Forgot to mention yesterday's highlight (apart from waves and hammock): at Manila airport, I still had a full bottle of water and a 3/4 cup of really hot Earl Grey tea. At the security check, I deposited all cameras, laptop, kindle, iPhone, watch etc. and was still holding the bottle of water in one and the earl grey in the other hand when I walked through the X-ray gate. They waved me through, and while packing my stuff back together, I could take a big sip of tea. Steffen's look when he saw me walking through the gate with the beverage in each hand was priceless!
Today's highlight is "slightly" bigger, ca. 10 m bigger. Since my throat is still a bit sore and Steffen is also coughing and we didn't want to risk diving and making it worse, we decided to take a day trip to Oslob instead.
Took a 1-hour shuttle to Sibulan, the 30 min fast ferry to LiloAn, and after a 30 min Ceres bus ride arrived at Oslob Whaleshark Center. On the ferry, we met Rafael (working in Makati, opposite Greenbelt 5, helping to enable Philippine startups, and he knows Reese and R2R as well as Hapinoy! Small world! @Andrie - will send you his details!) and his brother Jesse. So we joint forces, took a boat together and will hopefully be able to share pictures. It was a fantastic experience! I had my doubts as there are critics who claim that it is harming the whalesharks to be fed and visited by tourists. On the other hand, they had clear rules (no sunscreen, no touching, 4 m distance, no flash, ...). In other parts of the world they are hunting Whalesharks, so I assume this is a better way to preserve them (this is what I tell my conscience).
The pics below are only what I photographed off the video from our fake GoPro camera, better ones will follow. Favorite moment: they get really close to you with their mouths gaping open to inhale the krill, so you have to paddle strongly with your fins to get out of the way and keep the required distance, which is not always easy. As I was viewing one, another one came up from behind and there was a soft touch of its dorsal fin with my leg. A minute later, when I was staring at the two in front of me, another one came from the other side, very solemnly, with 5-6 cute little lemon fish lined up in front of its mouth, swimming there like miniature guards. Really cute. After a bit more than 30 min, we were quite exhausted and our time was up, the current had moved us out of the main center of Whalesharks activity. So despite the ecological/psychological impact of human interaction on these wonderful creatures (mostly between 7-10 m in size!), the liters of salt water you swallow, the not quite so great view because of the krill and the fact that you have to watch out for your head all the time so that you don't hit it on the rails of the accompanying bancas, it was definitely worth it!!!
Rafael recommended going to a waterfall close by and arranged a driver for us - turned out it was a small motorbike. So Steffen and I squeezed behind the driver onto the seat and drove there (no, it was not dangerous, Mama. It was a small road, no traffic and it was going 30 kmh max.)
And the waterfall was really reall great! We hadn't expected much after all the waterfalls we had visited in Chile (and where it had taken us hours to get to one), so this one was a positive surprise: only a 10 min ride, many cascades, about 100 m high, sunlight shining through, bamboo, cristal clear blue (no, Priscilla, not showing off :-) pools for swimming, wow!
Our way back we tested out some more means of public transport: motorbike and Ceres bus and ferry again (with a huge dead cockroach right next to us), but then a tricycle ride from Sibulan to Dumaguete, where we strolled around the bay and bought some fruits at the local markets (the whole city seemed like a bustling market, plus 4 universities and a governor home in White House style). Then another tricycle to the Ceres bus terminal (and yes, you can fall asleep on a tricycle) and a completely crowded small bus back to Zamboanguita, where I sat perched with 4 other people in the back seat, barely an aisle to walk back and forth - and fell asleep again, head on my backpack. They dropped us off right in front of our hotel when Steffen raised his hand (in a bus of >40). Quite a day! I should mention that the lack of sleep may come from the fact that a sleepwalking (or drunk or both) Czech guy had mistakenly come into our room at 4:15 last night and it had taken us a while to friendly shive him out again. He didn't understand us and wasn't able to talk but was quietly wandering around and just seemed to want to lie down. @Jana/Ondra: it didn't help that the only two Czech words I know from you guys are ahoj (hi) and berunka (ladybug)! Luckily we didn't see him this morning for breakfast, I'm quite sure he doesn't remember. And luckily he didn't mistake our room for the bathroom. So yes, quite a day. And we will lock our door tonight!