Bloggers Raid Puerto Galera

It was yet another adventure. A few weeks ago I posted an invitation for a short vacay in Puerto Galera. Early morning Saturday we met up at Petron South Super Highway and pushed forward to the Batangas Pier while munching on Jollibee burger type pancake with longganisa-egg-and cheese. Weird? Try it, it's good especially with ketchup (sorry Rico, I'm a ketchup person).

We felt like celebrities being adulated by crazed fans. It was just a feeling... more like being annoyed by pesky shipping line salespeople. Marc even got tapped on the head. The fastcraft wasn't available and we were forced to take a bangka to White Beach. The ride was okay, the long wait before leaving the pier wasn't.

Arrived at White Beach around noon and we had quite a hard time finding 3 rooms in one resort. Abe took up the cudgels of finding the rooms. He got the 3 rooms that were beside each other, but the warm, fuzzy feeling was soon exchanged with fear because he realized his camera bag (with his really expensive camera and filters) was missing. We were all quiet for a few minutes worried that he might have lost PhP100K worth of his gadgets. Good thing he found it in one of the resorts we were checking out. Whew!

After lunch we proceeded to the resort... until Abe realized he forgot where it was. We were all joking that he must've cleared his cache and lost all the cookies. Lucky day it was, the person who helped him find the room suddenly popped out of nowhere. Since it was too hot we settled in our rooms for a nap and then spent the rest of the afternoon by the seashore getting massages and taking photos. It unfortunately rained and we had to proceed back to the room (Marc's balat Sharms said).

After dinner I met up with an old friend and got lost. I never thought finding your friends in Galera would be so difficult. Smart's signal was bad (and most of the bloggers had Smart phones), so I had to wait for someone to call me and tell me where they were. I think we went around at least thrice before we found them in front of one of the sowsi hotels. The mindoro sling looked like it was working wonders. Everyone looked buzzed, but they were all talking about blogging! Aaaargghhh...

We just chilled the next day by the beach and had a bikini photo shoot (sorry it won't be posted!). Tried to get a tan, but then one day isn't enough. I didn't take any photos! I did bring my idiot cam, but with Jayvee, Sasha and Abe and their Canon toys who needs to take photos? Check out their blogs for the fab photos they took. (Photos posted here were taken by Abe).

We took the last boat ride back to Batangas. It was packed, but the nice sunset and the full moon made up for the discomfort. We had two stop-overs. One at Petron at the Star Tollway for a bladder break and then dinner at Cafe Via Mare at Total SSH. And then we bid our goodbyes and went home.

Thanks to Jomar and Jay for being my wireless chaperones. Haha.

Here are photos from the weekend (click on my photo).

2007 March 3 & 4 Puerto Galera

Next stop: Davao! My sched is here.

Postscript: Updated costing (here it is Annalea)

Gas (Manila-Batangas-Manila) - Rico loaded up about PhP1,000
Batangas Pier Parking Fee - PhP200 for 24 hours + PhP10 for every additional hour
Tollway Fees - PhP200 max.
Bangka to White Beach - PhP340 two-way (for group of 10, PhP280 coz you get 1 additional free ticket)
Room - PhP1,500 for 4 people
Food - PhP150 max per meal
Massage - PhP200
Mindoro Sling - approx. PhP300/pitcher

I didn't buy anything, just food. I must've spent about PhP1,600 only coz Rico paid for the gas (thanks Rico!!!).