Wed 7th Jan
Siquijor is supposedly the island of mountainous witch doctors & enchantments which, while sat by the pool, is quite hard to believe. The beach just outside is called 'Voodoo Beach' and there is some kind of 'offering' installation to a sea creature on a large piece of rock just beyond this - see photo below. While it looks the part, it's all abit bullshit really. Or is it...?? Woooooo....
Anyway, to explore the island abit more we have hired a small motorbike *cough* Honda scooter. The safety helmets we have been given however are full on motorbike ones which is quite funny as it would appear Mat and I are the only ones wearing them on the island. There are all manner of things on two wheels here ranging from small babies to animals but helmets don't seem to be one of them!
I was a little nervous at first but soon got into it. The fact that there are hardly any cars here helped also. It was lovely riding around seeing all the small villages and people waving and just generally being very nice towards us. Siquijor seems so untouched by the 21st century. Rice fields, nipa houses, chicken farms...
Our first stop on our first scooter outing was to 'The Old Enchanted Balete Tree', a 400 year old gnarly tree that looks like it could eat children. There were hundreds of tiny loach fish underneath it for a 'natural foot spa' which we tried. Having experienced a fish pedicure in Thailand we were prepared for the ticklish nibbling but it was still a shock to the system!
From there we made our way to a town called Lazi which has got a river called Poo running through it. Obviously Lazi is pronounced 'Lah-zee' and Poo 'Po-Oh' but the 12 year old in us just thought this was hilarious. I know, I know.
At Lazi we visited the San Antonio de Padua Church built in 1857 which was great to see still standing especially as older structures in the Philippines were bombed/burned to smithereens during the many wars in Asia over the years. Across the road is supposedly the oldest convent in the Philippines which looked pretty run down. I didn't see any nuns and there was a school attached to it so we didn't go in.
We then went to Cambughay Falls which is a set of beautiful waterfalls that I'm guessing flow into the Poo River. It was absolutely beautiful and you could swim in the waters pretending you were in a romantic hair advert with the waterfall rinsing your hair... In reality it was more me being ungainly and trying not to drown as I avoided the sharp rocks under the water and Mat wanting to jump off the waterfall into the lake below because our guide said 'it was OK' and me shouting at him not to do it in case he hurt his back on the boulders underneath. He didn't do it thank goodness.
We then thought it would be a good idea to visit a butterfly sanctuary up in the mountains except at this point we were running low on gasoline (meaning 'empty') so turned round and then spent another 20mins trying to find somewhere to load up on fuel.
There are no usual petrol stations in the small villages. Instead litre bottles of gasoline are sold in 'sari sari' stores so the one we stopped at to refill resulted in a small crowd and a kind young man to help us as we didn't actually know what type of fuel our scooter took!
By the time we got back to the resort Mat and I were both saddle sore and my poor back bones were in agony. We were glad to be back for some TLC.
The only strange thing from today that stuck in my mind was the sight of four women in one of the villages we went through standing around a candle, waving their hands around it chanting incantations. Voodoo Beach indeed...
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