had to post on instagram to commemorate:
At night when we hang out at the lobby for the free wifi and movie. But someone's more interested in reading about the reproductive system...
The next day the sun is finally up! Thank you God!
We had to force wake up Frankie to get up because we were running after the good weather. According to Accuweather app, we were only given a day of sure sunshine then the rest would be cloudy and with rain showers.
Boracay has no bad angles!
The only shot that I have of the beach with me in it. This was taken by yeye as I was trying to fix my hair,
chos, I was scratching my head
nyan.
Such a nice day to lounge around so here's Yeye and I in our hammock showdown at the hostel's roof deck.
For dinner we had to have Frank's Chori burger. We really looked for Frank's because it is the best Chori burger in the Island. So good that actor Jericho Rosales got them to serve Chori burgers and stuff during his wedding weekend.
Jonah's fruitshake is in order too! (Php120.00 each)
On our third night we went to Cocomangas, Boracay's local pub...
Ordered my favorite margarita...
And people watched from our great seats (you would think we had reservations) ...
It's either I'm tired or I'm old that I almost slept on the couch and didn't even finished my margarita.
Next day was still a little gloomy but that did not dampen our spirits:
We used it for a good day to paddle board for the second time.
Other activities includes writing on this graffiti wall at the hostel:
Playing pool...while simultaneously playing darts across the room...
...and discovering Paully actually have a good hand at playing darts!
We also went to D'Palengke and looked for ingredients for our lunch.
Chef Aya and Paully made our brekky style lunch:
We had DIY brekky style lunch for 2 days in a row and we love it!
The hostel deserves a separate blog post which I will write this week. We had a great stay!
I really had a good vacation that I had separation anxiety going home.
Couldn't ask for better travel buddies. Our 5 days in Boracay was laughter-filled that we can't wait to take another trip soon!
It's already my 3rd trip to Boracay and I can now say that Boracay is really best spent with friends.
Now where to next?
