Beautiful Boracay

Meadows and I have been extremely fortunate this year to visit some insanely pretty beaches. It’s really hard to pick a favorite, but Boracay might be my #1! I cannot begin to explain how picture perfect this island is, so you’ll have to read on and check out the photos for yourself.

Quite unexpectedly, the Filipino Coke team announced a national holiday on Monday just one week in advance. This meant we got another long weekend! We took advantage of it by booking a trip to Boracay, Philippines. It consistently ranks in the top beach destinations around the world, so it was a no-brainer!

There aren’t any flights from Manila to Boracay on Friday evening, so we opted for an early morning flight on Saturday. We boarded our tiny plane and were off on a short one-hour trip to paradise!

It’s important to explain that September is the rainy season for all 7,107 islands in the Philippines. Yes, there are so many islands here; and yes, that means we’ve seen some rain. Like most tropical destinations, the rain only lasts for an hour or two! The bottom line: we knew that any weekend in the Philippines ran a risk of rain.

We landed at the Boracay airport, and our hotel transport swooped us up and drove us to a nearby port. Here, we traded in the van for an outrigger boat, which took us to our island.

When we got to the hotel, I was like YESSSSSSS!! The white sand beach, beautiful Tiffany blue water and royal blue looked like they came right off a postcard. You’ll notice that the scenery is breathtaking, but the weather looks a little iffy.

And our resort, The District Boracay, offered an ideal location on the beach along with a beautiful room.

 

We quickly threw on our swimsuits and headed to grab some lunch before hitting the beach. The hotel suggested we go to the nearby mall for lunch, which admittedly made me so annoyed. We went anyway. Someone needs to change the name of this beach development; it is not a “mall” in the typical sense! We walked around the local shops and markets before discovering our favorite restaurant: Spice Bird, home of the most delicious peri-peri BBQ sandwich. It melted in my mouth, but had the perfect kick of spice.

By the time we left lunch, the rain hit Boracay. Thankfully, Meadows and I adapt easily. We took the opportunity to SHOP! We uncovered an incredible local swim shop, where we both bought new bathing suits. We also stumbled into a store full of handmade jewelry and crafts in an attempt to avoid the rain, but I ended up with this fabulous beaded clutch!

As the sky continued to dump rain, Meadows and I opted for a 60-minute massage at the hotel spa. We both left so relaxed and refreshed as we approached sunset.

I consider myself a sunset expert, and I tend to think that thunderstorms and gnarly clouds make for a spectacular sunset. We threw our bathing suits back on and made our way to the beach. All I can say is: WOW.

We spent our first night drinking wine and eating a delicious local meal overlooking the beach.

Early Sunday morning, we hit up the hotel breakfast. I nearly fell over when I saw the view. Perfect weather!!!

The resorts along the beach (including ours) put up a bamboo wall on the beach to block the wind. This limits the damage to the properties when a typhoon strikes; one was scheduled to hit the Tuesday following our Monday departure! Luckily, it changed course, and Boracay was spared this time.

At 9am, we departed with our guide for our private island-hopping excursion. We hopped on a small outrigger for our 3-stop adventure.

Stop 1: A random island with cliff jumping. It’s actually much safer than typical cliff jumping because someone has built diving boards to utilize! Meadows jumped at the chance (HA HA HA)!

Stop 2: Snorkeling. This was some really great snorkeling! We knew we wouldn’t see anything crazy like sea turtles or stingrays, but we saw lots of fish and some really pretty coral. With such clear water, we could see every tiny detail!

Stop 3: Puka Beach, which is a famous, quiet beach on the northern end of Boracay. Since it’s not at risk of typhoons, bamboo walls do not obstruct the view.

Boracay also loves custom sand designs! We saw these all over the island. (We need to work on Meadows’ photography skills…)

With the beach basically to ourselves, we could swim and lounge in peace.

And Meadows was able to do his fair share of MedMan-ing!

Having soaked up Puka, Meadows and I boarded our little boat and rode back to our hotel.

In desperate need of a late lunch, we chose to make the long (and hot) walk down the beach to Spice Bird’s sister restaurant, Super Magic Burger. Like Spice Bird, it was awesome!

When the time for sunset came, Meadows and I inquired about going out on a sailboat. The hotel arranged for us to go paraw sailing, which is a double outrigger sailboat.

The “captain” (if we can really call him that) insisted I put my camera and phone in the hull of the boat. Meadows can attest, I was livid at my inability to document! We relied solely on his GoPro.

The entire ride towards the sunset was so peaceful and romantic …and dry!

When we turned back towards the shoreline, everything changed. Suddenly, water splashed us nonstop. Not just a little, but a lot of water – mostly large waves as high as our head and shoulders!

At one point, I thought I might get knocked off!! It wasn’t quite the romantic moment we expected, but we laughed so much.

Unlike us, my camera stayed completely dry in the hull! We captured the last few seconds of sunset from the shore.

We dried off, showered and walked the beach. When it was time for a late dinner, we felt we deserved comfort food… Back to Spice Bird! Seriously, the BBQ sandwich is dynamite.

We walked up and down the beach before hitting the sack.

On Monday morning, we woke up to learn that our flight was canceled. Our first canceled flight of the year! Through many phone calls and a bit of yelling, we secured seats on a flight out of a different airport.

We annihilated another breakfast with a view and soaked up our final moments on the beach. I love how the palm trees cast shadows on the white sand beach!