Quezon Province Extravaganza & Parts Beyond!

I have been so super swamped lately I have totally neglected this!  Oops!  So let’s back up to the weekend before last (March 13-14th!)… So one of my trainees from the group I taught last time I was in Manila (last fall) has family in Quezon province, so Aya spearheaded a trip for several members of the ADC team (the folks I’m training) to Gumaca, Quezon for a day of swimming and hanging out on an island in Lamon Bay.

We left Friday night after work (close to 10pm), thinking it would take about 5 hours to get to Gumaca…but, of course, we hit traffic, so instead of arriving at 3am as planned, we got there closer to 5am.  Which worked out OK, as then we were able to sleep in the van!  When we arrived in Gumaca, we headed to Aya’s family’s place, where we had a tasty breakfast of rice porridge with ginger, eggs, and pancit.  Mmmmmm.

After breakfast, we started getting things together for our trip to the island.  First stop was a trip to the market to pick up food.  The catch of the day was just arriving as we got there, so there were lots of fresh fish wriggling around to choose from.

(catch coming in)

There were also lots of fish drying on racks…they were awful cute!

(sun dried fish)

We had to wait a bit for the rest of the details to be settled, so we spent some time playing bingo (and winning!  ha ha!)…

We got on the boat (a teeny tiny outrigger canoe…very tippy!  eek!) and headed for the island…

(heading out to the island)

…and just as we came around the tip of the island, within sight of the beach we were headed for, the engine died.  Yipes!  It took a few tries on the ripcord, but we were eventually underway and landed on the beach!  The master chefs got to work preparing food for lunch, while the rest of us went exploring!

(master chefs!)

We found a rocky black beach (well stocked with snails and little crabs), and then started off to find the white(r) beach we’d seen on our way in.  It was maybe a quarter mile away, past a point and a few mangrove trees.  We commemorated our find by taking lots and lots and lots of attempted jump shots.  And then we got one to (mostly!) work!

(3..2..1..jump!)

We made it back in time for lunch, which was an amazing spread!  Grilled fish, squid adobo, ensalada with bagoong (shrimp paste!), rice (of course!), grilled pork, and lots of fresh fruit!

(feast!)

After lunch we all trekked over to the white beach we’d scoped out earlier…it was HOT!  But that didn’t slow us down!  We took all sorts of pictures and played all sorts of crazy beach games…one involved snagging balloons from a cooler, running up the beach and back, then popping the balloons in the shallows to get a word rolled up on a slip of paper to spell out a phrase; there was also an egg toss (wherein I learned that eggs bounce quite well on sand and crabs!…musta been a softshell?!), and a version of chase-the-tail (think a conga-line + tag!) that devolved into chaos in record time!  Good times!  Minimal sunburn!

(tag! you’re it!)

We eventually headed back down the beach for second lunch (you read that right!) and some swimming (wherein I learned that sea urchins, or whatever it was that I brushed against that left a black spine in the side of my toe, do not play well with others)…lucky for us there were no jellyfish (though they do arrive in the area this time of year, I gather)!  It started raining while we were swimming, which was pretty spiffy (I love swimming in the rain!).

(pretty beach!)

Eventually we all made our way back out of the sea, packed up our stuff, and loaded up the boat to head back to town.  Just one catch…apparently when you’re dealing with oceans, you have this tide thing to consider…specifically low tide.  (Yeah, I come from the land of rivers & streams…no tides on my radar!)…so we ended up pushing the boat (and in some instances, carrying the boat) out to deeper water before we could head back.  Exciting times!

(in the boat attempting to head back)

We got back just as the sun was setting, headed back to Aya’s family’s place for a round of showers before piling back into the vans for the drive back to Manila.  We got home around midnight–awesome Saturday!

(leaving around sunset)

~ by shannon on 27 March 2010.