Boracay, Boracay, Boracay

After a very quick trip to El Nido, Boracay was our next stop.  I think both my boyfriend and I would agree, if we could redo this trip, we would spend less time in Boracay and more time in El Nido.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a reason that Boracay has been voted most beautiful beach for a few years running now.  It is positively stunning.  I mean just look at this…  Just way more tourists than I could have imagine.  Maybe owe a thank you to social media for highlighting its beauty?  I know I see it on instagram almost daily.

Getting to this part of the island was likely the most difficult, and by difficult I mean I couldn’t even describe to you how we got here.  The photo taken above is right outside of station 2 which is where we were staying, just inside D’Mall.  It was a plane from Manila, then a trike, then a boat, and then another trike… who knows, it was something like that.  I do have one confession though, my opinion of how much I love the Philippines (which is a lot) is likely to be biased.  My boyfriend is originally from Manila and he speaks fluent Tagalog.  So there was no language barrier no matter where we were, even though most Filipino’s speak english, I won’t say that him speaking Tagalog did help us along the way.  I also think the locals got a kicked out of me, this very white american attempting to speak Tagalog.  I had “thank you” down to (almost) perfection and everyone seem to get a kick out of it.  A little effort can go a long way sometimes, right?!

We are very active people, so our main goal was to do something just a little different and active each day.  Be sure to try to avoid going through the people who are soliciting you on the beach.  They are always up charging the rates since they get a cut.  So on everything we booked we went directly to the company and 95% of the time we got a better deal.  The most expensive thing and likely the craziest thing we did was flyboarding.  I will save you the visual of a photo because I was god awful at it, haha so here is one of my boyfriend who had significantly more success than I did.

I managed to get up a few times, but do not be fooled – it is very difficult.  Also, any women wanting to try this be sure to wear board shorts.  I didn’t have any packed and had to wear jean shorts… also not smart, but I made do with what I had.

Prior to flyboarding we also did a day of jet skiing.  I am a little on the fence about this because I love jet skiing.  I grew up with a  lake house and two ski’s so of course I was all about this.  Well, to do jet skiing here you have no open water to do it on because there are so many people and you are forced to go in a circle.  They take you on one “test loop” to show you where the cones are, but do not expect them to be gentle doing so.  When I say I was 4 feet in the air off the ski and almost fell off, I am not lying.  I actually had to ask him to slow down I got so freaked out, haha. So keep this in mind, as it is very choppy water that far out.  You are not jet skiing on the calm waters you see near the beach.  So while I am a huge jet ski advocate, I could definitely pass on this the next time.

One place I would highlight and encourage everyone to seek out is called “Spider House.”  My boyfriend has been to Boracay a few times and he never knew about it until we went.  When you are walking away from Station 2 towards 1 you have to keep going around what appears to be “the end”.  You will see a very small trail going around the side of the island.  Just.  Keep.  Walking.  You may even see a hole which you can climb through, that just cuts the walk around time so you can do that too.

You will go past a few cute restaurants and colorful umbrellas, keep going.  And finally you will see what looks like a cave with lights saying “Spider Bar”.  And then you have arrived.  It’s beyond amazing all around.  So be sure to add this to your list of to-dos.