My girlfriend, Tin, and I finally had our first getaway for the year and we had it in Camotes Island, Cebu last February 24 – 26. This is how it all went down.
A couple of months earlier, we jumped the gun and paid for a travel package to Camotes Island from Ensemble e-Travel Content Solutions and Metrodeal for, more or less, 10,000 bucks. After a few moths from that purchase and some trouble of securing a confirmation from the travel agency of our trip, we discovered from the news about the alleged scamming Ensemble was guilty of. Representatives of the company said it was some internal turmoil within their company and things were all good with their travel tours. That was what we thought of until our trip itself
Prior to our boarding at NAIA terminal 3, a representative of Ensemble called us and said our deal had no land transfers from the airport to the port. It might be our fault for not noticing it in our vouchers but for the love of all things holy, that should have been included. But that was just the start of their mishaps.
Before the trip, we had the understanding that our flight to Cebu was at 4:15AM. The diligent people that we were, Tin and I arrived at the airport two hours before our supposed flight, 2:00 in the freakin’ morning, in full battle travel gear. It was only then we found out from the information that the flight we were on was actually scheduled to leave at 7:30AM. We tried to call Ensemble and we even tried too to make them call us to make them answer for the misinformation but it was to no avail. It was five and half hours of pure and unadultered agony and we had nothing to do.
Except eat.
We grabbed a few bites and refreshments from Chaikofi while waiting for our flight. A bit pricey and to be honest, a disappointment as well.
After an eternity of waiting, we finally boarded our flight to Cebu. While in the air, I took some obligatory shots of the view from up top.
After we arrived in Cebu at around past 8 in the morning, we were close to clueless on what to do to get to the port. From Mactan Airport, we took a taxi to SM and from there, rode a jeepney to Danao Port. The taxi was around 200 bucks while the the hour-long jeepney ride was 70 for two persons. When we got to Danao port, we bought tickets from Jomalia Shipping for about 180 bucks per person and waited again for the ship to leave for Camotes. The boat ride to the island had a schedule too so we had to wait for it to leave at exactly 12 noon.
We arrived at Consuelo port in Camotes Island an hour or less later and we rented a tricycle to bring us to our destination – Mangodlong Rock Resort. After almost half a day of travelling and cursing those that made our trip a living hell, we first found ourselves depositing our baggage in our room. Of course, I had to take a photo of the things in our room because my hands were itching to press the shutter already.
And just like kids inside a candy store, we found ourselves next with our jaws on the sand and our feet in the clear shores of our resort.
Since we haven’t had a proper meal the whole day, we took a tricycle to Santiago Bay and experience a place I found out from a friend – PIto’s Sutokil.
After our early dinner, we took a tricycle back to our resort and slept all weariness away so we could be well-rested for the following day.
Fast-forward to the following day, we took a tricycle back to Santiago Bay to take some photos and tour the place.
After having our lunch again at Pito’s Sutokil, we headed out to Buho beach resort and took a quick dip. That and we jumped off a high ledge just for the sheer fun of it. Too bad no one took our photos when we took the leap. Good thing there were foreigners around who took the leap as well.
Next stop – Lake Danao.
After a whole day of touring the island and not getting photos of other spots due to poor lighting, we headed back to the resort to capture the sunset and enjoy the beauty of Camotes.
With the sunset done, we found ourselves hungry again. On our last night in the island, we decided to eat at our resort’s restaurant to try something new. A bit pricier than Pito’s Sutokil but was more than enough for our taste buds. By the way, I didn’t get the prices for each dish. All I remember was a full and very heavy meal and a price tag twice as expensive as our first meal in the island – 1,074 pesos.
On our last day in the island, we decided to hang around and just take photos of the place.
Now, the journey back. We didn’t take that much photos because we just wanted to sleep and rest our eyes. By the way, kudos to my buddy, Marvin, for letting me use the ultra-wide angle lens, the 35mm and the bag.
Equipment used: Nikon D90 + Nikkor 85mm f1.8D AF + Tokina 12-24 f4 +Nikon D3100 + Nikkor 35mm f1.8G AF-S DX + Nikon SB-900 + Benro A500EX tripod
{ Shoot! } 