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Wow. It’s been one year🤯 since the Philippines. Feels like my heart is still there 💌🏝 (at Philippines) https://www.instagram.com/p/CHRyqQRhDwm/?igshid=6cft4buv7iu5

Adventure first, safety second. (at Siargao Island, Philippines) https://www.instagram.com/p/B562zGDBXM2/?igshid=1mazvlf9b2jq1

Malapascua

Where oh where did I leave off? I know! Cebu city. Shit that feels like 17 years ago. I went to the North Bus Station early in the morning to catch a nice air conditioned bus to Maya. Well I waited and waited and waited and no air conditioned bus came along, so I hopped on the next available bus (mistake). For the next 5 hours I was crammed in a crummy seat against an open window on a hot bus. I literally didn’t move in those 5 hours, and every part of my body cramped at some point. Not ideal. Finally I made it to the New Port and took a 45 minute boat ride to Malapascua Island! When I got there I checked into my hostel and then found a dive shop to book a dive with the thresher sharks for the next morning. I then ordered a pizza and went to the beach to have a nap. My nap was okay, but locals kept waking me up saying “helllllloooo misssss what is your name?” I kept replying “shhhh I’m asleep.” After that I literally went to sleep at my hostel for the night... I was exhausted (what else is new?)

I had to be at the dive shop by 4:45 the next morning - no if’s and’s or but’s. Of course I made it on time even though we’re all aware by now mornings are not my thing. I met a cool group of people that morning - Flo, Esther, and my dive buddy Ian. It was still dark as our dive boat took off to the site. We had coffee on the way, geared up, and descended into the shark pit. We had to go about 30 meters to see the sharks. So we kneeled on the bottom and kept a lookout for the threshers. It was kinda boring waiting. Haha! I’m a dive snob - I need spectacular. Then someone spectacular eventually swam by! The elusive thresher shark. He was kinda in the distance, but I was happy to see him. Maybe her. We weren’t able to have a long bottom time because of the depth we were at, so the dive ended before I knew it. Oh god - on our safety stop I looked up towards the surface and it looked like the water in a washing machine. When I actually got to the top it was a full on storm. It was raining hard and I was basically in a wave pool. We all had to hold onto the bottom of the boat, and at some points we were halfway out of the water, and the other parts we were almost hitting our heads on the boat planks. Such a great way to end a mediocre dive! We made it back safe to the island, however it looked like we were in for a full on day of rain. I cancelled my other dives for the afternoon since the visibility wasn’t great and it was kinda stormy. A little crew of us went for breakfast and then Flo, Esther, and I decided the only way to beat the weather was to do a little day drinking. So we had a few beers, a bit of rum, and went on an adventure to the other side of the island. The day then turned into a night out which ended with a tequila shot. Whaaddddya gunna do!

I basically convinced myself that it wouldn’t be worth it to do another shark dive the next morning because it was stormy and if the conditions were the same as the previous morning it wouldn’t be worth it. Silly me. The people who did the shark dive that next morning said it was the greatest and showed us the coolest videos with lots of sharks! Haha oopsie. Drinking day/night with new friends was fun though too 😜

I only spent 2 nights in Malapascua because I wanted to have a full week in Siargao. So Esther and I went to Cebu City together that afternoon. We actually shared a van with a couple other people which was much better than the bus!! We had dinner that night, and then I had to say goodbye and went to bed to get prepped for my flight the next day.

Next Up: SIARGAO ❤️

Xo AP

That feeling you get when travelling ignites the fire inside your soul🥰 • • Thank you philippines!! Coming home, but I’ll be back 😭🌴 (at Siargao Island, Philippines) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5ts8NKhoIh/?igshid=1lng1dyruhn6i

Final morning in the Philippines surfing with these blokes. Siargao, you’ve been an absolute dream 🌴🥰 (at Cloud 9, Siargao Island, Philippines) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5rUBPbBiTp/?igshid=gz94s927o1un

Bohol

Hey👋 so Gianni and I left Moalboal in the morning. We caught a bus to Oslob, and a ferry to Panglao, Bohol. AP2 stayed and moved to a resort for his final days. After getting off the ferry and catching a Jeepney to Alona Beach we grabbed some Thai lunch. After lunch I literally napped all day. I was so burnt out. However, I was up for a fun evening. So we had burgers on the beach and then went to a bar. Alona is so different from Moalboal. I would say it is a bit fancier - more resorts, shops, and a million Asian Tourists. It’s definitely a place for vacationers.

The next day we found a Greek restaurant (my fave). So we had lunch and decided to rent a scooter to check out other beaches. We went to a beach called Dumaluan. It was massive, lined with palm trees, and had the softest white sand. It was such a bomb beach to hang out at for the afternoon. After an hour or two we scootered across the island to Hinagdanan Cave. We arrived too late to swim, but it was cool to be inside anyway. After the cave we went to the only point on the island to see the sunset. It wasn’t spectacular (kinda cloudy). By that point we were ready to head back to Alona. After booking a tour for the next morning, we had some dinner at a local restaurant. Guess what we ordered?! - well besides the delicious bbq chicken. Slime Veggies! Hahaha I had to take a video and send it to Adam. Same slime ingredient as the soup. I’m sticking to chicken. Later on we went out for a few drinks and ended up meeting these really nice people from London. The 4 of us hung out until it was time for bed.

The next day we were up nice and early to do yet another island hopping tour. Well this one was the shittiest tour of them all. The only good thing about it was that we met a really nice French Canadian guy named Eli who ended up spending the day with us. The first snorkeling spot was dumb. I stepped on coral or something pointy in the ocean and some locals tried to dig it out of my foot for half an hour. Then on our second stop we ended up at a sandbar in the middle of the ocean. That was the coolest part! I then stepped on an urchin on the same foot I was already limping on. I was pissed. Eli bought us beers so maybe that helped. And that was that for our “island hopping tour” off Bohol. After that I tried digging the ocean spikes out of my foot before hopping into a private car to the chocolate hills. No success. So Gianni, Eli, and I were taken on long drive to the middle of Bohol Island. First we stopped and saw the Tarsiers which looked like mini-monkey-aliens. Then we continued to the over crowed chocolate hills. The views were beautiful, but it did end up being a little under whelming. I’m always happy to see new things though. After that day I was absolutely exhausted. We had Greek food for dinner and watched a fire show in the square. By that time I was ready for bed.

On our final day in Bohol it poured rain. We sat in a coffee shop and went to lunch before getting a car to the port. The ferry to Cebu City was a quick hour and a half ride. After checking into my hostel, Gianni and I went to meet up with Adam for dinner. It was both of their final night in the Philippines! So after I said goodbye I went back to my place to get ready for a big travel day to Malapascua on my own. It’s always sad saying goodbye, yet it’s so exciting to continue a big journey. I do love travelling on my own almost as much as I do with other people.

AP xo

Cebu City and Moalboal

Adam and I landed in Cebu city and got a cab straight to our hotel. I booked us a nice place to stay with a/c, a hot shower, and hbo movies. We needed a place to seriously reset before heading down to the little beach town Moalboal. We went to the mall for a while and then slept the rest of day/night.

The following morning one our friends - Giannis - met up with us and we all shared a cab to Moaboal. We were there by 2pm - just in time for a few beers and a day at the beach. The sunset that night was mesmerizing. Unfortunately photos never do moments justice - fortunately I thoroughly enjoyed it to the fullest. That night we went for a great dinner, got a bottle of rum, and played cards at the beach. Moalboal had such a fun vibe and it ended up being a pretty late evening. But I was so up for it!

The following day the 3 of us moved out of our hostel and found a Pensionne House that was a bit nicer to stay. Our other friend Jade was joining us that day for the afternoon, night, and next day. First we went to book a tour for the following day, and made a stop at the main beach in Moalboal. Right off the beach we could walk out and snorkel and see thousands of sardines! It was absolutely amazing. We also spotted a hawksbill turtle. The best. After that we all ended up getting a trike to Lambug beach for swimming and sunset. After our beach excursion we got ready for a beautiful dinner at an Italian restaurant. I even shared a bottle of red wine - can you believe it? Wine! Mmmm. After that a couple of us went for cheap massages before bed. We had an early day to prepare for...

4am rolled around WAY too quickly. But we had the most extraordinary adventure! The 4 of us hopped into a private car and headed to Oslob! We were there by 7am. We, along with a thousand other tourists, got ready to snorkel with Whale Sharks!!! I have never seen a whale shark before this tour, let alone be an arms length away. Tours are great, but they also suck. I loved being so close to such majestic animals, yet it was a lot of people who couldn’t swim kicking right beside my face. I dunno, those kinda of things are always a catch 22. However, these whale sharks were not being trapped by nets or forced to be there. They could have swam away at anytime - they were just being fed which attracted them. I don’t know.

Right after seeing the whale sharks, our driver drove us around the perimeter of the island (beautiful drive) for canyoneering. We were done with the whale sharks by 8:30am, so it was still early. When we got to the canyoneering place it was around 10:30 or 11am. Let me tell you, this was hands down the best experience!!!!!! We all got geared up (life jackets, and helmets), and were taken to the top of the mountain to start our trek! Our canyoneering tour started off like a proper adventure. It started pouring rain, and we had about a 45 min hike down the muddy path to the river. Once we got there we were pushed off cliffs, swam through waterfalls, and jumped off rocks into the refreshing river. My dream day was packed into 11 non-stop hours. We ended up at Kawasan Falls and then walked back to our starting point for lunch (thank god because we didn’t have much time to eat that day). So we ate and hopped in a jeepney back to our place. That night we got ready for dinner and ended up running into Lloyd (another friend from Palawan). It’s so great seeing familiar faces :). I was exhausted after that and passed out early.

The following day was my last day in Moalboal. I had a chance to sleep in and have a pretty chill day. Adam wanted to stay in Moalboal and do a bit of travelling on his own, so it was our last day together since I wanted to take a boat the next day and see Bohol Island. We did the beach again, had snacks, dinner, and drinks. I totally understand Adam wanted to be on his own for a few days, but man I missed him when I left the next day. We had such an epic experience in the Philippines. I’m so so happy he was able to come on this trip with me ❤️

Next for me and my friend Giannis was Panglao, Bohol. I’ll write about it later 😁

AP xo

El Nido is Neato

Let’s start from where I left off. Las Cabañas. Great beach day and a bucket of beers. AP2 and I went back into town after the beach, showered, and went into town to get some dinner. We decided on a restaurant right on the beach. Adam ordered a tuna steak, and I had a seafood curry. Holy crap was it delicious! We also asked for some rum and coke. They charged us for the cokes but not the rum. I legit don’t think they care about rum here. They’re just like here ya go! Anyways, it was awesome. Oh by the way, that entire meal cost us $6.90 each including the drinks. After that we sat up at a little bar on the main strip. El Nido is so much better than Coron! It’s how I remember other parts of South East Asia being. After our drink we both decided to get cheap massages. I think I fell asleep - but how could I not after all the free rum?

The next day we woke up early and Adam went to the gym. I had some coffee and FaceTimed my mom. We the got ready for the day, had some breaky, and rented SCOOTERS! Yasssss. Another first for AP2. He loved it! We ripped around the island. Our first stop was at Bulalacao Waterfalls. We parked our bikes and hiked about a km and a half into the jungle. We trudged through rivers and up slopes to get there. But when we arrived it was beautiful! A perfect first stop on our scooter tour. We both swam in the fresh water. Unfortunately I slipped on the rocks and fell onto my elbow. For a solid 5 minutes I couldn’t move and was in a lot of pain. All I can say is thank god I didn’t break anything! Just a bruise and a sore arm. We hiked back down to our scooters and made our way to Nacpan Beach. Holy Schmoly the ride into the beach was muddy, slippery, and awful. Adam’s scooter ended up falling and he went into the mud 😬. At least no injuries. Nacpan beach itself is quite beautiful! We stopped at Mad Monkey hostel for some lunch and another little beach bar for a drink. It wasn’t the nicest day (rainy and overcast), so we didn’t want to stay at the beach for too long. We saw what we wanted to see and scootered on home! That night we met up with our friends from Coron, went for dinner, skyline bar, and wouldn’t ya know it another reggae bar.

Adam and I booked another boat tour for us and all our friends from Coron. We had about 15 people join us. So we went down to the beach to get ready for the day. We had to walk in the ocean out to our boat and we all loaded on like little sardines. No idea why - but we waited for an hour on the uncomfortable boat before even taking off. It was annoying, but “everyone was in the same boat” HA. Anyways we finally took off for our island hopping tour! You guys - the Philippines are so absolutely stunningly beautiful. I can’t explain. So I’ll post pictures. We were on the water all day snorkeling, exploring lagoons, swimming, eating lunch on a paradise beach....

We headed back to El Nido just in time because it was about to storm as we made our way back. Adam, me, and our friend Giannis went for dinner back to that beach bar with the amazing curry. Again, cheap and delicious. After dinner I stopped by sky bar to say goodbye to everybody because Adam and I were leaving early the next morning for Puerto Princesa!

Okay yesterday sucked. It took us about 6 or 7 hours in a tiny cramped van to get to Puerto Princesa. I tried to sleep most of the time, and poor Adam was so uncomfortable in the van. The time did pass though and we made it to our hostel. Alesseo Hostel had a big beautiful pool to swim in. That was a bonus! After some food and a swim I could barely stay awake anymore and basically went to bed at 7pm. Adam went for a few drinks and food with some people from the hostel, but I needed to sleep.

Now we are on the plane to Cebu! Bye bye Palawan ❤️

AP xo

#elnido #discover #explore #travel #livetotravel #nomad #backpacking #philippines #palawan

Waterfall life.

Well it looks like I’m blogging again. Who knows who reads this, but I’m doing it because I realized yesterday that it comes in handy! I met some girls who asked advice on Cambodia and I couldn’t remember where I had stayed. Then I was like oh! I’ll check the old blog and was able to give them some good info from reading it. So here I am! This time - Philippines 2019 🤪

My bro Adam and I arrived in Manila after a LONG 14 hour haul from Vancouver. It was 4:30am and we cabbed straight to Malate Pensionne house. Our room was a little box - but at least it had AC. After sleeping for the morning we ventured outside. I think Adam was in culture shock at first since Manila is just another dirty busy Asian city - like Bangkok or Hanoi. He was so set on going to a gym and we searched and searched for one but kept ending up no where. Finally we decided to go for lunch instead. We had all you can eat Korean BBQ where you cook the food on the hot grill in front of you. It was really good, until I saw a giant black rat run across the floor. Haha - good thing AP2 had already gone back to the room when I saw it. After lunch I went for a cheap massage. It was unreal. Adam ended up finding a gym. We were both content, yet ready to leave the city.

The following day we had a flight to Busuanga (Coron!). It was a little delayed and just another travel day, but it was so nice to arrive on an island rather than being in the city. We caught a van to our hostel in Coron Town called “HUB Backpackers”. Adam’s first experience in a hostel. We had to walk past roosters to get up to our 8 person dorm. At least we arrived in time for free rum o’clock. We met a ton of cool people that night and booked a tour with everyone for the next day. Then that night rum o’clock turned into Reggae Bar till 1am. You can imagine how everyone felt the next morning...

We all managed to get to our tour on time the next day... and what a day it was! There were about 20 of us on the boat, and we went across to Coron Island. We saw the most beautiful rock formations and landscapes and crystal clear water. We hiked up to Kayangan Lake, swam in the Green Lagoon + Twin Lagoon. We snorkelled at Siete Picados and Coral Garden. Then ended our day with a few boat beers at Cyc beach. The tour was such a great way to see those beautiful places. When we got back to the hostel I was sooo exhausted. I booked diving for the following day and went straight to bed.

So I was up at 6:30am and at the dock by 6:45 to dive! There were 5 of us in total. We had the most perfectly calm water for our ride out to our first site. We did 3 wreck dives in total for the day. A number of Japanese WW2 ships were sunk by the Americans during the war, and now they are all snorkel and dive sites. Bad for the Japanese, lucky for me. It felt soooo good to be diving again. We got to swim around and inside the ships - it was so f*king cool. Spending the day out on the water and in the ocean gives life to my soul. We came back around 3:30pm, and I met up with Adam. We had a couple drinks at sunset and then went back to the HUB hostel for rum. We met a whole new crew of people and went for Thai dinner and back to Reggae Bar. Adam ended up ordering an entire bucket of rum, so you can guess how the night went!

Yesterday we had a good sleep in. Adam went to the gym in the morning and I went for breaky and did a bit of research on what to do for our last day on Coron. Welllll.... the activity I took us on turned out to be a big mistake!! We went down to the area where the boats leave for day trips and decided to rent kayaks. Well for starters Adam has never kayaked before and secondly the kayak was a little piece of floating plastic and thirdly the place I wanted to kayak to was pretty much 5km across an open bay. We got in (almost tipped before we even started), and headed straight out towards barracuda lake. We made it about 1/3 of the way across the open water when it started to rain and become choppy. AP2 and I were like screw this let’s go back.... it’s dangerous, far, and let’s face it - he was doing most of the paddling since my little arms aren’t strong. So we went back, looked at eachother and said “omg I hate kayaking”. That wasn’t a fair representation of how fun kayaking can be though. Anyway, we got back and I asked if we could have some sort of refund since we were supposed to be out for the day. After arguing with some people for a while and them not budging on giving us any money back we left and cut our losses. Instead we decided to go to Bali Beach and chill for an hour (a much better decision). After that we wanted a snack - actually soup (a terrible decision). We found a little authentic home restaurant and ordered what looked like was going to be soup. When it came out it was absolutely AWFUL. The funny thing was both me and Adam had one bite and were like “mm it’s good....”. But like we both straight up lied. The soup was like eating pig slop. That’s the new name of the soup. Pig slop. I also like to call it soup goop. The noodles were overdone and there was some kind of slime in there and like floating eggs. Again, we paid, cut our losses and got the heck out of there. We went to McDonald’s to get the soup goop flavour out of our mouths. We were both kinda beat from the day and chilled in the room. Adam did pick up a couple beers and brought them back to our place. I poured a large beer into two cups and literally one second later the bottle slipped out of my hand and smashed on the concrete floor. So much beer, and even more tiny shards of glass flew everywhere. Obviously I cleaned it up, but it wasn’t ideal. If I had to rate the worst experiences of the day in order it would be: 1. Pig slop soup. 2. Kayaking. 3. Glass bottle beer clean up. And if I could rate the best part of the day: babyyyyy puppies are our home stay 😍

Today we woke up early and went to the dock to get on our boat to El Nido! Thank god I’m an experienced sea sick i individual and decided to take 2 gravol before departure. That ride was CHOPPY. And some kid was puking right behind me. I swear if I didn’t take those pills I would have thrown up. I was definitely ready to. Anyways, 4 hours later we made it to El Nido :) We found a place to stay and took a tuk tuk to Las Cabañas beach. This beach is paradise. Soft white sand,blue water, a bucket of beers, and a happy heart. Cheers to El Nido!

AP xo

It was a busy day at the graveyard of trains 🚞

Buenos Aires

Good Air

Eric and I flew from Santiago to Buenos Aires the day after we dropped the van off. We booked 7 nights at an air bnb because we didn’t want to move around at all. It ended up being a pretty sweet place to stay. We had a nice big bedroom, an awesome kitchen, and a great location. The first day we were there the sun was shining and we took advantage of the weather by going to see some of the attractions in the city. We walked around Puerto Madero and stopped off at the Fragata museum. It was an old sailing ship that did hundreds of voyages around the world. It finally ended up in Buenos Aires where we could explore and learn about it. Later that day Eric had an appointment to get a watercolour tattoo done! The lady did it so quickly and she did such an amazing job (pics to follow). After that we went to a pub to meet up with some friends from the trip. We were up until 5:30am because that’s how it works in Buenos Aires. Needless to say I was exhausted after that.

The next few days we weren’t as lucky with the weather. It was rainy and cold, but we still managed to go see and do a few things. We wanted to check out a Polo Match, but that was cancelled. And we had tickets to watch a futbol game, but that too was cancelled. So in the meantime we hung out with our friends and even hung out with a new friend we had met from the bar a few nights earlier. She invited us to her place to have wine and dinner. So Eric and I spent the day exploring a place called Tigre, and then took the train to Romina’s apartment. It was a really fun night and she made us a delicious curry.

Over the last few days we tried to get out and see what we could despite the weather. We went to see the Recoleta Cemetry in the middle of the city. It was unreal. The cemetery was massive and the tombstones were gigantic. They weren’t even really tombstones, it was more like walking past mini churches built for the rich people and the leaders of the country. It was worth the visit. During our final evening, we went back to Van Koning pub to say goodbye to Romina and Jordan who we’ve known since Colombia. We were only up until 1:30 this time, but it was good to have a proper goodbye. They are such great people and we had a pretty good night.

Finally it was off to Montevideo for our final week before Canada.

Ap xo

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