Wanderworld

As the title suggests, this is a long overdue post, but allow me to share with you our experience (and amazing photos!) in the beautiful but not-so-popular (yet!) Isla Gigantes in Iloilo.

A little background: The original plan was to go to Apo Reef in Mindoro with my officemates, but it didn’t push through because a lot of them couldn’t make it anymore and the boat ride to the island itself is too expensive for a small group (Php 9,000 for the boat ride).

Left with nowhere to go to on the last month of summer, I panicked and hurriedly looked for another amazing place as an alternative — browsed through lists of exceptional destinations that aren’t that popular yet and picked Isla Gigantes because of this picture alone:

I then scanned a few blogs and took note of how to get there, and thinking that it was manageable enough, I impulsively booked plane tickets online  — all in just a matter of hours. 😀 (yes, that’s how impulsive I am when it comes to travel :P)

The Long Travel

Most beautiful places are difficult to go to, that’s what I learned from all my travels. And Isla Gigantes is no exception.

To get there, we took a plane to Iloilo (one-hour flight at most), took a two-hour cab to Tagbak terminal where there are buses to Estancia, and endured a seemingly long ordinary, cramped bus ride to Estancia with endless stops.

We were then picked up by our tour guide from Las Marias Island resort, Ate Gilda. From the terminal in Estancia, we took a short tricycle ride to Estancia port from where passenger boats leave to Isla Gigantes in Carles, Iloilo.

As it turned out though, the resort brought their own pumpboat to fetch us because they were not sure if we would be able to arrive on time to catch the ONE and ONLY passenger boat (yes, there’s only one boat schedule per day) at 2 pm.

The boat ride to Isla Gigantes took almost 2 hours. After that, we still had to take a short motorcycle ride (habal-habal), which is the most common form of transportation in the island, to get to our resort.

The Gigantes Norte Lighthouse

Since we reached the resort a little after lunch time, we still had a lot of time to settle in, rest and freshen up. The resort even served us lunch, though it wasn’t covered in the package, and they didn’t charge us extra for it (which means it was free :p).

Because we didn’t want to waste our first day on commute alone, we asked the owner of the resort if we could visit the lighthouse in the afternoon. She then arranged for a habal-habal ride to the lighthouse; our driver served as our guide as well.

There’s really not much to see in the lighthouse, though it offered overlooking views of the beach and the island below. We didn’t get a chance to go up because the caretaker wasn’t there during the time, so the lighthouse was closed.

We also went down to the unnamed rocky beach below the lighthouse and saw the overwhelming number of scallop shells on the shore. Took some good ones for myself too as souvenir 😀

Here are some lighthouse pictures to tell you the rest of the story 🙂

After exploring the lighthouse, we went around the island and stayed at the area near our resort as the sun set.

Stay tuned for our island hopping experience in Isla Gigantes soon. 🙂