Cebu - Ginatilan

We have longed for self-catering - and now we have it 🤩! After a 5 1/2 hour bus ride from Cebu City, the bus driver, in true Filipino style, dropped us off right in front of our beach hut. The bus follows a predetermined route. There are fixed stops, but it also stops where passengers want to get off or where passengers stand by the roadside and wave. It's wonderful how uncomplicated everything can be! 

Our beach hut spans two floors. There are a total of three bedrooms, all with air conditioning, a small bathroom, an outdoor kitchen, and a large terrace with two hammocks 😁. The kitchen is equipped with all the utensils you need for cooking. We are glad that we brought our camping cutlery and a pocket knife, because here, you only eat with a spoon and fork. Knives are only used for preparing meals.

After arriving, we stood by the roadside and hailed a tricycle to get to the nearest laundry - it was urgently needed! Chris was running out of underwear. Very limited... 🤣😅. Tricycles are the local means of transport - motorcycles with sidecars. After that, we rented a scooter and went shopping. We underestimated how remote our accommodation is, because the nearest larger supermarket, where you can get milk, cheese, etc., is an hour scooter ride away - One hour there, one hour back. Since the scooter obviously doesn't have a trunk, we faced the next challenge. How do we transport our groceries? Luckily, we have enough backpacks of different sizes with us - it's amazing how quickly a 75-liter backpack can fill up. In addition, we had to make the return trip in the dark because it was already 7 PM and it gets dark here (unfortunately) early. To make matters worse, a dog ran into the scooter on the way back. Fortunately, we didn't crash. Apart from a few bruises and a big fright, nothing else happened to us. The dog ran away immediately and seemed uninjured. At this point, it should be mentioned that there are plenty of stray dogs here that run onto the road without paying attention. It doesn't matter if a scooter or a truck is coming.

On our first morning, we went shopping at the market before breakfast. The fruit and vegetables in the supermarket are packaged in plastic, and we want to avoid that as much as possible. That's why we have several beeswax products with us (a bag for shopping and two cloths for covering/wrapping). In addition to a lot of fresh fruit, we also bought tomatoes for dinner. We had spaghetti with tomato sauce 😍😁. Madlin had been wishing for that for so long.

We really enjoy our time in our accommodation. Especially the self-catering. For this, we go shopping for fresh food at the market almost every day and take our time to cook and enjoy it. The dishes afterwards don't bother us at all.

Otherwise, our days here are very calm. We spend a lot of time in the hammocks and enjoy the luxury we have. Above all, we consider it a great luxury to have so much time for everything. At home, we often say "let's do XY quickly!". So there's always a reason not to take enough time. Whether it's shopping, cooking, or simply paying attention to the needs and signals of our bodies. We now have a year for all of that. We didn't really become aware of it until here - six weeks after departure. It feels incredibly good to have time. Time to pursue our needs. Time to do everything at a leisurely pace. We have never had this feeling in a "normal" vacation.

As beautiful as this feeling is, we miss our loved ones at home even more, because they also often come up short in everyday life! Especially those who live far away, such as in Munich or northern Germany.

Today, for a change, we took a day trip to the beach. Unfortunately, our beach hut only has access to the sea, but no sandy beach. The most beautiful sandy beach in the area is where the supermarket is. One hour there, one hour back... The journey was worth it! In addition to the fine sand and crystal clear water, the underwater world is a dream. Besides many fish, we saw a turtle again. We also saw a water snake and huge swarms of small sardines. The corals were particularly fascinating.

We will be here until Sunday. On Sunday, we will take the bus back to Cebu City and fly to the next Philippine island (Palawan) in the evening.