Originally published at is it Friday yet?. Please leave any comments there.

We landed at some small sleepy fishing barrio in the barangay of Oroc Osoc, I think. I just love that name! It’s so native! Many of the names in Caramoan are really old and haven’t been changed to spanish ones after the Spainards converted the area to Catholicism centuries ago.

I noticed these orchids growing as we walked to the village.

We stood around while Ate Felly went to find out where she could get us a jeepney or tricycle to take back to her hotel. I sat on these little wooden benches built in front of a sari-sari store to get out of the sun. Lord knows I caught up on all my suntanning for the rest of the year in the 2 days I went swimming in the Philippines. I am now 4 shades darker AND I have finally rid myself of the “farmer’s tan” I’ve had for more than a decade! My chest/neck are the same color as my face! My feet/ankles are the same color as the rest of my legs! Wheeee! *sprays more SPF 50*

Ok, back to the pictures!

These 2 boys were walking past me when they saw that I was taking pictures with my camera. They stopped right in front of me and asked in Bicol, “Take our picture, please?” I didn’t need anyone to translate that for me as it was obvious what they wanted to I snapped a quick portrait of them. They were happy with that and just walked on! LOL! Later, my mom asked me why I didn’t ask them what their names were. I told her, I didn’t think about it at the time and I was too busy taking pictures of other things. On top of that, I was dying of thirst and just had to buy a cold soda! Something COLD cuz it was soooo hot in that morning sun!

Someone had left chopped wood in front of their house. Many of the homes in this village still burned wood to cook their meals in the back of their houses. Also, the nipa shingles or whatever you want to call them were on display for anyone that was needing to mend their thatch roof.

My cousins went across the street to buy some cigs. I love the whole primitive and native looking that sari-sari store was.

Caramoan has only had electricity in the last,…10 years? Hell, maybe even way less! There is a road to Caramoan as I’ve said before but it’s a very rocky one. No paved roads to this place! So, that would mean, if you wash your clothing, it’s the old way with just your hands and a washing board. To dry, you just hang them out in the sun,…like these in front of some house.

My favorite picture of that day! Sweet little frilly dresses that were hung out to dry in the sun!

Getting back to the hotel was kind of a nightmare for some of us. We had to split into 2 groups since there were 14 of us. The first group (with me in it) took the first tricycle that Ate Felly could find. I didn’t take a picture of it because I was too tired by then. What we didn’t realize was just how far away we were from the hotel. The road was very rocky and at some points, very steep! On top of that, a motorist behind us told our driver his back tire was flat!

Sure enough, when we all got off the tricycle, it was flat. He had only some of us (older people) up the hill while the rest of us had to walk up the hill. OMG, it was bad enough having to move around in the lush humidity but to walk uphill? ARGH! I thought I was going to pass out at one point! After a couple times of this (getting off the tricycle and walking), we finally made it past the hills and we could sit down and catch our breathe while the tricycle slowly got us back to the hotel.

Little did we know a feast was waiting for us! After a short rest in our rooms, we came downstairs to a heavy meal:

Roasted pork! YUMMY! Since it was the first day of the fiesta of Caramoan, they just had to cook some kind of pork! This was a HUGE slab of pork too! Danny and me were salivating after it! We cut into it and steam came out! The meat was sooo tender and juicy!

Both are fish. One is slathered with mayo and the other was fried. I don’t know what kind of fish had the mayo on it tho I know it was fresh fish. The fried fish, I was told, was red snapper.

Some kind of squid dish which I didn’t try. Danny tried it and said the squid was too chewy. The squids were pretty large ones so that might be why.

After this heavy meal, we sat around and rested up for our journey back home to Naga City.

Originally published at is it Friday yet?. Please leave any comments there.

I mailed out the last batch of postcards from the Philippines more than 2 weeks ago so I’m wondering who got theirs. I know that Girlcreeture, Cassiel and Leigh have received theirs as they have told me. Jenny, did you tell me you got yours? I can’t remember!

Anyhow, please leave a comment here and let me know if you received your postcard! Philippine post can be really bad sometimes!

P.S. Helene, I will be sending out Puni’s shells soon!

Originally published at is it Friday yet?. Please leave any comments there.

I hope y’all aren’t tired of seeing these beach/island pictures! I’m almost done showing them!

We tried to go to Gota beach and had actually “landed” the beach but there were workers from the crew of “Survivor France” that were still pulling down the set. They told us we couldn’t disembark as the beach was closed until May 15. ARGH! It was May 7th! We were told the beach had already opened! Grrrr!

So, I just snapped some pictures and we headed off to another island instead. When we got off the boat of this next island, I knew I had found paradise!

This island is called “Lahos” or “Bichara” Island. It’s a privately owned island. From what I’ve heard/read, it’s owned by the Bichara family of Naga City. They own a movie theater/building in downtown Naga. It’s been around for years! My mom used to watch movies in that theater.

Anyways, they apparently own this island but people can go and swim at the beach. It’s a very narrow island as there are 2 beaches on each side you can just walk over to. The other side is barely a stone’s throw,…ok, it’s 3 stone’s throw far away! You just walk up this tall mound of sand and you’re on the other side!

The sand is all crushed coral, just like Aguarangan Island! There was a TON of large pieces of broken coral on both sides of the island. I picked up some. When I dug deeper into the sand, more coral pieces would pop up. I did find lots of smaller shells on both sides of the island, including a piece from a giant clam. I knew you could find giant clams on these beaches as our hotel had a lot of them on display in the hallway and living room that they picked up off the beaches of the various islands. Sadly, I wasn’t able to bring the giant clam shell home with me cuz that sucker had to have weighed around 15lbs and like HELL AM I going to pay an extra $25/lb or whatever they charge you if your luggage goes overweight! The giant clam sits in our vacation home in Naga City now.

This is the middle part of the island, looking up! Yup, white sand and blue skies! I wasn’t even lying on the sand to take this picture! I told you it’s a high hill you have to climb to walk to the other side!

More of that same rocky limestone formations from the other islands. It’s really neat to see how the water and wind have shaped them.

We swam in the waters and watched a thunderstorm crackle and pound an island in the distance! I didn’t get pictures of that because I had already gotten wet and I didn’t want to pull out my camera with sticky salty hands.

After swimming for a half an hour, we called it a day as we were going home after lunch. So we all reluctantly piled into the banca and headed back to the hotel. That was an adventure too, I might add but I’m saving it for the next installment!

Originally published at is it Friday yet?. Please leave any comments there.

The very day after I return home to the US, I get sick AGAIN! Oh, the cough I had in the Philippines was lingering for a bit but almost completely gone. Now I have a very bad cold that’s draining into my throat and making my cough even worse than before! I have no health insurance but a whole family in the field of medicine.

My mom had been giving me antibiotics while we were in the Philippines and those had made my very sore throat magically disappear within 3 days. Problem with that, she stopped giving them to me after 5 days! Yes, even I know you should stop taking antibiotics too soon. I guess she was afraid she would run out of them before we were able to come back to the US.

So, here I am now, back on antibiotics. I’ve had 2 nights without much sleep because I cannot go 15 minutes without waking up and coughing up a storm. Regular cold/cough medicine is either not strong enough or I’m just not using the right stuff. I don’t know, I’ve already tried 4 different brands (2 are generic ones).

I certainly can’t go to job interviews in this state so it’s just frustrating that I have this damn cold/cough and it’s the beginning of summer. Ugh. At least I can retreat to the coolness of our air conditioned house as opposed to suffering in the humidity as I did back in the Philippines.

Either way, I just hope that I can FINALLY kick the cold/cough bucket soon. Poor Sam is prolly getting annoyed at me waking him up in the middle of the night when I come downstairs to watch tv when I can’t go back to sleep!