Day 4-5: San Pedro, Romblon Island
October 23, 2008. With all my interviews done, I had the privilege to sleep in today. We worked a bit in the office in the morning and then went out to lunch at the famous "The Port". (By its name, one would think it as grand as "The Fort" in Metro Manila :-) ). The Port is a small restaurant across the port, that's why the name. They serve Filipino cuisine and their specialty is Bulalo. Big servings, low price, good food. Value for money, totally :-).
After lunch, we went to buy some pasalubong. We bought some marble dolphin shaped paper weight from the market, which are really very affordable.
We went back to the office, did some more work. At 4 pm, we packed up and headed to a beach resort in San Pedro. San Pedro is a bit far and inaccessible so we hired a tricycle to take us there.
We stayed in a private resort owned by Tita Violy, who works in the DSWD of the Romblon Municipality. It is a very nice place. It is a big house where Tita Violy and her husband lives. They rent out two rooms on the 2nd floor of the house for those who want to go swimming. Their house is located in a cove and they have their own little beach. Must be good to own a small beach cove one day! The rooms were big enough, each has its own bathroom and the owners were very accomodating. They even provided us with hot water and coffee in the room.
We went snorkelling again, although I did not enjoy as much this time because the corals appear to be dead in this place. But they have a good view, nice reefs, where I took some pictures of the sunset.
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| Gotcha, crown of thorns! |
We had grilled fish for dinner and it was yummy.
After pigging out, we went to sleep. This is life! :-)
The next day, I was up early and when I went out of the room, Mike , one of the SIKAT staff was also on his way out. I took a picture of sunrise, and then we walked around and on our way to what they call the guard house (where volunteers camp in at night as they watch out for illegal fishers), we passed by several houses. What caught our attention was this very white, very big house, in the middle of what seemed to be a forest, and overlooking the sea.
When we went back, and as we were served breakfast by Tita Violy, we asked about the house. Apparently, they own the entire property and they lease some parts to some foreigners who build houses on them, with the agreement that after a certain number of years, Tita Violy and family would now own the house. And the white house is one of those houses, and is now their property. The foreigner who leased it used it only for 3 years and has now decided not to come back to the Philippines. Some kind of luck, they now own that house!
They were very accommodating and they toured us around the different houses. If I had the money, I would certainly buy that white house :-). My brother, being able to read my mind sometimes, was teasing me "Ate, let me guess. If you win the lotto, you would buy that house!" It's really beautiful, and grand, and would love to own that if I had 2 million pesos. :-)
We had to leave before lunch. My brother, Mike and Karen went swimming again while I went to pack my things. Then its time to leave. But I would like to say thanks to Tita Violy, for accomodating us. And lucky did we get too, they did not let us pay for the stay.
I would say, hospitability still runs in the blood of the people of Romblon.
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