Siguijor Christmas

We've been on the move, but did want to share our enjoyment of the Christmas party we had at La Casa de la Playa. One of the owners is German and the clientele are also German in the majority, so the Christmas celebration was on Christmas Eve.

We had been staying at La Casa in the Casa Bouganvilleia which is in the garden of the resort. There are some lovely cabins down on the beach level but our place was up 50 steps from the beach and nearer the restaurant. The place wasn't air-conditioned which was one of the reasons we hastened our departure. We had a standup fan and Geordie and I tended to bicker about its positioning - which is quite usual for us. We managed.

Here are a couple of photos of the cottage. We sat on the deck quite often and read our books. The bathroom was miniscule -I bumped my head on the wall on the first day getting up from the toilet (maybe too much information, but I'm sure it gives you the image strongly).

The Christmas Eve buffet was fun. The piece de resistance was the whole pig roasted in the fire pit somewhere on the grounds for about 9 hours if we understood the explanation correctly. It was burnished gold and splendid on its special table, designed to look like a pig too. Then there were lots of different dishes from the menu - potato vegetable souffle, pork ribs, noodle dishes and on and on. Dessert was a coconut gelatine and watermelon. Not a thing on the groaning board was familiar to our Christmas traditions but we got lots to eat.

The party after was really a celebration for the staff. There was a local band with a blind singer/guitarist named the "Stevie Wonder of Siquijor",

and a banjo player, a huge bass guitar and other guitars. The music was a mix of Christmas songs, bluesy songs by the blind singer, and local songs in Cebuano. Emily, who is the Filipina owner of the resort was in full majesty, directing the evening. gathering all the staff to sing the Casa song and leading them in the synchronized dance. Then there were singers who carolled us with local Christmas songs as well. They were in fine voice and we enjoyed it all.

After the singing entertainment the staff and the guests got to do a little dancing - including Geordie and I who were hauled up by Linda, one of the management staff. The group danced late - we went to our cottage at 11:30 pm but the staff danced until 1:30 and only stopped because the band went home!

On Christmas Day we finally got into the sea. We discovered that the resort had some sea booties to rent so we found two pair that sort of fit and went down to the beach. We had to wade out a long way before we were able to swim. As usual I counted steps - it took over 230 strides through the water before we were at waist depth. From then we could at least float and swim. We are obviously out of shape - in the evening my legs were quite tired and I realized it was from the wading.

We left La Casa on the 27th. We moved back to Coral Cay because we missed the opportunity to enjoy both the pool and the air-con. For our first three nights we have been in the newest cottage which is a palace compared to the cottage at La Casa. It's huge. As a matter of fact the whole cottage at La Casa could fit in our bathroom - which even has a section exposed to the outside with plants and sand.

We will be at Coral Cay until January 3 when we will travel back to Dumaguete and then on the 4th we will continue on to Cebu. Then on the 5th we are flying from Cebu back to Boracay. I've decided that Boracay is like Puerto Vallarta - a home base for us as PV serves when we are in Mexico. We enjoyed the location and the beach where we can actually swim from shore rather than wading out for 230 steps, and we can enjoy the good food at the restaurants there.

Some of you may remember our original plan was to go to Palawan. That plan didn't work out when we discovered that we should have made reservations to fly there some time ago. The cheap seats are all sold out and the cost to fly there was more than we wanted to pay. The flight to Boracay was good, as were flights to Manila. So our plan now is to spend 10 more days in Boracay, then fly to Manila and from there head out to Tagaytay which is in the highlands and then finish up in Mindoro, an island not too far from Manila with some good beaches out of a town called Puerto Galera.

Not to worry, we'll keep you posted.