Chocolate Hills and German Beach

We flew from Borcay to Cebu. Our main plan from here was to take a boat to the island of Bohol. However, first we had to renew our visa in Cebu which expired in 2 days. This little guy cost us 40 bucks! We only needed 8 extra days in the country, but they only give out 59 extra days for one price so we had to take it. This little, bureaucratic process took so much time that we were sure that we had missed the last boat to Bohol and had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to have to stay in Cebu for the night. Just to check our luck we took a taxi to the port to see if there were any more boats going and we were just lucky enough to catch the last one!

Beach

We arrived in Bohol that night and took a trike to another island called Pagla island. The next day we hung around the beach and checked out dive shops. The beach here was very disappointing compared to Borcay and we heard the diving was mediocre too. The only other people on the beach were old Germans on holiday. These guys were about as much fun as a heart attack so we decided to rent a scooter the next day and ride to Bohol's famous Chocolate Hills. These hills look like little green gum drops and they stretch for miles and miles. It's a very pretty site. We were there in the rainy season so instead of the the vegetation being brown (thus giving it the name Chocolate hills), it was bright green. We drove to a view point to check it all out before deciding that we should try and climb one of the hills. This turned out to be a very stupid idea since they are very steep and covered in dense, scratchy plants with sharp limestone rocks on the ground. I know this because my sandal broke and I was forced to climb up and down barefoot. Dave thought going barefoot was a good idea at first until we got too far away from his sandals to turn back. Long story short: it took us almost an hour to climb up and down this little hill and we were scratched, bleeding and extremely sweaty by the end of it. NOT WORTH IT! The other thing Bohol is famous for is the Tarsiers. They are extremely endangered and are about the size of big mouse but belong to the monkey family. They can leap up to 5 meters high and have the biggest eyeballs of any mammal proportionate to its body. We wanted to see them but could not find them in any town that supposedly had them. A week later we met some girls that had gone on a chinsy little tourist boat ride and taken pictures of them and one guy even got to hold them. So...no tarsiers for us! The girls were even kind enough send us a picture via email so we could see what we missed! The next day we tried to go another island known for its witch doctors, rugged juggle interior and nice beaches but true to developing country fashion no one knew if there was a boat going there or when it left or how much it cost. So we opted to stay one more day on Pagla island.

Choclate Mountians

Eating whole eels

More Chocolate Mountians

Pagla Island