Caliraya Trip Part I

It's been a while...I have a really really really long story..so this is the first installment...
Last week, I was with my friends: Ida, Abby and Marga. We went to Caliraya (IDa's Mom has a friend who happens to be married to this rich Australian Economist and they own an island there). Anyway...the place was just beautiful. We arrived at around 8pm and we had to ride this boat. It was just a 3-minute ride. From the boat, I already saw some lights. Red and orange lights and I'm not really sure but there were like torches with fire in it and it just lit up the place. It was like we were going to the tribal council of Survivor (I'm a huge fan of the show). When we came, we were greeted by huge dogs. Ida brought with her Stussy, a big, black but really friendly dog. And I guess the other dogs, who happened to be Stussy's siblings and friends, heard her. So huge black dogs came in to greet us. I'm not a dog person at all so I was not really happy to see those 9 NINE dogs. But big as they were, they were harmless.
We entered this gazebo and it was the dining room. It was hard to appreciate it because it was dark but everything was made from wood and there was this really cute thing..I dunno what to call it but it was made of beads and some kind of bamboo thingies and it was softly lit by yellow lights. It was so eclectic. Really nice. Then we saw a turtle. Donatello. I dunno much about animals but it was a rare kind of turtle. Anyway..we came in to our room. It was like a nipa hut. It was okay...but what's really amazing about it is that it was open. Normally a room is enclosed to like 4 walls right? But that room only has 3 walls! So it's like a room and a veranda at the same time. It was overlooking the manmade lake and you could sleep stargazing..I've never seen anything like it. And the walls were painted mustard yellow. And there were cool wooden accents in it. But I was really happy to see the coolest bathroom I have ever seen in my entire life. Well..reading my story...it's very obvious that I am not very good at describing things, but I'll try my best. Hehe.. Okay so the bathroom had orange tiles in it. And everyone knows I love orange. But there were like divisions in it. When you enter, first thing you'll see is the sink and the huge mirror (and for vain people like me, that's good). But when you see the floor, you'll see rocks, around the tiles of the "sink place". And to the left is the shower. There's this divider wall which was only around 5x5 feet. The same idea with the "sink place", there are rocks before the divider. What I like about the shower place is that it overlooks the lake. So when you're taking a shower, you're seen from the outside...something like that but of course you're not (I THINK!). And to the left of the sink is the nice toilet. Same idea for that. Another cool thing is that there's this falls. The wall is stone gray that has water falling from it...and of course there's this small pool where the water falls (does that make sense?) and anytime the dogs feel thirsty, they could have a drink right there. I have no idea if you could picture this bathroom, but anyway I hope you did. It's like one of the bathrooms you can see in magazines or Lifestyle Network or MTV Cribs. Haha.

Sleeping in that room wasn't really the best experience. There were bugs and insects everywhere!!! We slept at around 12am already because we watched When Incubus Attacks Vol.2. So I was really sleepy but I swear...I couldn't sleep. Tita Vicky (Ida's Mom) told us to wake up at around 7am. But amazingly, I wake up after a couple of hours and I see that there were still stars in the sky and insects kept me rolling in the bed despite my effort of keeping still. I mean..I've covered myself with my blanket but for some strange reason those insects got through. Then I woke up again, and I was shocked to hear Ida laughing in her sleep. Hehe. That was new. And then I looked at the sky, there were only a few stars. I was dying for the sun to rise! I didn't want to sleep anymore! But I fell asleep again. And after a few minutes, or maybe an hour later, birds started to chirp, and there was this really annoying parrot somehwere in the frikking island and it was talking to frikking loud! I didn't even understand what it was saying which later I found out knew the words: panget and puke and knows how to whistle the intro of Happy Birthday. Gawwwddd...it was soo annoying. Boats started to pass by and I heard the noises. So the whole island was coming to life and I was out of gas. Really ironic. I felt kind of sleepy already that time but I can't sleep with all the noise. It was one cold morning so I got up from bed and wore my jacket, went back to bed and looked at the whole scenery. But I got tired of it I guess so I went back to bed but I didn't close my eyes yet. I looked at my friends who were sleeping and I'm just amazed. How the hell were they able to sleep under that condition?! Then Abby woke up. At last!!! Someone was awake! And then we started to talk and after a few minutes, everyone woke up. It was not even 7am yet. So we looked around the place. There were eagles, kangaroos, hedgehogs, some exotic birds, sugar glider, owls, snakes, horses, donkey and the huge dogs of course.

Tita Vicky said we had to transfer to another cottage because the owner's son will be arriving so on with some 30+ friends. Okay. I really wanted the whole island by ourselves but what can I do? And besides..I might meet some new friends or something. Haha.. Ida told me the owner's kid was cute and he was 22, and he's form I.S. Haha. Well the first activity for that day was to move to the other cottage which unfortunately was at the back of the island. Well at least, it kind of seemed like we had the place all to ourselves, right? But the life of the place just wasn't there. We had to walk like a few hundred meters to get to the gazebo. But it was okay. Anyway, we had the breakfast in the dining room, not the gazebo. We met the Mr. Peter Wallace, the Economist. There were these huge wooden masks around, well it was so huge you can't really wear it..I mean they're like masks with really colorful faces which seemed to have come from Bali but it wasn't. It was custom made in Paete or something. Really nice. Extending the dining room was the living room, which extends to the veranda. So from there, you'd see the amazing view of the lake. And from the veranda, you'd see the speedboat and the kayaks. So that was the our main activity for the day! Kayaks! That's like the only water sport I know. (Well I've been dying to go surfing but no one will come with me..and I don't have money...hehe). So we did. When we were in the shore pushing the kayaks to the lake, the dogs just kept on following us! And they were all big and I just couldn't handle them. And they were barking! Hayy...so I tried my best to get away but I was so shocked to see they were swimming and following us. But when we reached a couple of meters from the island, they swam back to shore. Amazing those dogs, really. They probably thought we're gonna drown or something. So we got there, we were rowing rowing rowing. Marga and Abby had the tandem Kayak. Me and Ida were on solo. We planned to tour the whole place but this dog I think Hummer..followed us! I have no idea how he got there but he was there! Oh and I forgot to tell you about Tita Bing. Tita Vicky's friend who were with us. She was still eating breakfast when we've gone kayaking but she caught up with us and she told us that the dog was following us and we had to get it back to the island! Grrr...and Ida was having trouble with her kayak so she and Marga switched. It was kind of difficult for us to get the dog back to the island because it was tired of swimming already, and we were tired of rowing. So we agreed that Ida and Abby would just bring it back to shore and me, Marga and Tita Bing would just wait for them in the small island in the middle of the lake, right across the Wallace island. We got off our kayaks and started to swim. Marga and I were just dying to swim. And surprisingly, the lake isn't the best place to swim since unlike the beach, instead of sand, there's mud. And the mud was just...nasty! I swear! So we didn't want to stay sit in the mud, we'd go to the place where the water's really deep so we won't feel the mud. Ick!!! We all thought we could swim to the Wallace Island but it was too far and Tita Bing told us that unlike sea water, fresh water makes you heavier. So if tried to swim, it will just make us really really tired. So we just stayed there in the middle of the lake..floating with our life vests. Ida and Abby finally came and we stayed there in the middle of the lake for about an hour talking about stuff. Tita Bing just talked all day about her son. Haha. It was really funny. It was like she was trying to set one of us up with her son. Well, basing from her stories, it was like her son was a Mama's Boy, really intelligent, who hangs out with other intelligent Math fanatics. He is of the same age with us, studies in La Salle taking up an Engineering course, a consistent Dean's Lister, first honor in fact and is now in the States by himself travelling. Haha.. good way of building up her son. She also kept on saying that one day, she'll have to like arrange us and her son with his friends some kind of outing. Haha. Yeah right.
We went sun bathing afterwards. Haha. So just imagine how dark I am now. But Tita Bing complimented me soooo many times that I got tired of it. She kept saying how beautiful my color is blah blah blah. I knew I was too dark already but I wanted bikini lines. Hehe..but I didn't get that. I had the new swimsuit and I still had tanlines from Bohol..so it was uneven. Not very nice. Hehe. So I gave up. Abby didn't! She wanted those tanlines so bad..and so did Tita Bing..so we stayed for a few more minutes. Boats were passing by and I just can't believe how Filipinos can behave like animals who just got out from the zoo. They were talking so loud about us and hello?! We could hear it! They were like so amazed that we were in bikinis or something. Jeez. Well anyway, we went back to th Wallace Island (btw, that's not the name of the island..haha). We stayed in the veranda. There was a huge table, about knee-high, with chairs in it. Of course, our favorite thing to do...we took pictures of oursleves. Abby had her kikay kit with her so we fixed ourselves first. Haha. Ida said we had to look cute so when Struan and his friends come, we're all pretty. Haha. But we took so many pictures of ourselves! We're just so vain. Uncle Peter could see us actually from his study but what the hell. Hehe. It was fun. It was around 11am and the sun was up in the sky. Abby wanted to sun bathe again so she did. After like 20 minutes burning under the sun, she got what she wanted. She had tanlines. Only that it was red and it looked like a lechon. Hahaha...and it hurt. Well...too much sun is really bad for the skin.

It was around 12pm and there was still no food. Ida said that the lunch will be at around 3pm. Geez. We were so hungry. We've played cards already and we ran out of thing to do. Tita Vicky invited us to go to the other island which they were preparing for the summer camp. So we rode the boat and went to the island. The cottages were still under construction but it was a nice place. Perfect for a children's camp. Very nice. And by the time we got back, Struan and his friends were there. They were playing hiphop crap. I just do not appreciate hiphop. The first person I saw was this guy who looked very much like Borgy Manotoc. Well I don't really find him cute...I just like his body. Anyway, we got back just in time for the 3pm lunch. Thank goodness for that! Oh and true enough that guy was Borgy. I sat down in the table and I was facing my friends who were facing the people. For some reason I don't like doing that. It's just so obvious that they were looking at them, right? And I didn't want to look at them. I mean...they should look at us! Haha. Well anyway, I could hear Borgy talking and I guess he was sitting exactly the way I was seated. He was facing his friends. And yes he was. Haha. Too bad for my friends, I guess they were just staring at his back. Haha.

So when we finished lunch, we continued our game, Bridge. I was teamed with Marga. Abby and Ida were teamed together. We were winning actually. Hehe. We cheated actually like, twice. But of course they didn't know that. I was the one shuffling the cards so when Ida and Abby went to look for Stussy, it was the perfect timing for me to do it. Haha. It was hilarious. They don't know it until now. After that, we went kayaking again. This time, we went on both tandem kayaks. Same teams. We raced to the island in the middle of the lake. When we got there, 2 girls went there too. Then Borgy followed. The other girl said to me that the mud was just yucky blah blah..so I told her to just walk further. The feeling is...liberating. Haha. It is really. I swear. It's soft and just disgusting. Hehe. So anyway, they left. We parked our kayaks and we went to the middle of the lake again, just chilling out, with our life vests on our legs. We kind of thought that maybe they made fun of us because we had life vests with us, because they didn't use them when they were kayaking. And then there's this guy who was with the group and his kayak just turned over. And he didn't have any life vest with him. It was really funny. Haha. Abby and I were just looking at him and making fun of him. Abby said something like "Haha! Parang gusto ko sha batuhan ng life vest! Kase and feeling!" And I think she kinda said it a little loud and we were all "Shhhh!!!" I mean we could hear them talking from the veranda, they could surely hear us. So this guy tried to get back to his kayak. I guess his ego was just wayyyy down because he didn't even have the gutts to go to the island where our kayaks were and from there get on to his. Well after a few minutes of struggling, he was able to get back to his kayak again which unfortunately turned upside down...again. Haha. Really funny. But he got back eventually and his friends clapped. That was a good show. Haha... So we stayed there and waited for the sunset. Ida kept on telling us how beautiful the sunsets there were. And when the sun began to set, we went back to our kayaks. And when the sun finally set, we went back to the Wallace island.

Dinner was to be served at around 9pm. Wow. Well it was okay. We took a bath and we were just tired. Abby got sunburned and it was really bad. It was really red. While waiting for dinner, we fell asleep. And then Tita Vicky got a call and dinner was ready. We went to the gazebo for dinner and we ate dinner. We were just tired and I guess Struan and his friends were too. There were a few people there eating dinner but people started to come. I was just happy that there was Swiss Chocolate Cake from Becky's for dessert. One of my favorites. Then Abby and Ida wen to look for Stussy again. So I went to sit beside Marga, facing the people...and I saw this group talking, but I really didn't care what they were talking about. Although! I got conscious because they were looking at me! I have no idea what they're talking about I didn't hear them but they were looking at me..or Marga..but I was pretty sure they were looking at me and they were like smiling and giggling or something. I dunno. I didn't even see their faces (I'm near sighted..). Now I'll forever be thinking what they were saying about me. I hate it. Good thing Tita Bing said we had to go back to the cottage.

Back in the cottage, we just brushed our teeth and went straight to bed...whappak!!!