Got a private car organized this morning to take us through Bohol in a day. The driver, as most drivers here, loved what he called "mellow music", so we had 6 hours of heartbreak, love, tears, together forever, ...
First stop was the Blood Contract site (Legazpi was right, but it was not Lapu Lapu but someone else who he signed the contract with - Lapu Lapu was the one who killed Magellan in Cebu). There was not much left of the oldest church in Baclayon after the 7.2 earth cake in October 2014, not much left of any of the ca. 20 churches we saw today. Most of them had some outer wall still standing in heaps of debris, equally damaged were many of the bridges and most houses (and even 1 chocolate hill) in Sagbayan, the epicenter of the earthquake.
But first we had a brief look at the Loboc river restaurant and decided not to wait for two hours till the lunch buffet opened but went on to the Tarsiers conservation center. Poor little things, was my first thought. They are really only a hand big (8-15 cm), sleep all day, cling to a tiny branch with long skinny fingers (their middle finger is as long as their whole upper arm), and only occasionally blink their big eyes open. Quite cute. Luckily, they seem to be taken care of and are pretty much left alone by the visitors (guides standing in the forest, pointing out the little ones, no noises/flash/tree ruttling/touching/feeding etc. allowed).
So after a destroyed church and half asleep mini tarsiers, we continued to the Chocolate hills, where we didn't go for a touristy buggy or 4-wheel drive tour but just climbed the (pretty damaged, earthquake...) platform in one of the hills and admired the views. Quite fascinating, they are coral formation from aeons ago, currently grassy green and turning chocolatty brown in the summer.
Had a nice lunch buffet in the chocolate hill adventure park (no, we did not zip line from hill to hill...), and, after passing lots of elementary schools (1 in every village), rice fields and peasants drying their rice on the roads and some more chocolate hills and the destroyed city of Sagbayan, we arrived at Tubigon, to take the 2 pm ferry over to Cebu, which today, for some unknown reason (well, the pier was also halfway destroyed, earthquake...), was rescheduled to 3:15.
Arrived in Cebu at 5:15, and drove through the poorest areas along the pier that I have so far seen in the Philippines (half-naked people and their kids sitting/playing/sleeping on garbage bags on the sidewalks) to arrive in our 3 star resort close to the beach in Lapu Lapu City. and close to the airport from where we will continue to Palawan Island tomorrow.
Connection is pretty bad (and only available in a mosquito infested lobby, not really ***), so it seems to only be uploading half of the pictures....
First stop was the Blood Contract site (Legazpi was right, but it was not Lapu Lapu but someone else who he signed the contract with - Lapu Lapu was the one who killed Magellan in Cebu). There was not much left of the oldest church in Baclayon after the 7.2 earth cake in October 2014, not much left of any of the ca. 20 churches we saw today. Most of them had some outer wall still standing in heaps of debris, equally damaged were many of the bridges and most houses (and even 1 chocolate hill) in Sagbayan, the epicenter of the earthquake.
But first we had a brief look at the Loboc river restaurant and decided not to wait for two hours till the lunch buffet opened but went on to the Tarsiers conservation center. Poor little things, was my first thought. They are really only a hand big (8-15 cm), sleep all day, cling to a tiny branch with long skinny fingers (their middle finger is as long as their whole upper arm), and only occasionally blink their big eyes open. Quite cute. Luckily, they seem to be taken care of and are pretty much left alone by the visitors (guides standing in the forest, pointing out the little ones, no noises/flash/tree ruttling/touching/feeding etc. allowed).
So after a destroyed church and half asleep mini tarsiers, we continued to the Chocolate hills, where we didn't go for a touristy buggy or 4-wheel drive tour but just climbed the (pretty damaged, earthquake...) platform in one of the hills and admired the views. Quite fascinating, they are coral formation from aeons ago, currently grassy green and turning chocolatty brown in the summer.
Had a nice lunch buffet in the chocolate hill adventure park (no, we did not zip line from hill to hill...), and, after passing lots of elementary schools (1 in every village), rice fields and peasants drying their rice on the roads and some more chocolate hills and the destroyed city of Sagbayan, we arrived at Tubigon, to take the 2 pm ferry over to Cebu, which today, for some unknown reason (well, the pier was also halfway destroyed, earthquake...), was rescheduled to 3:15.
Arrived in Cebu at 5:15, and drove through the poorest areas along the pier that I have so far seen in the Philippines (half-naked people and their kids sitting/playing/sleeping on garbage bags on the sidewalks) to arrive in our 3 star resort close to the beach in Lapu Lapu City. and close to the airport from where we will continue to Palawan Island tomorrow.
Connection is pretty bad (and only available in a mosquito infested lobby, not really ***), so it seems to only be uploading half of the pictures....