Published: 28.01.2020
In Legazpi we stayed for three nights, still recovering from our illnesses, I think I caught a cold as well....
But we still managed to do some exploring, repairs.....and took a tour to the Taal volcano 🌋 which is still an active volcano, but not currently erupting....we traveled by jeepneys, tricycles, and on foot 🦶 here it's a bit different from the other islands, the roads are better and more organized, the traffic....
There are several restaurants here, although they are always hard to find, but we found the best one in Donsol.....the pictures of Legazpi and the volcano have already been uploaded....
In the morning, we first went to the van station by tricycle...here there are different modes of transportation, besides the ones I mentioned earlier, there are vans....you go there, pay for your seat, maybe even pay for a place for your luggage, and then you wait until the van is full, if there is one seat missing and you're in a hurry, each passenger pays a little extra and then we're off, since we let the first van go because it was definitely overcrowded, it took about three hours until the next one was full....but we're on the move, waiting and being patient is not uncommon....
But then we finally started, through beautiful scenery with better roads than the previous islands.
The accommodation we chose is nice, except that the internet is not working because there was a typhoon here in early December that caused some damage.
After many long discussions, we finally got a sim card from here, which has to be recharged every day, I actually thought I couldn't write here because I do it with the iPad and there is no sim card in it, but there are plenty of young people who can show me how to use my devices...so there is still a report from here...We went out on a boat for three days to snorkel with a whale shark....it finally worked on the third day, that is after the third attempt, because we went out twice in one day, in the morning we met a young German girl who will stay here until March to study and document the behavior of the animals, so our whale shark already has a number, and it was recognized in the photo that he was injured....
There are several places here where you can swim with whale sharks, but here is one of the places where the fish are not fed....so it can happen that you don't see any, and if you do....it all happens very quickly....the guide gives the signal, then you put on your mask, put on your fins, sit on the edge of the boat, and jump into the water as soon as he commands, unless he takes you by the arm and pulls you in, because it all doesn't last longer than maybe five to ten minutes....and that's how it goes, in and out five or six times....
This morning we learned a lot about Lotti's work, since she goes out several times during the day, we asked her to notify us when a whale shark is spotted....so she sent us an SMS around noon, we immediately went there, found the boat with six people, and we were lucky to see one.
After a day off, we went out on the boat again with the same guide and Lotti...and today the guide told us everything about the whale shark and also about the work here with the whale sharks and the people here talk a lot about not destroying nature just to make it a tourist attraction, both the Filipinos and the tourists....
Well, in the end we found a great restaurant where everything tastes delicious, we saw beautiful sunsets here in many different colors, and we had a nice ending here, tomorrow we will go back to Legazpi for one night and then a 12-hour bus ride to Manila....one more night in Manila and then home....