Just like my last visit to the first beautiful central Filipino island on the list this time around I also ended up on Malapascua by fate. On my last visit I missed a flight in Cebu and after a tip off from the most helpful girl at the airport I discovered an island rich in scenery and with western influence to a minimum. Then it really became one of my favourite places yet.
This time It was just past 5am as we stood 3 weeks into our adventure in the middle of Manila Airport, destination unknown. Emma and I were fresh from our failed bus station trip to get up north as we exhausted all other avenues of travel over the past few days in an attempt to travel to the apparently unrivalled beauty of Luzon. Unfortunately for us Holy Week fell slap bang in the middle of our plans and although we had heard it would be busy we couldn't of imagined just how manic this major holiday was to become.
No trains, buses, cars, bikes or bloody men on horseback went northbound or south for that matter. Knowing that we were clearly stuck and with a week and a bit until our flight from Manila to Malaysia we made an early morning decision that was to change our plan entirely.
Seeing air Asia was the only desk opened early we approached the counter desperate and still bleary eyed to ask...
"Do you have space on your next flight?"
"To where sir?"
"Anywhere!"
With the answer to my request it was a tick for my bucket list and I think it's safe to say emma was happy and relieved too.
We had booked a flight taking off in less than 2 hours for Cebu. The flight was pricey by local travel standards but we reasoned since I had been previously it would be easier and a little cheaper to find good accommodation, street food and transport once we were there.
We arrived in Cebu for 3 and grabbed our bags straight into a taxi to get to the bus station just in time to catch our next ride. The sun was settling as we arrived by boat over the short stretch of Coral sea, there we could see the island I so fell in love with a year and a bit ago from then.
Malapascua didn't disappoint!
After one night in random accomodation we made our way for a week with my friend Jun Jun at his rasta style place, Villa Sandra.
we spent time with the hula, swimming and snorkelling on beautiful bounty beach...
A few days we hiked up north to find deserted beaches all to ourselves...
On Malapascua we made good friends in Mark and Scott. We watched the lunar eclipse, had fires on the beach, went night swimming and illuminated clouds of phospherescent plankton and we had the (somewhat random) honour of judging the local Miss Malapascua competition.
Malapascua has recently felt the full force of hurricanes, in parts it is noticeably straining with a waste management problem and a number of western style small hotels and business' along the beach have obviously had a boom. All the same this island is once more a place that I know I will see again.
Back to Cebu...
