galera chronicles

(A/N: This goes out to Markus who asked about how the trip was. This is an account of the first day...saka na yung other days.)

so, you must be dying to know how our weekend in galera was (as if...hehe). i must tell you that it was awesome. been there once before with some blokes who can't keep themselves sober for five good minutes. so there lies the difference with this trip, because this time i was with folks who are more interested with the beach than getting to someone else's pants (or skirt, or both depending on which way you swing). not that we are a frigid bunch but we were there primarily to get away from it all...especially the madness of the city and the hell-hole we so-lovingly call our office.

so we were there a good 3 days. we were off early the morning of 25th (that's a friday) arriving at the batangas pier before 8 in the morning where i've seen arnel, some dude from college. anyways, we arrived at the island before 10 and settled as soon as we got to our room. syempre, we changed to our bestest beach outfit we carefully shopped for some days back. our girls in their swimsuit under some other articles of clothing (they are filipina women after all, ching!) and our boys in their board shorts and tank top (why i even am describing what we wore is beyond me). so first order of business...lunch which occupied the rest of our morning. the afternoon saw our first real galeran adventure...Snorkeling.

sisidin mo, mang lando!
you probably figured that mang lando is our boatman (the term boatman give me the creeps! if you've watched the movie boatman, you'd probably understand). mang lando took us to the coral garden for an afternoon of Snorkeling. although many of us were disinterested at first and this was definitely unplanned (not that we had any to begin with), we decided to go anyways. so after 25 minutes of boat ride out to the middle of the sea, we got to our destination...coral garden was it? so despite that ugly orange life vest and who-knows-who-else-used-it snorkel we hopped onto the water and snorkeled away. i only snorkeled once and my friends never. so you can only imagine how difficult it was for us to move with that blasted thing strapped in our faces. to prove a point, elmo swam directly to another boat banging her head to the bottom of it with me laughing my ass off and another boatman looking on. (hey! i was calling out for her...she can't hear me! what else could i have done? the boatman was closer...he didn't do anything). well, no harm done. elmo was fine. great even. 'twas nothing a few laughs can't shake off. and laugh we did.

while there, several small boats offered to drag us around the reef for (a low-low price of) 50 PhP. reluctant at first of the idea of being dragged around with only a rope supporting us, the difficulty of moving with the ugly vest prompted us to budge in with the other boatmen's insistence. in short, we snorkeled away holding onto a rope tied on a boat moving around the spots where corals are suposed to be great. at the end of the day, we realized that the 50 PhP we paid for the small boat was 50 PhP well-spent. it was a wondeful sight. a compelete contrast of our lives on land. there, time seems to be unimportant. it was very dynamic and fluid that you can't help but admire the grace of how fishes swim around or how the corals sway with every changing current or how vivid the colors seem to be. it's like seeing everything for the first time (with e, kidding!). come to think of it, life underwater is also busy, busier than land's in fact...but not toxic. haay! i wish i could have stayed there forever...raymond seemed to have the same idea. he probably resurfaced only twice the entire 2 hours we're Snorkeling! unlike some people i know (di ba, che?). well, she had a pretty decent excuse. she was taking in so much seawater so she kept on readjusting her gears. well, i did too. which was why there was one instance when we couldn't put it back that we asked the boat to be stopped. while hanging on for dear life, we were shouting, arms twisted and all: "choto (wait, in japanese) manong! choto! utang na loob manong! itigil nyo ang bangka!" deadma! kineber kami ni manong! hayun! galon-galong tubig alat ata ang nainom namin! i was just wondering, can you actually die due to high salt content in the body?
our afternoon adventure didn't stop there! while on our way to our beach, the motor of the boat we were in suddenly started making funny noises. kinda like it's ready to blow anytime. we had to be be pulled by another boat to get to our beach. "pulling" seems to be the recurring theme of the day. i wonder when it's gonna be push-then-pull (out). if you know what i mean.

well, our first night wasn't as interesting as we thought it should be. stroll in the beach, talking and then some more strolling. oh! ron and i went for the massage locals were offering. i wanted it hard (hehe) only to get bruises and even sorer muscles because this masseuse was pounding on me like some kind of lean meat. ron asked to be stepped on like that on traditional thai massages. he got a "himas-masahe" instead.

we have been joking about "happy" since way back when. by the way "happy" is a term we adopted for you-know-what. if you're from ust, you'd probably know why. surprise, surprise! we didn't get any (hehe). at least some of us (read: elmo) met interesting people...those blokes from the office we only see at the caf; who, interestingly enough, we kept on avoiding during dinner. that was pretty much the first day. not much fun, yes but made interesting by the company we kept. this promises to be an interesting vacation indeed.

(by the way, the reason for this vacation is the completion of a project we've been working on since november. and while we're all having having a blast during these times, the project we left was in total disarray! talk about tough luck!)

cryola popcorn smirks @ 10:53 AM