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.

Batanes Day 1: Arrival and tour of the northern half of Batan Island – 12/08/09

[So after all the Batanes photos have been uploaded here in Multiply at an excruciatingly slow pace, I'm finally going to start blogging about my trip.  My apologies for the delay to those who might have been expecting this sooner.]

I left home early morning on December 8 to reach the old Manila domestic airport on time for checking into my flight to Batanes.  With the exception of a long delay due to a lot of heavy fishing equipment being lugged around by a group of “fisher dudes” who were in line before me, I found the checking-in procedure to be relatively efficient.