Bicycling and snorkeling in Siquijor

I left Jeff in Dumaguete on Negros where he had booked a day with a bird guide up in the mountains/lakes/forest to the west of the city. I was in a bit of a hurry to get to Siquijor because Ferda was arriving on a ferry from Cebu that evening. Siquijor Island is an entire province, but it’s a small one — the third smallest of Philippines’ 82 provinces. The ferry from Dumaguete dropped me at the Town of Siquijor, and I had to get to Larena to meet Ferda. It wasn’t far. The most exciting thing I saw along the way was the church at Banban.

The next morning Ferda and I rode to Sandugan since I had read that that was the best snorkeling on Siquijor. The visibility was poor. The best photo I took is this:

That beach faces NW. We rode around the north of the island to try the beach at Tulapos which faces NE and learned that there was a pretty good wind out of the east that day. We also learned that you have to hire a guide to snorkel at Tulapos but due to the waves and poor visibility the guides weren’t taking people out. I recall them saying this was typical for this time of year (February), but I don’t remember which months they said were better.

We took a pleasant road over a small pass (<250m climb) to head back west.

Our plan had been to ride on to the Town of Siquijor to meet Jeff’s evening ferry, but it was getting late so we spent the night in Larena again. That involved some looking around for a room since the place we had stayed the night before was full.

We met Jeff the next morning, and our goal for the day was more snorkeling. We first went in at Maite which looks like this above water:

and like this underwater:

Certainly not Raja Ampat or Wakatobi, but not bad. Across the street was a fancy vegetarian restaurant catering to foreign tourists.

Indeed this strip on the SW coast of Siquijor, centered around San Juan, was the most touristy place we had seen in the Philippines. It was one hotel after another so we weren’t worried about finding a place to sleep. We rode on to the Tubod Marine Sanctuary to do some more snorkeling. When people talk about the “marine sanctuary” on Siquijor, they’re talking about Tubod even though Maite, Sandugan, and Tulapos also all have the same designation, I believe.

It was all good until Ferda dove down to get a better look at a sea cucumber:

She was having trouble equalizing and — pop! — she ruptured her eardrum. That was the end of Ferda’s snorkeling in the Philippines. She was in pain but soldiered on as we went from one hotel to another, discovering that everything was full. It was after dark by the time we finally found a place to stay on the other side of San Juan.

The next morning Ferda and I visited the hospital in Caipilan. We waited less than 15 minutes for an initial visit where they took basic measurements like height, weight, blood pressure. We filled out forms during that time. Then we waited less than 15 minutes more to see a doctor who looked at Ferda’s ear, said it was perforated, and gave Ferda a prescription for antibiotic drops since the ear was already showing signs of an infection. Wow, what a super easy hospital visit!

We hadn’t told our hotel we were staying another night ’cause we were worried the doctor might send us to a bigger city on a different island. Of course there were no rooms available, and we had to scramble around again. We found a place right on the beach in Lala-o:

Jeff and I snorkeled once more at Tubod. At one point I saw six Blackpatch Triggerfish at the same time and also saw Titan Triggerdish and Orange-lined Triggerfish. I wondered if I had ever seen so many triggerfish in one snorkeling session before.

I was very excited to see at least ten black, with electric blue stripes, Chelidonura varians slugs cruising along the white sandy bottom. Unfortunately my camera is not good enough for macro shots.

There were nice roads to take us east to Lazi

where we visited a church.

There’s fairly new bicycle shop in Lazi, and I managed to buy an inner tube and a patch kit. The next day we learned that one of the things all the tourists who come to Siquijor do is visit Cambugahay Falls.

We accessed the falls via Tagmanocan and parked our bicycles next to pretty rice paddies.

More nice roads took us north to Maria where we had lunch in the central market.

That’s pretty typical of what we were able to find at basic eateries in Visayas. Jeff pointed out that this lunch was better than almost any meal we ate in the cordillera.

At a tiny village — really just a few houses — we stopped — to play with the goats or something. 😉

The locals offered us star apples, and when they learned we weren’t familiar with this fruit, they cut a bunch of ripe ones for us to eat and take with us.

This is one of the reasons I love traveling by bicycle. Here we are quite near the most tourist-oriented places we’ve visited in the Philippines, but get just off the beaten path (which is easy to do with a bicycle) and locals are friendly, generous, and excited to see you!

Time for another island, waiting for Bohol…