We made it here to the beautiful Bohol Sea Resort. It's quite beautiful here. Right behind me is our resort…hidden in the palm trees. Our beach resort is a little further away from all the other resorts, making it very peaceful. The rest of our day consisted of swimming and reading in the shade. It was a nice relaxing day.
Here is a very nice map of the island, painted on the wall of our resort restaurant/front desk.
Today our taxi driver from the pier yesterday (who happens to guide driving tours), Ray, picked us up from our resort and took us around the island to see the sites of Bohol. First thing you need to know about Ray is that he looooves sappy 80s ballads covered by some random gal who slowed everything way down to a musical crawl. We listened to songs like I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore, and I almost died when he started singing along with On the Wings of Love!
Our first stop was a historical site. This photo is at the site of the first Blood Compact made between the people of Bohol and the Spanish in 1565. This was the first peace treaty between the Filipinos and the Spanish made out in a boat beyond the location of this statue. Both the Spanish and tribesmen of the island slit their wrists and poured their blood into a glass of wine and drank it together. Doesn't that sound tasty?
We also saw the oldest church on Bohol…Baclayon Church…it dates back to 1596...but I think the current building structure is from the 1700s.
Next we saw the Tarsier. They look like small monkeys but they aren’t technically monkeys…but that’s more biology than I want to go into right now. There aren't too many of them, so they are a protected species.
We didn’t get to hold the Tarsier, but we were able to come pretty close to it. I guess I’ll have to be content with a lion cub being the only zoo animal I’ve gotten to hold (in Korea).
After visiting with these small primates, we drove into the center part of the island to view the Chocolate Hills. We had to climb up some stairs to a sort of observatory in the municipality of Carmen.
I guess there are around 1200 of them in all, but we didn’t bother counting. They aren’t very brown right now since we are in the rainy season, but still awesome to look at!
As cool as we would be wearing these, we decided not to get our picture on a shirt...
Ray told us that most people earn their living on this island through rice farming in the interior and by fishing along the coast. We were surrounded by fields of rice as we drove in…you can kind of see them below if you know what you’re looking for.
Next we went to a butterfly garden. It was very beautiful. We learned lots about butterflies and got to take pictures with them too!
We drove through a "man made forest" on our way to to and from Carmen...we asked what made it "man made" and Ray said it was because it was government ordered and protected. It was a whole lot of 40 year old mahogany trees...we decided not to stop and take our photo there, because it just looked like a forest. Our next stop was a bamboo suspension bridge. Katy did a pretty good job crossing it for having a slight fear of heights. Way to go Katy!
When we got to Panglao (the tiny little island on the southwest side of Bohol where most of the resorts are located), we had Ray drop us off at Alona Beach…where a lot of other restaurants and resorts were located. We enjoyed some beachfront dining and had a few cold beverages made by San Miguel and walked 40 minutes back to our hotel. It was a nice cool evening for a walk.
Tomorrow will be our last full day in Bohol before we take the Super Cat back to Cebu. We’re looking forward to a quiet and peaceful day of reading and relaxing by the water.
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