Antique: Seen On Malalison

Leaving the mountains behind, we now make our way to the next stop of our journey, the beautiful Culasi. The hour-long trip ended on the wharf where we will be riding a pump boat to bring us to the island of Malalison. Before heading out to sea, we ate lunch in Jing’s eatery (special mention coz name sake), had our water gallon refilled and bought a 3kg fish for only 250 pesos.

Malalison from the wharf

The trip to the island was brief, 15-20 minutes. There is an island visitors’ registration area where you will also pay 10pesos for environmental fee.
The house we rented for 3000pesos is quite big, it has 2 bedrooms good for at least 4 persons each, 2 bathrooms, a living room with tv and a kitchen complete with cooking utensils. There is also a pump behind the house for bathing. No running water here, and also no electricity during daytime. Electricity is only switched on during the night and only from 6pm-10pm. The house, though, has a solar panel installed.

Sand Bar

Instead of hiring someone to cook food for us, we decided to go cowboy and do the cooking ourselves. Good thing, some of our male companions knows the hows on the kitchen, so we are spared from having distasteful meals.  While some of us went about with cooking pancit, sugba (grilled) pork& fish, sabaw (sinigang isda); others went to explore the sand bar in the rain. They came back at around 3pm to eat. Swimming does make one hungry.

Swim, Drown & Snorkel

Finished with dinners preparations, all of us also went to the beach to go swimming, semi-snorkeling and picture-taking while watching the sun set. The sand bar separates 2 areas of swimming: on the left is a rather rocky beach with corals littering the area which is safe for swimming and on the right is the ideal place to swim with its sandy beach and deep waters and danger of sea urchins. One cannot really have it all. We swam in both areas of course, with a little care.

Rainbow Sunset

After all the pictures were taken, we went back to the house to clean up and eat our dinner, watch the pictures we took during this trip, played some cards and slept when the lights went out. Early the next day, we cook adobo while waiting for our tour guide for the mountain trek to arrive. And since its dark when we started cooking preparations, we had the chance to use solar-powered bulbs in the kitchen 

The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings

When the guide arrive at about 7AM, we started the climb. It started with stairs to the mountains, then a winding road that leads to the beach. We also passed by the school, the school is on the mountains and the children has to climb to get to it every single day. Exercise done right, in my opinion.

Pitcher Plant

Malalison Island has 3 high points when you look at it from the sea. The target of the climb is the 2nd high point. The trek brought us to the 1st point – Nablag Islet, it’s a low tide and the mountain is connected to the island via a stretch of sand. Along the way, pitcher plants dotted the side of the mountains. This side of the island is a coral beach, and we had fun picking out beautiful corals but the guide says that it is not allowed to bring any away. 

Nablag Islet

Hole in the Wall

Then we proceed to go the cave, it’s a slide down the mountain with only pine trees to save you. The pine trees planted is a project of DENR(Department of Environmental and Natural Resources) to bring trees on this, otherwise, grassy mountains. The cave is not really the cave that we are expecting, it is only a hole in the rock that can accommodate 20persons at once and the entrance is also the exit. Sort of a disappointment but we are only halfway and already thirsty. We stop for drinks and food, then proceeded to climb again.
 

The climb is steep and there is an area where one mistake can bring your death as the mountain has a cliff that directly falls to the sea. And you are not even sure how high it is. But we did reach the summit after a lot of rests, and the view is beautiful. Just leaves you wondering how it must look from the highest point, but the trek there is not for beginners as the tour guide insists. Then, we begin the trek back to the house for brunch and to prepare for departure as well.

The Advance Party

We paid the tour guide 500pesos. After eating and cleaning up, we decided to leave all leftover food to the caretaker and all our surplus food supply as well.

At around 12NN, we left the house behind. Rode the pump boat to tour around the island (during high tide only), was brought back to the wharf, and paid the pump boat 150pesos for the transportation to and from the island and the tour.

Then we waited for our van, and we are on our way to Iloilo city. We stopped by San Joaquin to buy bandi and arrived in Molo Plaza at around 4PM.

Tan not so visible but it was a great adventure and a cheap one too. Each person only paid 1,850 pesos for the 3day-2night trip.

Hooray for a Great Escapade!

Shout out to the owners of the pix: @goldpiz @elzniv @mikejohnsabido

Next week will be my Palawan adventures. Look out for it. 

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Daghang salamat sa pagbasa!!!