Location: Daanlungsod, Cebu, Philippines

Today was another leisurely travel day, as we decided last minute to head down towards the southern tip of the island. I found a little tiny room in a cottage right on the edge of the ocean that we both immediately decided we had to book. We had nothing at all planned for the next few days, so this seemed perfect.

The bus ride was long, hot, and sticky, but rather uneventful. We did pass through increasingly remote towns, which was definitely eye opening. Every building was really rundown, with many of them missing some walls that clearly used to be there. Many alleys we got a glimpse down looked to be in pretty rough shape, with mud all along the edges, clothes hanging everywhere and tin huts built in every unused space.

We arrived in Daanlungsod, the small town just outside Oslob City we had booked a room in. We beelined for the cottage, and were greeted by Ate Fe, the sweet older Filipino caretaker of the house. She had a very thick accent and was wearing what I can only describe as an island style sari, and was so welcoming. Our shoebox sized room is clean and has AC, and aside from the fact that Max’s pillow could be better described as a piece of wood wrapped in foam stuffed into a pillowcase, it’s perfect.

We walked a couple blocks onto the main drag in search of food, where we passed through a pretty rough little market at which we weren’t quite sure we could actually eat anything safely. All the counters were just slats of wood, and tarps were loosely strung overtop. Mostly salted or dried fish was for sale, with a few fruit stands that looked to have been sitting in the sun for awhile. We did find a clean little stall selling bbq on the road, so we ordered up some pork and to my surprise, chicken liver for Max (spoiler alert: he didn’t like it). We stopped into a bakeshop and grabbed a couple fresh buns since we literally saw them come out of the oven and couldn’t help ourselves. Fresh hot pandesal? Um yes.

Back at the cottage, Ate Fe introduced us to Allan, a tour guide we booked for tomorrow to see a few things that we are really excited about. Max was horrified to find out we have to start at 4:30 AM (not that I’m an early riser either), but if we want to skip the giant crowds it makes the most sense. We hung out at the back of the cottage, on a little back porch by the ocean- the one we’d seen in the photos! There wasn’t even a lick of beach sand to speak of, the concrete stairs from the porch led directly into the ocean where we could swim, kayak or snorkel from.

Max is laying in a hammock as I write from a lounge chair next to the water, and man are we looking forward to tomorrow.

Sav