Everyone’s kinder in Batanes (even the tourists).

 

(Sorry I haven’t been posting for a long time.  I’ve been busy cramming all my reservations for my Vietnam/Cambodia trip and this has consumed my online time.  This is the last entry in the Batanes series, and hopefully, I’ll finish this one before I leave for my trip to Vietnam & Cambodia.)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

I’ve once said that no matter where I go in this country, I never really feel too far away from home because there is a certain familiarity when encountering fellow Filipinos even when they speak a different local language.  Generally speaking, and from my limited traveling experience, I find that no single group of Filipinos occupying a particular geographic area is much kinder or more unscrupulous than all the others.

The 2-lie system of SEAir’s Manila-Basco flights (a warning)

When I created this blog, one of my resolutions was to make this new blog as free as possible from rants, sarcasm and writings made in the heat of extremely angry moments (which are things that characterize most of my social networking output).  This is why I held off for more than a month before writing an entry about something that made me absolutely furious at the time it was happening.  I was hoping that the passage of weeks would somehow diminish my anger and allow me to deliver this warning in a calm and reasonable manner, without resorting too much on unduly negative language.

In search of Batanes’ prehispanic past

When the subject of Ivatan culture and heritage is discussed, the attention inevitably gets focused on the most tangible manifestations of such, i.e. the traditional stone houses and centuries old-churches, among others.  These are buildings that have withstood the test of time and the elements in the harsh Batanes climate.  While those Spanish-era structures themselves capture one’s interest, it does obscure the fact that the Ivatans have a much richer prehispanic past, traces of which have survived to the present day.

Stuck in Batan: New Sites & Sentimental Favorites

The visit to faraway Itbayat did not materialize.  It was a bit disappointing considering that it was the single most significant destination I was looking forward to in this return trip to Batanes.  But I’m glad that it didn’t take place, and here’s why:

Mahatao’s Lighthouses: Setting the Facts Straight

(This originally was part of another blog I was making, but it began to have a life of its own and I thought it best to put it in a separate entry.)

When one says “Mahatao Lighthouse”, this is probably what most of those who have gone to Batanes have in mind:

…which makes sense because it is a lighthouse and it is in Mahatao.

The Back-breaking Mt. Iraya Climb

I arrived at Batanes on a Saturday and I intended to travel by boat to Itbayat the day after, return to Basco on Monday and climb Mt. Iraya on Tuesday.  I had to rearrange my plans however when I learned that no boats travel to Itbayat on Sundays.  And so I opted to do my climb on that day instead.

Preview: Mt. Iraya

Blabbering at the summit of Mt. Iraya from Liquid Druid on Vimeo.

My next blog is about my Mt. Iraya climb.  However, I won’t be able to complete it until after next Tuesday as I’ll be exploring Surigao during the next few days.  For the meantime, here’s a video of me blabbering at the summit of Mt. Iraya.

Hiking in Northern Batan

One thing I took note of the last time I was in Batan was that there were a lot of spots I just breezed through, owing to the fact that I was aboard either a motorcycle or a bicycle.  This time, I intended to tour Batan at a much more “leisurely” and laid-back pace in order to soak in the scenery and to possibly discover picturesque spots that are normally just passed by the usual tourist route.  And so I plotted a roughly triangular path that would take me first from my starting point of Basco to the Valugan Boulder Beach, then to the highlands of Tukon, and finally to the Naidi Lighthouse to catch the sunset.

Return to Batanes (a prologue)

Batanes is very close to my heart.  When I first started traveling as a serious hobby, this paradise on Earth was the first destination that I went to.  I had a grand time and I’ve always promised myself that I will come back someday.  Hopefully by then, I would no longer be traveling solo and be with friends when I return.

Slideshow: Chasing an Egret

So my vacation leaves have been approved and SEAir already confirmed the departure date and time.  I’m definitely going back to Batanes.  Here’s one of the more memorable things that happened to me in Batanes.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Here’s an excerpt of what I wrote about it in my old blog:

For this particular bird, I found it by it’s lonesome by the roadside while I was on a bicycle en route to the town of Ivana in southern Batan island. I carefully parked my bicycle by the roadside and tried to get a closer shot. While I was just 10 meters away, it flew away, but only for a short distance. So what I did was that I got my 55-250mm lens, ran on tiptoe while changing lenses to get a much, much closer shot of this bird.

I caught up with it and managed to get closer by 5 meters. It kept on flying away, but it only for short distances, until I caught up with it by a cliffside and I was just 3 meters away. What transpired was one of the best wildlife shots I’ve ever taken.