Ironwulf.net Ver 6: En Route - Philippines, Travel, Photography

This is the final part of my “Boracay with Bloggers” series. Tells just how slow I am updating this blog, since I’m preparing a lot of stuff lately. This will be a short one capping off what has been a really fun getaway with other bloggers. On our last day, I didn’t wake up as early as I did before. I slept like a cat on those bed, but instead woke up around 6am. The morning light was peering into our room curtain, promising what might be a sunny day. I left half an hour later with both my roomies still drifting in la la land. To my surprise, I saw Enrico already shooting outside. Wow! You could really tell if one is really passionate about photography if one wakes up really early with the sun.

I woke up as early as 4:30am and I was really hungry (do you see a pattern here?). Anyways I’m really used to waking up real early when I travel, that’s to capture what we photographers call “The Golden Hours”. Since I don’t have any snacks with me at the room, I went down to the lobby to check if there’s anything I could buy or eat. Sadly, according to the receptionist at that time, there’s nothing open and they don’t have any snacks to sell. Too bad. They should have a mini bar there or something. I went to the lounge to see what I could find and surprisingly, I found Gail already working with some CSS codes! Wow! Turns out she really works early morning.

Day 1 of the Travel and Photo bloggers excursion to Boracay started very early. I was literally pulling myself out of bed around 3:30 in the morning just to make it for the 5am call time at the domestic airport. Only had less than a couple of hours of sleep that evening finalizing a project I’m doing. At the same time, I’m very excited for the weekend. I haven’t been to Boracay for some time and going along with fellow travelers and Photo enthusiast calls for an interesting weekend. When I got to the Terminal around 5, Karla was already there, followed by Abe, Gail with Marc, then Eugenius.

It seems an ambitious feat to bring some of the Philippine’s travel related bloggers together, but at the weekend, January 11-13 2008, around 13 bloggers gathered together in the paradise island of Boracay. This wouldn’t have been possible without Abe Olandres of Yugatech bringing us together and Microtel Inn and Seair Airlines for taking us there. It’s great to know that companies lately regard bloggers as an important part of media, thus including us in their marketing plan.

Isla de Fuego or the Island of Fire as early Spaniards called this small island in Central Visayas when they saw a warm glow of light caused by fireflies when seen from afar. Nowadays, just the mention of Siquijor, people are quick to associate the place with mysticism, magic, witchcraft and sorcery. For a traveler like me whose more interested by stories of such phenomenon than to be shunned away by it , I guess it’s just a matter of time ’til I come to visit the place. And for the first time in this blog, my initial set for Siquijor will be in black and white. I thought that the monochrome treatment captured the mood of what I want to convey a certain mood somehow which is very “Siquijor” to me.

The coastal city of Dumaguete in Negros Oriental is also considered the land of the gentle people. At some sense I had to agree with that since I found Dumaguete upon first impression very peaceful. You don’t have that sense of danger or urgency. It’s almost like any rural city but this one dominated by the large Silliman University and a lot cleaner in my opinion. And it was a surprise to see a lot of foreign backpackers and nationals are here. Just says something about the place.

One of the more popular destination in Bohol is the municipality of Loboc. More famous for its musically talented and award winning Loboc Children’s Choir, the place also holds the 2nd oldest church in Bohol, a scenic cruise along its river and another world famous primate, the Tarsiers. Here recounts our brief exploration of Loboc, the oldest town in Bohol.