Coron
Tuesday we took it easy. Our big accomplishment of the day was climbing Mount Tapyas to watch the sunset. It was a ton of steps to climb, our guide today said it was 900 steps and our legs certainly felt like it. It took us about 1/2 hour to climb up with a number of stops. We had also walked there from the dive centre so it was a good work out. The view was good and the sunset was okay. It wasn’t as good as some evenings as there were some clouds but this was a one time adventure – we aren’t climbing all those stairs again.
Today, Wednesday, we had a private boat tour booked. We were up just after 6 and lathered in sunscreen, had a quick breakfast and cup of coffee and walked up the hill to the main road to catch a trike. We went to the public market by the boat jetty to meet our tour guy. We had to buy food at the public market for our lunch. The trike driver dropped us off at the one end of the market. It just happened the section we entered was the meat section – pigs heads, and other cuts, chicken, fish, they had it all on wooden tables and hanging. We made our way part way down and found a spot to cut over to the fruit and vegetable section to buy fruit for our lunch. We ended up with a small watermelon, two mangos, and 3 oranges, 3 bottles of water and a small mesh bag to carry everything. We met up with our tour guy and he introduced us to Bart, our tour guide for the day.
From the market we walked through a big dirt lot towards the boats. We could hear a pig squealing. Our first thought was they were hauling it in to slaughter which we really didn’t want to have to watch. As we got closer we see pigs loaded in a big crate on the back of a trike and then realize that they have several pigs on a boat that were transported to the jetty. They’d tie a rope on the pig and wrestle and drag it up the steep concrete embankment and then shove it into the trike crate. And these were not small pigs!! First time we’ve ever seen pigs come to market by boat!
We had to wait for a bit once on the boat for the captain to take our names and info to the harbour master. Every boat before they leave has to register all their guests names, ages and nationalities. Once that was done we were off. We headed to Kayangan Lake. The boats dock at a wooden pier that runs along the edge of the cliffs. From there you walk up and down 360 steps to arrive at the lake. The lake is a mixture of salt (70%) and fresh water (30%) and some of the clearest lake water in the world. We went for a swim and snorkel although there wasn’t much to see underwater.
Then it was back on the boat for a short ride to Twin Lagoon. You can either swim under a small opening in the rock or take the steps up over the rock and back down. We’d had enough of steps and were comfortable swimming thru the opening into the lagoon. Once inside the lagoon it is pretty neat. It’s much larger than a similar one we were in when we visited El Nido. The cliff walls and the blue green water is all very picturesque.
After Twin Lagoon we headed to Banol Beach. We were fortunate to arrive ahead of many of the other boats so got to enjoy the beach before it became busy. The boat guys cut up all our fruit and brought it to the thatched buildings where they have benches and tables for people to sit in the shade and eat. Then we had a couple of hours to swim and enjoy the beautiful sandy beach.
Coral Garden was our last stop of the day. There were gorgeous corals and lots of fish to see. We even saw a good sized turtle which was pretty exciting! The one time we didn’t have the GoPro along with us! Again we beat the crush of boats at this stop. I’m sure we’d never seen the turtle otherwise. Just after we were getting ready to pull out a number of tour boats were pulling in and it was going to be crowded.
We were back to Coron around 2 pm which was fine with us. You can only take so much sun in one day. We headed back to our room to shower and have a cold drink. Supper was back at La Sirenetta. We picked up a few supplies for tomorrow and booked another day trip on the same boat. We’ll head out to see some different sites tomorrow.