Davao 2016: An Unexpected Journey to the South of PH

May 13, 2018

I know this is one of those long-overdue travel posts that I have on the blog, so I am really giving my best into writing them all here. This trip happened 2 years ago, and I will recall (the best way I can) all the things that happened during this trip. It was all my sister's idea to do this. I only tagged along. Current president Rodrigo Duterte was freshly elected to office during that time so I was interested to actually visit the city that he initially managed as a mayor.


Day 1: Chilling at the Resort
So we landed to the city of Davao around morning via the Francisco Bangoy International Airport. I was kinda impressed how nice the airport was. We took a taxi to go to our resort.


Our resort was at Lorelei Beach Resort


It has a nice view of the shore, but I doubt it was swimmable (we didn't swim during our stay).




We just stayed for the rest of the day in the resort and just chilled and relaxed.


They had a small pool at the resort.


Day 2: Tour Around Samal
I did an early morning walk around the resort and just took a photo of the view around the vicinity.




We hired a tour guide to take us around the Samal island. Since there were two of us, there were two motorcycles that drove us around. We went to a bat cave (there were so many of them!!! 🦇🦇🦇) and the Japanese Cave House. Part of the tour in the cave house was to go through the tunnel, which stretches deep underground. I attempted to enter, but I got too claustrophobic I backed out after moving down a few meters. 😂


Day 3: Snorkeling Around the Island 
With the same tour guide, we went to one of the snorkeling spots in the island.


Our tour guide provided our boat transfers. Beforehand, we gave him some money that he used to buy food in the wet market. While we were snorkeling in the island, he, and some of the local kids he tagged along, were preparing food for us.



Honestly I wasn't able to utilize this snorkeling activity because I couldn't go far from our boat. So after a quick swim, we returned to the shore where we ate our lunch with our tour guide.



Day 4: Eagles, Horses and Bicycles
Next day activities involved a tour to the zoo. 😂We went to the Philippine Eagle Center, and perfect timing it was because there was no entrance fee that day (I think they were celebrating Philippine Eagle day, or some kind of holiday).


It was my first time to see such huge eagles, but honestly I wasn't really interested seeing them in captivity. It just breaks my heart. 💔


Next stop was a visit to Eden Nature Park where we did sky cycling!



I still didn't know how to bike back then (I think) so I was a bit scared, but good thing we were able to bike up to the other end of the wire in one piece. 😂


We still had time to kill, so we just went around the park and did some sight-seeing.


And I spotted the horses! Of course I had to try riding it! It was a first-time experience, and was great overall! I had to clutch tightly on that handle (at the middle of the saddle in front of me) to prevent me from falling down. 😂It was a swingy ride, but a quick one, because we just walked around the block of the park.


After that, we went to this restaurant overseeing a view of Davao City. If you check below, the mountains (with minimum lights) is the Samal island.


We had our dinner there until night time.

walking around the park!
And then we checked-in to this other resort just near the airport (ahh I forgot the name already) which actually had a nicer pool. There were lots of people doing night swimming when we arrived so we decided to just plunge early the next day.

Day 5: Swimming & Airport Exit
Our last day basically consisted of doing a quick swim in the pool and packing up our bags to prepare for our flight back to Manila.




And that's basically how our trip was in Davao. I must say that the roads were very clean there and the people are nice. We felt that the locals had a huge respect for Duterte because of how the taxi drivers and our tour guide talked about him. 

If given the chance, I would love to return again to Davao, especially to the Samal island. I was only half-heartedly enjoying the trip (dunno, I wasn't really in the mood for this trip haha). Especially now that I know how to tread in water, I would be able to enjoy snorkeling there even more.

Still, thanks Universe for letting me see a glimpse of the beauty of nature in those islands. :)

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