Life’s Lessons

I don’t know if I have the worst case of acrophobia because even looking down when I am at the higher floor of the mall makes me really nervous. Riding a ferris wheel is another challenge for me that’s why I haven’t tried riding it again after my childhood experiences. But when I am riding an airplane, I can’t help but look down and be amazed at the clouds and the view below. Weird, right?

Despite that great fear of heights, I wanted to try riding a hot air balloon. I guess Sedona hot air balloon ride is worth a try should I be lucky enough to fly to the venue. Soaring high with the eagles and other birds must be one great experience! The unique Splash ‘n Dash experience is something I look forward in this hot air balloon ride where the balloon momentarily glide in the water for a gentle ride. Sedona hot air balloon rides offers a low contour flying and that would probably won’t make me hide in the basket for fear of falling.LOL. And the best thing that makes me wanted to try Sedona balloon ride is the fact that the flight will be done during sunrise! Wohooo! That must be a one of a kind experience watching the spectacular beauty of the world as the sun goes up the horizon. Truly, one thing that I would like to try despite of my fear of heights.

We wanted to go to the beach so much so we headed to the famed Isla Reta Beach Resort in Talicud Island. We were at Sta. Ana port before 9AM to catch the first trip of the boat going straight to the resort but it departed early so we had no choice but to ride another boat (not owned by Isla Reta) and waited for an hour until it was full. The supposedly 45 minutes to 1 hour boat ride was longer because we dropped off some passengers in Kaputian in Samal Island before heading to Isla Reta. Boat fare is 70 pesos for adults and 50 pesos for children.

We arrived Isla Reta around lunch and as expected, it was packed with people because it’s Black Saturday that time. Compared to beach resorts in Samal Island during that time of the year, it was not really full. It’s just that I am used to see Isla Reta during ordinary days and weekends and there’s not so many beach bummers during those times so about more than a couple of hundred people in the resort is too many for me.

We had lunch of fried Kitang and native chicken tinola that we ordered from the resort’s kitchen first (while waiting for our cottage to be ready for occupancy. Since it’s still hot, we had fresh buko juice (right from the coconut trees in the resort).

We all shared in one Buko? Nope! Each of us had one but after drinking the juice and scraping the young coconut meat (yummy!), Ace put all straws together in one buko and took that photo.

That afternoon, it’s low tide and everybody (except for Ella and Eman) are still not in the mood for swimming (because we are enjoying the sea breeze just walking in the sand), we took the chance for picture taking. After a few tries, Che2x finally got a nice photo of me and Ace

Eman can’t seem to wait to swim as he’s so ecstatic to see the water!

Ella didn’t waste a single minute. The moment we were all settled in the cottage, she changed to her swimming attire and head on to the beach all by herself. When we checked on her, she already made friends with other resort guests.

While Carol and Che2x are busy taking photos of each other, Ella was babysitting Eman and the little guy was enjoying the water a lot!

We spent the night chatting. Ace slept early (as usual. He’s such a sleepyhead everytime we spend a night at the beach) but I woke him up early to catch the sunrise but this is all we got. We were waiting for Mr. Sun to come up from the horizon but he was too shy to show up.

I and Ace had a dip in the water then had breakfast. After breakfast, everybody went swimming! Swimming is nothing without our picture taking so here are some snaps…

After lunch, we were informed that there will be two boat trips going back to the city (to accommodate everybody) and we listed ourselves on those who will be taking the 3PM trip. But when everybody’s ready, we changed our minds and decided to take the 5PM trip so we took time to go to the other side of the beach.

Laida (Ella’s puppy) must have been tired walking and running that he slept at a sand castle

We took a dozen or more photos and prepared to go home. Then took some photos while waiting for the boat. That’s me sporting my new beach bag!LOL.

The next weekend, we went back to the resort but this time with my HS classmates/friends so that will need another photo-filled post.

Ace and I loves outdoors but we’re limited to a few places because we don’t have a car and hiring one is so expensive so we just go wherever our feet could take us that can be easily reached by a taxi or a jeepney. Since we got a road bike, we’re now able to go to places that we wanted for so long so the other Sunday we convoyed to Philippine Eagle Conservation Center (that’s more than 20 kms. from my sister’s place) together with Carol, Donald, Ella and Eman. It was a long drive but we reached the place safe and sound. We are amazed that even with just a liter of fuel, we were able to reach the place so it was kinda cheap compared to our first trip there the other year where we paid PhP400 for one trip of the taxi. Anyway, here’s one of the photos taken at Philippine Eagle. We didn’t took so many photos of the eagles but we took the chance to take tons of photos of ourselves.hehehe. I’ll make a separate post about that one.

Thanks to our road bikes because we’ll be able to go to places that can only be reached by private vehicles. Now they’re planning to go to Eden Nature Park tomorrow. We’ve never been to Eden since we had a DSLR and the last time we went there, our photos are taken only using Ace’ low resolution cellphone so this would be a great photo ops for us. Hope we’ll still find a way for our weekend road trips in the coming years until such time when we will need a rheumatoid arthritis relief because we’re old by then.LOL. It’s a great bonding opportunity that is not too expensive compared with going to the mall wherein we cannot control ourselves but to eat and buy something that we find nice. It’s communing with nature so it’s relaxing and refreshing, something that everyone needs after a week of hard work. ‘Till our next road trip!