Since my
last blogpost was (somewhat) summer-themed, I thought I'd take this opportunity to show you photos from our Coron trip! The trip itself was aeons ago, in February 2015, but I realized that I never got to talk about it here on the blog. These photos have been sleeping in Lightroom for more than a year, and I'd forgotten all about them until I saw
Kaila,
Ashley, and
Chichi's "
Boracawaii" blogposts. It seems like such a waste not to share these photos of beautiful Coron with everyone, so here they are, with a bit of commentary from me ♥
Day 1
We arrived in
Busuanga Island in the afternoon. The flight from Manila took less than an hour – I didn't even have time to sleep. (There were no troubles whatsoever during the flight, but for some reason when I got my bag back from cargo, it was missing one of its legs, wtf. Please treat our bags with more care, PAL!) From the airport in Busuanga, a van took us to Coron. The ride was about 45 minutes; when we arrived at our hotel the sun was already setting. After we got settled into our rooms, our tour guide took us to Mt. Tapyas, the second tallest mountain in Busuanga. To get to the summit, you have to climb a total of 718 (!!) concrete steps. For someone with almost zero exercise like myself, just reaching the 200th step was a feat in itself. I don't have much photos from this day, because climbing 200 out of 700+ steps really took a lot out of me. All I could think of afterwards was getting into the
Maquinit Hot Spring (which was a glorious experience, by the way). After dinner, we then headed back to the hotel.
Day 2
Day 2 – the start of our Coron Island tour! The day started really early–at around 7AM, I think. I remember having breakfast at the hotel then hurriedly getting ready because I was so excited to see the sea. Our van took us down to the dock, where we got on a boat with our island guides. The boat took us to a lot of different islands.. I only remembered the name first site, Siete Pecados–after that, I stopped listening to the tour guide because I spent most of the time looking in awe at the beautiful sights and the clear, blue-green water. Siete Pecados was also the first place we stopped at. I can only remember jumping into the water and seeing all the pretty corals. It was an amazing experience and I regret 110% not bringing my underwater camera with me. Other things I vaguely remember during this day: eating delicious seafood caught and prepared by our tour guides, a cave that had sand as soft as marshmallows, seeing cute little jellyfish from the boat (aka probably the nearest I will ever get to see live jellyfish), amazing rock formations, beautiful blue-green water everywhere. Nature is amazing.
Day 3
By the third day, my body was already so heavy and I was grumpy because of having to wake up at 7AM for two days in a row. That was made worse by the fact that the first site we went to was Kayangan Lake.. which you can only get to by climbing a steep set of stairs (300 steps!!). The view at the top and the beautiful clean lake was worth the trouble, but the uphill climb was super scary for a scaredy-cat like myself ;___; I don't remember the rest of the sites, as usual, because I was too busy taking pictures. We were able to rent a GoPro this time, so I got to take photos underwater! It's mostly of corals though, so I only chose a couple to share here. Highlights of this day: seeing a sunken Japanese ship, feeding a hungry school of fish some bread, floating lazily in the Twin Lagoons (where the water alternates between warm and cold), seeing Nemo and his dad up close.
Day 4
The last day in Coron – the only thing we did was have breakfast, pack our bags, and get ready to leave for Manila. We were supposed to drop by the souvenir shop before leaving Busuanga, but everyone was so tired and woke up later than planned so we all decided to skip it. (Which is too bad, because I was told Coron's cashew nuts are really delicious!) We headed straight to the airport and then returned to Manila in the afternoon.
Some info about the trip: I was only invited by my relatives, so I don't know the exact details (time it took to reserve the hotel, the budget, etc), but I do know that we availed of a Tour Package from
Nice in Paradise Coron Travel and Tours. It was the
4 Days/3 Nights Package, with accommodations at
Coron Paradise B&B. Coron Paradise was a small place, but it was clean with great service and an okay wifi connection. My room was a Superior Single Room, and it was literally just a room with a bed, an AC, a fan, a TV, and a bathroom. It had a big window too – I regret not taking more selcas, lol. Definitely not for people looking for something luxurious. It was small, but I slept comfortably because there was an AC. (For some reason, this hotel isn't listed in the 4D3N package, so maybe ask them if you want a cheaper alternative to the ones listed.)
There's still so much I want to show everyone from our Coron trip, but sadly there were times during the trip that I was so caught up in taking in the beauty of the place that I forgot to take pictures. But one thing's for sure – I fell in love with Coron at that time. I think about going back every day. I'm hoping that after reading this post that it made you want to see how beautiful Coron is for yourself as well ♥
