Scribbles Abroad

Siargao is such a beautiful island, and even though the surf is amazing, we did a lot of other things too.

Drive Around the Island

When the surf was small we rented a motorbike and drove around the island.  The coconut palm covered island was quite small and we were able to do our tour in about 6 hours.

View of the coconut groves

A typical town in Siargao
Our first stop was Magpupongko Beach known for its rock pools.  At low tide the natural swimming hole is protected by the fringing reef.  The water is clear and it’s great for swimming and snorkeling.  There is even a small jumping rock.

Magpupongko Beach

Magpupongko Beach with rock pool in the distance

Magpupongko Rock Pools

This rock was really heavy!
We continued to make our way around the island heading north towards the surf break Pacificos.

We passed by this village in the mangroves.  It was built entirely on stilts.

More stilted houses and a few fancy chicken coops
We arrived at Pacificos and to our surprise the waves were pumping.  They were probably about 3-5ft Hawaiian and no one out.  Neither of us brought our boards, but Kahi was able to rent one from a local and caught a couple of waves.

Pacificos
We continued up the coast in search of Tak-Tak falls located near Alegria at the northern tip of the island.  On our way there we came across a police outpost with one of the most beautiful views.

View from the outpost

Burgos beach, Siargao
View of Burgos outer reef (looks a lot like Hawaii if you ask me). There’s suppose to be a couple of surf breaks out here.  We really didn’t spend enough time looking, but the set up makes for great surf potential.

Another view of Burgos
We drove for another 20 minutes along the sandy road and finally reached Alegria.  There was a small muddy turn off with a sign pointing to  Tak-Tak Falls.  The road was really muddy but Kahi did a heck of a job navigating through it.  There was even a little landslide that covered the road at one point.

The sandy road that lead us to Alegria

Tak-Tak Falls, Siargao

The waterfall was beautiful and the water was cool and crisp, but it didn’t feel natural, it felt more like a man made concrete pool.  Cement walls and metal poles surrounded the waterfall.  We didn’t spend much time there, but enjoyed jumping from the rope swing.

Rope swing at Tak-Tak Falls

Tak-Tak falls swimming hole
We weren’t as lucky retracing our steps down the muddy path to the main road.  We got stuck at one point and my foot got completely covered in mud, I even lost my slipper for a second.  It looked like I stepped in a carabao poop.  I got to ride around with my foot covered in mud for the rest of the day.   I got some interesting looks from the locals.

A carabau

Mud or carabau poop?

It was getting late and our motorbike didn’t have a light so we booked it back to Cloud9.  We arrived just in time for a beautiful sunset.

Cloud9 pier

Sohoton Cave

Another day Kahi we lined up a large bagka (native boat) and then rounded up a group of people together to visit the Sohoton Caves.  The caves are on  Bucas Grande Island and the trip takes about 3 hours one way.  We hired a boat in General Luna for 4500 pesos and split the cost between the 10 of us.  We were all pretty obsessed with surfing and decided to take our boards just in case we came across some surf.

Kids playing near the pier in General Luna while we were boarding the boat
The trip to Bucas Grande is a three hour boat rides, if you have a boat with two motors, if not it could take up to five hours.  Make sure you have a boat with at least two motors!  The engines are loud so earplugs or earphones are a nice and easy luxury.  About an hour into our trip one of the screws popped off of the motor and the oil leaked out of the engine.  We had to make a pit stop at an islands along the way so that the driver could buy some from a villager.  We didn’t mind though, it was a nice break from the long ride and gave us a chance to go for a swim and play around.

Random island pit stop

The beautiful white sand beach of the random island we stopped on

Kahi trying to pick some coconuts
After about 20 minutes we were back on the boat and headed towards Bucas Grande.  The ride was long but the scenery was beautiful.

On our way to Bucas Grande

Beautiful deserted white sand beach after white sand beach

The random fisherman

The ride was long and the boat was cramped.  Are we there yet!

Our boat captain with Bucas Grande in the background
After a long three hours we finally made it to the visitor center for the Sohoton Caves.  Here we were supposed to transfer to a smaller boat and a guide would take us through the caves and into the lagoon.  We got off our boat and there were a couple other people there waiting to do the same tour.  None of the locals there seemed to know what was going on and it was a little chaotic.  After about 30 minutes of waiting around and sorting things out we finally convinced a guide to take us on the tour.  We negotiated down to 1300 pesos for the boat but we were pretty sure we got had.  In the end that was only an additional 100 pesos each.

Visitor center for the Sohoton Caves
We loaded ourselves onto the boat and made our way through the green hilly mounds that rose from the water.  It was really beautiful.  They looked like big green gum drops.

Sohoton Lagoon
The entrance of the cave looked smaller than I had imagined and for a moment I wondered how we would fit.  The boat driver navigated our way through the dark 30 meter cave.  There were some low lying stalactites we needed to watch out for, but he made it though no problem.

Entrance to the cave

Going into the cave.  Watch your head!

View from in the cave

Stalactites in the cave

Cave exit
The cave lead to a beautiful shallow lagoon surrounded by more green mountains.  It was a beautiful site, maybe even more impressive than the cave.

Sohoton Lagoon

Our captain took us to another cave.  This one was very low and we needed to swim into it.  We jumped off the boat and went for a swim.  The entrance to the cave was very low and you had to swim below the waters surface for just a bit before coming up.  The cave was pretty big and very dark.  There were suppose to be huge non stinging jelly fish in there but we didn’t see any, but whatever the cave was still cool.

Entrance to the cave

Swimming around in the cave

The cave

They took us through more of the lagoon and to a place with a jumping platform.  There were two ways to get up to the platform: either pull yourself up the rope or navigate your way through the dark cave and make your way to the top.

Kahi climbing up the rope to the jumping platform

The jumping platform

I couldn’t make it up the rope and went through the cave.  The boat driver doused a rag with gasoline and hung it from a stick making a torch.  He lead us through the cave.  Half way through the torch went out and we had to feel our way through the cave it total darkness.  It was pretty creepy.  A small part of the climb was a little steep, but other than that it wasn’t too bad.

Navigating through the cave
Once you got to the top you kind of have to jump, unless you want to make your way back through the cave which is probably worse.   There were two levels that you could jump from either from the wood platform or up above from between the trees.  I jumped from the platform and Kahi jumped form the higher spot.

Kahi jumping from the trees, stop looking at the speedos!

Might as well jump!

We made our way back to the visitor center and paid the boat driver.  For some reason the driver felt like he deserved more money and changed the price on us.  We refused and gave him what we agreed on.  We loaded back onto the other boat and began they journey back to General Luna.  On the way back we found a little left-hander and decided to go for a little surf.  The waves weren’t great but they were pretty fun.  If you caught a good one you could get a decent ride.  Anyway it was nice to take a little break from the boat ride and get in the water

Little left we surfed

My coconut hat

The ride back to Cloud9
We convinced our captains to take us all the way back to Cloud9 instead of General Luna.  This made it a lot easier especially because we had all our boards.  It was also nice to see more of Siargao’s coastline.

Other Random Things We Did

Drink lots and lots of 19peso beer, thats only 40cents!

We ate dinner at Yahoo’s with our friends Lot, Nico, and Rainbow.  The bbq chicken was so good, Kahi had 4 pieces.

We went island hopping and ended up on this small deserted island.  We walked around the island and found a right hander that was peeling off its backside.  Looked like a pretty fun wave but I think it was breaking on really shallow reef.   We cruised on the beach and I taught our friend how to make coconut hats.  I’m not quite sure how to weave the top, so they put some creative flair into their hats.  They all turned out really good.

The deserted island

Coconut weaving class

The hats

The right-hander on the backside of the island

Beautiful Siargao sunset

Another gorgeous sunset

Sunrise off of Dapa

Local groms learning to surf

Kahi got a haircut in this little road side barber shop

Kahi hanging out in the little nipa hut over the water at OCEAN101

We went to the local benefit dance.  They have one of these every couple of weeks, everyone in town shows up to shake their booty.  You donate a dollar and request a song, they announce your name and play your song.  The goal to being a successful benefit dance attendee is to boogie during the song then to clear the dance floor before the song ends.  Its quite strange!  If you don’t clear the stage before the song ends you end up all by yourself and you look like an idiot. 

The local benefit dance

Kahi and I at the benefit dance

We ate dinner at the Flying Fox right outside of General Luna.  The owner is a bonafide treasure hunter.  No joke!  He made millions when he discovered a treasure in Europe, he’ll tell you all about it.  I’m all about getting a metal detector and becoming a treasure hunter.  The foods great too.  Every Friday they have an all you can eat German Buffet.

Kahi and Louise with the The Flying Fox owners and their new baby

Map of Siargao

Siargao was an unreal experience and remains a highlight of our trip so far.  It is now one of those places that we have vowed to go back to.  The drawback is its surging popularity and continued development.  Its cute quaint feel may soon be tainted by a booming tourist industry that doesn’t seem to be regulated.  But in the meantime get there as fast as you can, even if you don’t surf.  It would be selfish of us not to share this information with you so please use it wisely, respect the locals, support the locals, lead by example picking up trash and being polite, and most importantly have fun.