Big sharks, small fish, lots of shade, lots of wind...

Next stop was the island of Cebu. And yes, we flew around a bit too much, which is not environmentally friendly... But it's so difficult to get around between the islands that even our time frame wouldn't have been enough... We will plant some trees when we get back - promise!!

Cebu City (the capital of the island) is like the few other big cities we've seen in the Philippines - not very inviting. We stayed in the tallest building in Cebu, a state-of-the-art skyscraper, with a direct view of a slum. What a contrast! Lots of poverty, lots of prostitution, and lots of desperately poor children. We had a brief encounter with a 10-year-old boy, Jesper. One of the many impoverished children in this world who will probably never see the inside of a school and unfortunately has no future. Completely dirty, dressed in rags, and also physically disadvantaged. He has 2 younger sisters whom he takes care of during the day. His parents are garbage collectors, but his mother is currently sick. One of the many fates in this world. And so one can't help but wonder why one is allowed to lead a different life.

These are the other, not so beautiful insights of such a journey, but they are also the ones that open your eyes and sharpen your awareness of what is essential in life!

Our main plan in Cebu was mainly diving, so we took a bus to the northern tip to cross over to a small but nice island called Malapascua by boat. The bus ride was accompanied by good old 80s/90s hits, and we were amazed when suddenly "Da da da - I don't love you, you don't love me" played on the radio!...We happily nodded along 😊

In Malapascua, everything, really everything, revolves around diving. We did great dives with funny creatures, reef sharks, sea snakes, and much more. But the highlight is the thresher sharks, which normally live in 500 meters depth. However, here in Malapascua, there is a so-called cleaning station, a kind of car wash for fish. - Yes, you read that right...even fish or in this case sharks want to be washed, or rather cleaned! So the sharks occasionally come up from their usual depth to be cleaned by smaller fish (cleaner fish). We couldn't miss this spectacle either. Since they only come to clean at sunrise, we had to get up in the middle of the night, but it was an amazing experience. (The photo in the blog is not from us, as we didn't have an underwater camera. But this is what the sharks look like, with their characteristic long tail. Up to 7 meters long - that's the entire shark)

Otherwise, there's not much to say about Malapascua. We had accommodation away from the hustle and bustle and enjoyed our time there, exploring the island on a moped, seeing beautiful sunsets, reading, and eating well. Just a vacation 😊

Next, we went to our final destination in the Philippines, to Moalboal. It's also located on the island of Cebu. Normally, everything in Moalboal revolves around diving, and here there should be wonderful underwater experiences to list... But thanks to a bilateral ear canal infection, the diving adventure was already over before it started. So for three days, we basically just stayed in our accommodation, sorted photos, planned our onward journey, cooked, washed, entertained ourselves with the red cat, and maybe watched another sunset in the evening... Yes, it was a bit disappointing, but it just wasn't meant to be – sob!...

There were a few other events that had a rather counterproductive effect on our travel plans - clashes between the military and the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf in popular tourist areas and the subsequent travel warnings. Don't panic!!- We weren't involved ourselves but had to change our plans. So we skipped the affected islands and decided to continue our journey earlier than planned. We'll just come back here again sometime...in more peaceful times and with healthy ears.