My Camino - Santiago de Camino, The Pilgrams walk. Sept 2016

14/10/2016

Location:	800kms Across Spain
Activity:	Walking The Camino De Santiago
Acommodation:	Albergues (like hostels)
Rating:
3 Words:	WE. DID. IT!

When I planned to walk the Camino, I invited maybe 20 people to join me at some point along the way. A few were very keen but in the end it was Sue, my sister who prevailed and to be honest I couldn't have asked for a better walking companion. There was injuries, blisters, sore bits, and sleepness nights. There was also inspiration, determination, incredulation and relevations. It is and will remain one of the best things I have ever done and strangely, as time goes by, it becomes more special. We hiked through some incredible scenery, met some amazing people, heard some inspirational stories & walked across a country, There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.

Santiago De Camino 2016 - It's a Wrap!

It's brutal & it's gentle
It's stunning & it's mundane
It's inspiring & it's boring
It's warm & it's freezing
It's quiet & it's hectic
It's confronting & it's calming
It's all things and it's none,

It's your Camino & it's everything to you.

My Main Observations:

Con's:

It's harder than you imagine, some days you struggle on the flat in the cool. There is no rhyme or reason why some days are so hard.

You meet some incredible dicks! Smile, nod and move on!

You will get blisters. Its almost inevitable. No matter how well your shoes fit, walking 30kms/day for a month on end takes it's toll. Do not stick your head in the sand about them!

The food is plentiful but not often great. Soup, pasta, desert and wine/beer for 7-10 Euro's. You can't go wrong, its filling and its cheap but its not gourmet cuisine. Not that you care!

You will experience some horrific judgement from others with regard to how you do your camino. Smile, nod and move on.

Pro's:

Its just walking - anyone can do it and there is nothing like knowing you walked over the Pyrenees in a day!

At least once a day you feel inspired by an amazing person you have just met.

You will get endless blister advice! Undersocks, dry socks, air your feet, vaseline, moleskin, pure wool - its endless but helpful.

At least once a week you need to remember you are in Spain. Avoid the pilgrims menu & order the incredible Spanish food.

Medicines, money & help are just randomly handed over to help others. You often see the very best of the Pay It Forward concept.

Camino paths and trails

I was trying to figure out something I could take a photo of every day when about day three I realised I had been taking photos of the trails, tracks, paths and surfaces we were walking. This condenses 5 weeks of walking into 40 seconds of video. Enjoy.

I would LOVE to hear your Camino story. Comment below your favourite story from your camino.

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Philippines - Its a wrap!

15/1/2016

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Firstly I am pretty sure that a lot of Australians would not really consider The Philippines a worthwhile travel destination. I can't put my finger on it completely, however before we left whenever anyone asked where I was starting I would of course say The Philippines. This was almost always followed with a puzzled look from whoever I was talking to and then I would go on to explain the pro's of the Philippines.

I think we have the balance of Asia so close that the Philippines is just dismissed as too hard maybe? Whatever the reason - Aussies you are truly missing out.

I loved the Philippines and would highly recommend it. What's not to love except the food maybe... It would have cracked 5 stars if the food was better.

In Summary...

Location:	The Philippines
Activity:	Beaches, Reefs, Cities, Hiking & Adventure Sports
Rating:
3 Words:	Snorkling, Sunning, Stunning

The Wheres, The Why's & The Hows...

Where:

Manila - not a fan of Manila however we stayed at the Red Planet near the Mall Of Asia and that was a good choice for Manila. It was clean, quiet, small but very comfy, had affordable eating places right outside and was only a very short taxi ride to the mall for a myriad of food and shopping choices.
Cebu City - Arrived Xmas Eve evening. OMG I almost want to tell you to go then just to see the traffic. 3 hours for around 10 km's. Amazing to see and every man, woman and child was on the streets celebrating xmas eve. See what we did in the city.
Moalboal - Little coastal town that is the jump off point for the adventure activities. I loved Moalbaol and so did all the boys. Some more than others...
Oslob - Whale Sharks - an amazing experience for xmas day.
Puerto Princesa - Not an amazing place as its mostly there as a jump off point for Honda Bay (surprisingly good) and The Underground River. You can kill a few days in PP pretty easily though. Cheap good food too.
Underground River - Hmmm - decent site but an 8 hour day for a 45 min paddle through a cave is not really something I could highly recommend.
Coron - Loved Coron. At the tip of the remote Palawan Islands and a huge dive spot, loved its village atmostphere.
Boracay - didn't stay on White Beach. We stayed over at Bulagog Beach and loved it. Great place, boys learnt how to wind surf and I read and relaxed.
Mt Pinatubo - very easy walk but of course there had to be some drama. Because I was over 40 I had to have my blood pressure taken and of course (seeing as I hate that thing) it was high. So I had to sit and have it taken again in 10 minutes. Nice walk though and great view from the top.
Banaue (ban-ow-ee), Batad and Sagada - Northern Luzon. Loved the area and the hiking but its a long and involved story. Read this post for the gory details.
Baguio City - On the main Island of Luzon we came back to Baguio (pronounced bug-eeow) from our hiking and northern Luzon trip and I really loved it. Hardly any travelers so it was us and the locals for two days and we all really enjoyed out time there.
El Nido - Stunning beach and the place to go to access the remote Islands however it was a bit of a shock after being on the boat for a week. I think I would have liked it normally but it was a bit confronting after the quiet of the boat and the beaches.
Remote Palawan Islands - an absolute MUST do. Check out Tao and my post on the trip.

Why:

I had wanted to visit the Philippines for years but we ended up doing India somehow instead and the shorter trips we did just wouldn't have been enough time so it had been on my radar for some time.

I'm an ocean girl as most of you know so it was perfect for me as being in and around the water was sensational. I was also looking for somewhere that the boys could have some kind of freedom to roam around and have time to themselves so the more touristy area's were also (weirdly) a bit of an attraction for this trip.

The combination of reefs, adventure sports, beaches, cities and hiking makes The Philippines one of the most diverse countries on earth. The waters of Palawan are truly incredible, the picturesque hills of the islands make for some great hiking and photo ops and the cities are actually really fun.

How:

This is the strange part to me. I was really expecting to be able to travel from one island to another by ferry but there is almost no chance to do that. Some of the southern islands have ferries between ports however we didn't visit those. The other islands just don't seem to have ferry services and the one we knew existed, we had heard really bad reports about it being on time or even leaving at all on the day you were booked. This one would have been getting us to Coron for our sailing and there was no way I was going to risk missing that boat so we flew pretty much everywhere.

The rise of Air Asia has I'm sure, put an end to a lot of the ferries. It was like $17 to get from Cebu to Boracay for example on the plane so of course we flew most legs. Getting to and from El Nido you have to get the bus back to Puerto Princessa and leave from there, which is only 6 hours and a decent ride anyway (except if you are Jake and have a stomach bug!) No-one pooped their pants though so all good!

We met a couple on our sailing who had taken the ferry to Cebu and it was in fact 9 hours late leaving and they were so late arriving they missed a two day diving trip they had booked so we were glad we had chosen to fly.

Getting around is easy and mostly cheap. Of course you have to haggle but don't be a dick about it or they will just walk away. The Philippinos have a very strong sense of pride and won't stand for any insults in the haggling process (which of course they shouldn't) however we did see a few people get turned away because they were quoting ridiculous prices that were flat out insulting to the drivers. So like I say - stay reasonable and they will too.

Ask if they can take you all in the trikes as they will try and split you up and get two fares if they can. We were 4 and 3 of us were 6" or over so it made for some very funny trike rides but we always paid a little extra when they squeezed us all in and a few nights especially when we were in Puerto Princessa and we went down the promenade for dinner, we had the drivers running up to us to take us home as they knew we paid a little extra. I think secretly they also liked the fun of the four of us squeezed in the back and on the edge!

The Cons:

A lot of people told us that the Philippines was really dangerous and from reading some news items, I'm sure it could be. We never felt any challenges at all, however - I always do my research and made sure we were never venturing in to scary parts of the city by accident and drilled into the boys that they must stay together. That actually paid off as one night one of them left a bar in a less than capable state and as soon as the other two realised he'd gone they followed to be sure he was OK and it was just as well. Nothing violent at all but I think they probably saved him from getting rolled.

In the cities we always:

stayed in the heavily frequented area's.
We never carried too much cash.
We always knew how we could get out if need be
we always kept out whits about us and
there was almost always the 4 of us.

I never felt that we were ever anything closer than maybe getting pick pocketed and that was in Boracay, which I have to say I expected. NYE period on a crowded tourist destination - yup I'm sure they were out in force.

There is something called Philippino time. I'm going to try to explain it:

So - we are having breakfast and Denwil (our guide for the hiking in the north) tells us we will head off to the waterfalls after lunch. So what time do you need us to be ready I ask. After lunch. So be ready at 1? Yeah - after lunch. Denwil arrives at 2.30. That's Philippino time. AND ITS EVERYWHERE!! I have two 17 year old lads that I have to have to tell a time to be back by! The first few times its not so bad, but after they have sat their for 2-3 hours waiting for a pickup, they start getting a bit liberal with the time themselves. You just have to sit back and assume that it will all work out. So when they tell you after breakfast, they could mean anywhere from 9am to 11.30. Its impossible to pin them down so you do a lot of time wasting in the Philippines. But I have to say I got through a few good books in the process.

Except when you do a tour. Then they are pretty specific. Don't be late for that or you won't be going.

The food: hmmm - not super impressed at all with their food I'm afraid. Its stunningly western in most area's and those that aren't have food that is based around stew and casseroles. Lots of curry which the boys loved although they use dairy in their curry so not for me (dairy intolerant). The adobo is nice but its cooked with soy (allergy) so that wasn't for me either.

A few places we had kaldereta which is meat cooked in a tomato base which was great, although a few times (after some nasty side effects) we realised in some area's they also use soy so that was also out for me. So its not stir fried noodles and veg which you expect somehow, its mostly casserole based meat and rice. So I ate a lot of rice and the boys consumed their weight in chicken curry! It wasn't bad food it just wasn't great compared to other amazing food we have had around Asia.