After spending the night at a friend’s place, we caught the first plane out to Naga, which has now become a major tourist spot because of the development of the CamSur Wakeboarding Complex (CWC). We rented a cabana and waited in line under the scorching sun just to try wakeboarding. The good thing about this sport compared to snowboarding is you fall on water, so it’s always soft landing. The bad thing is you get pulled by a line, so your arms get overstretched and its a totally different thing to balance on a board while holding on to a moving thing.
I like the facilities at CWC, the shuttle gives visitors rides to and from the mall, airport and bus depots, which is very convenient for people in transit. It would be better though if they have lots of bikes for rent so people don’t have to wait for the vans before they can move around the compound. Everything is walking distance but that heat is unbearable.
The next morning, we checked out at 4AM and proceeded to Sabang port. It was a two-hour van ride from the terminal. From the port, we took the boat to Caramoan. Because the tide was low, the boat couldn’t dock on the port, actually, I don’t even remember if there was a port there. I just saw porters lifting passengers on their shoulders so they wouldn’t get wet as they board the boat. Drei and I decided to walk instead, it wasn’t that bad, the water was only four feet deep.
The boat ride took another two hours, and we were greeted by the staff of WestPen when we got there. I just found this accommodation on the web, and it is by far the most expensive leg of the trip. It set us back a total of $350 for three days and two nights, including board, lodging and boat tours.
The villa itself is nestled on a secluded private compound with evenly spaced nipa huts on the sides and a pool table and outdoors seating in the middle. Since they didn’t have any formal website, I offered to develop one for them. After a quick shower and a game of pool, we grabbed a quick lunch and headed back to the pier to start our first island hopping trip.
We met some people from the boat who joined the tour with us and offered to split the cost. First stop was a beach where we could go snorkeling. According to the travel agent who was with us, it also had a spring at the top but it was hard to get to so we skipped the hike and just went swimming. We passed by Gota and checked out the other beachfront developments on the next island. After more snorkeling and island hopping, we headed back home and played another round of pool before dinner.
The next day we woke up early to go on yet another boat ride to the grotto. It was like a quarter of the grouse grind but the view was spectacular. It was drizzling when our boat docked on the island so the hike up was a bit slippery, but it was better than being burnt and baked while walking.
After the grotto, we proceeded to another island to have a picnic lunch. I like the concept of the tables and chairs setup a few meters from the shore and almost half submerged in water. That was probably the best part of that trip, aside from the time when we had to walk over a line of fishing boats just to get to our ride – reminded me of the obstacle courses at Takeshi’s castle.
We went to more islands than I could name, hiked around, swam a bit then headed back to the villa. We had crabs and laing for dinner, which was the best meal yet, except for the allergies that came after it.
Recently popularized by the Survivor French Edition, Caramoan Islands, especially Gota village is a bit overpriced, but then if you know how to get around, it would be cheaper to skip all the tour packages and just go there, rent a room at the dorms near the pier then hire a fishing boat to take you to the islands. There’s also a market and food stalls that you can ask to cook for you. We could have probably saved half of what we spent at WestPen if we had taken that route but it was our first time so we didn’t know how to get around. As a consolation, Gota Village rates were twice as expensive as what we paid for at WestPen, so we got the mid-range budget package.
On our last morning, we took the boat back to Sabang and had to be carried off the vessel because the water was almost six foot deep and we didn’t want to be soaking wet while on a two hour bus ride to Naga. This is the worst part of this trip, we lost a day traveling and I couldn’t bring myself to sit on another van again.