The days objective was to come up with a rough plan for the remaining trip. We wanted to see the whale sharks in Donsol (which required a flight to Legaspi) and also wanted some more diving and a couple of days in Manilla. This ought to be no match for two persons familiar with scheduling optimization.

We gathered of intel from the guidebook and Internet and came up with a rough plan; we would head straight to Manilla, take a round-trip to Legaspi and then take a bus towards Puerto Gallera (possibly passing by lake Taal and it’s volcano). This required us to get an early flight out from the expensive ITI airline and we thus went to purchase this ticket since they had no online booking.

This was of course doomed. That the prices had risen too 140 € didn’t deter travelers and the first available tickets were two days later in the afternoon. No suitable ferries left in time and it was not that compelling to take a whole day of bus to Puerto Princessa and from there try to find a flight. Bah. We started to revise our plan at Art Café (according to our guidebook housed in a shack – in reality a spacious two-storied villa) where we met Christian.

Christian was a swedish tourist who combined his trip with a little work for Metro as a journalist about the Survivor shootings. We chatted about travel and the futility of plans, he had himself had a backpack of his stolen two days before his departure while he was moving. In this backpack he had his passport, tickets, keys to to an apartment, work computer etc. He still had his phone though and had stayed at a friend (over Christmas) and was now traveling on a temporary passport (without all needed visas) and looked forward to obtaining a new temporary passport with required visas in Manilla for future traveling. We agreed that rescheduling needs were rather small in comparison.

The night was dedicated for a slightly more robust plan, we would take a larger banca to Coron for some diving and then a superferry (love that name) to Manilla where we would shop and chill. If we got a hotel with a swimming pool we could perhaps find a replacement for whale sharks (e.g. obese tourists) there.

No photos were unfortunately taken during the day but I’ll present a picture of the island that Mirsada and myself have named “Yoshi Island”. After the underground river we have gotten into the habit of making out familiar patterns from natural formations. Since apparently anything can look like the holy virgin Mary, it’s not more than fair that a few things which really do look familiar should be named as well.