inside T3’s Smoking Lounge

We landed in Busuanga. Roughly 45 minutes later, we arrived at our destination. 

We stayed at the Coron Village Lodge. Stumbled upon this one by browsing Web sites like TripAdvisor for reviews. I also found out that Marketman stayed there. Well, if it’s good enough for Marketman, it’s good enough for me. The room is average, but the bathroom is clean and has heated water so that made it okay. We could hear the TV and some loud conversations from the next room. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sleep but thankfully I was so tired I slept as soon as I hit the bed each night. The food was good and the servings were big. And because I loved the beef so much, I ate beef for all my meals there. I even had beef as baon for the island hopping. Talk about favorites, hehe!

Saturday afternoon, after a nap, we hiked up to Mt. Tapyas for a view of the Coron town. We started climbing before 5 pm to be able to see the sun setting over Coron. I don’t like sunsets [for some reason they make me sad], but Aoi does so I waited with him for the sun to go down. After our sunset shots, we went straight to Maquinit hot springs. They weren’t kidding when they said the water will be hot, so we better go there late in the afternoon or in the evening. I had to dip my body part by part! I don’t like showering with cold water even on summers, but the water in Maquinit — after an afternoon of hiking — was too hot even for me. Well, the hot water supposedly soothes aching muscles, and I think it worked. I felt relaxed after an hour in the pool. In fact, I was already dozing off in the tricycle on our way back to the lodge.

I did join Earth Hour that night. Even if it was just in our room, we turned off the lights.

Next day was what I called my “roasting” day. A full day of island/lake hopping. First stop was snorkeling at Siete Pecados, where fishes are abundant. I had a chance encounter with Nemo and his gang again. Then we went to Kayangan Lake where we had to hike up for around 10 minutes then go down to the other side to see the lake. Once we were up the cliff, I was really taken aback by the amazing view. I used to look at photos of Kayangan Lake and wonder, now I get to take photos of the landscape myself.

We then went to Barracuda Lake, and we needed to climb again. I should have left my camera in the boat for this one because the climb was harder, with so many jagged rocks and with steeper climb. I didn’t take photos because as we climbed down to the lake, I saw that once you go down, you have nothing but water—step off the rock and you’re in deep water already. I didn’t even have a place to put my camera down, so I just hung it over some rock.

a peep at Barracuda Lake 

After lunch, we headed to the famous Twin Lagoon where we had to swim through a small opening to get to the other side. They say you wouldn’t be able to swim through during high tide. It was my first time to see schools of fish — you know, pretty similar to the ones in Finding Nemo pointing the Eastern Australian Current. Coolness! Last stop for us was Atuwayan Beach [most boats headed toward Banol Beach]. I found this the most romantic part of the trip. Apart from one group having a party in the farther end of the beach, we were alone. We got to snorkel till the sun started to set. What a serene conclusion to a weekend full of adventures.

So there you go — the story of my weekend in Coron. One of the best getaways I’ve had in years. For one thing, my bag is smaller [I always get stressed when packing for so many days]. I knew I’d be in the water most of the time, hence I packed light. We did not go on a Holy Week, so there were fewer people everywhere. We had good flight schedules. I even had a nap after having lunch on our first day there. Most importantly, the people in Coron are very kind and hospitable. I didn’t have that feeling of being ripped off, which I always get when traveling. Everybody — from the shuttle driver, the lodge staff, the boatmen, to the tricycle drivers — talked to us courteously, always with po and opo.