Recklessly Abandoned: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles---Spring Break 2007

Last week was March Break for Faith Academy. I always refer to it as Spring Break, but that's not right since we have no Spring and the summer is beginning. During the break, we took a trip with 2 other families to the Island of Boracay, about halfway down the chain of islands of the Philippines. This blog should actually be called Planes, Trikes, Boats, and Automobiles because those are the modes of transportation we took to reach our destination. After driving to the domestic airport we had a 35 minute flight from Manila to Kalibo on the island of Panay. We then hired a van to drive us 1 1/2 hours to the Jetty port in Caticlan. This was a gorgeous drive along the rural coastline of Panay. The most common comment was--"Why do so many people move to Manila? This is beautiful!"

The scenery was everything you would expect an island in the tropics to look like. After reaching Caticlan, we took a banka, which is a type of boat over to the small island of Boracay. Once there it was a short Jeepney ride to near our hotel. The roads in Boracay don't go all the way down to the beaches or the resorts. The road ends about 200-300 yards before the beach. This being the Philippines, we had porters to take care of our luggage as we walked down the path to the beach and then along the beachfront path to our hotel.

The lack of roads makes you feel like you are truly in a tropical paradise. The beach is wonderful, filled with Coconut trees that provide shade during the morning and crystal clear water. The evenings were my favorite time though. We faced west and every night about 5:30 we would all gather to watch the sunset over the ocean. Truly spectacular! It was a great week filled with swimming, snorkling, sailing, sand castles, and soccer. Our friend Matt likes to use the phrase-"only Millionaires and Missionaries get to visit exotic destinations like this." Great thing is we didn't need to be millionaires to afford to go here. If you want to see more pictures of our trip you can check them out on our web page at: http://philippinemission.com/boracay.html