Heya' Hivers! Its another travel-venture time with me.
This time I wanna bring you over to another Island close to my heart. I welcome you to, Camotes Island Cebu Philippines.
Disclaimer: All of the photos in this blog were owned and photographed by me. Some were taken years ago hence the quality of the pictures are noticeable after few edits.
This island has become our second home and favorite vacation place to go because this is where me, my cousins and family, mostly spend our childhood memories during summer.
My grandma have live her life at San Francisco, Santiago Camotes Island Cebu, born and raise in this beautiful Island.
this is my lola on her early age
Since then, Camotes has become our family's second best home away from home, our greatest escape from the stressful city. I remembered, my grandma always tell us how she use to live there and how she were taught to live life the hard way. She told us lots of interesting ghost stories too! Every night, while our lights are off or sometimes during blackout, we huddle around and sets up a little camp fire just outside our Payag that puts the best evening mood all the time.
We are so lucky actually to have our own payag built near the seashore. Also, the street where we live in actually has the name after my grandma's maiden name, Diva Street (so alams na ha? Haha!) But we don't own this specific street, it still belongs to barangay.
And just 5 to 10 steps away, you will immediately see the paradise, the blue sparkling sea line in a white sand just beside Santiago Bay Beach Resort.
Me and my cousins never have ever experience not getting a tan or sunburn at least once or twice before going back to the city because every day, for how long, we were just at the beach, playing sands and running around, swimming non-stop and my favorite, watching sunsets. That's how ecstatic we were on our childhood days every time we go home for vacation which is every summer. Now just less running and playing, just chilling and sleeping along the shores. Haha!
this is my favorite, every morning, bringing my cup of coffee at the shore paired with hot francisco bread while feeling the cold breeze of the sea. It feels so good I swear
My experience with this beautiful paradise wouldn't be complete without exploring the whole Camotes Island.
Going home there during fiesta, every month of May, we never miss out going back always to one of the famous caves in the island. We even invite our friends and workmates to go there, tour them around and share best experiences that we can do in one or two days. You can rent a whole multicab good for 10pax with Tour package already ranging 2,500-3,000 pesos with few destinations or if you wanna rent a habal-habal for just 300-500 pesos good for 24hrs. (This was the cost before pandemic, not sure how much they are now.)
We can try cliff diving at Buho Rock Beach Resort.
We can enjoy octupos sliding and beach chilling at Mangudlong Rock Beach Resort.
We can enjoy going into the deep at Timubo Cave!
And get ready to be amaze at Amazing Cave, Paraiso Cave and Heaven Cave.
And my first time here at Busay Spring located at General Tudela, Camotes.
And the most visited one I think is the Lake Danao Resort with lots of activities you can try. They also have a mini zoo that attracts the tourists.
There's also this cave which is one of the prominent cave in Camotes Island that looks like you're going up in heaven if you go stand at the rock with a light from an opening just above the cave that can only be found at Bokilat Cave. I haven't visited this yet but I wanted to go there soon.
And ofcourse, an island without some islet is nothing. We can go and enjoy the white, fine thin sand at Tulang Diot Islet.
All of these and other caves that I have not explored yet can be discovered and visited only to Cebu's neighboring island, Camotes.
It always thrills me knowing that each time that goes by, the island gets more and more popular. Before Covid hit us, lots of tourist have visited Camotes. It has become the known Island in Cebu and the most visited Island next to Bantayan Island by locals and international. There have been so many blogs about it thats being shared all over social medias.
Santiago Bay, a known resort in San Francisco Camotes is always fullybook back then. Its just sad to know how huge the pandemic have affected the lives of people especially those who only relies at tourism as form of their main source of income. I hope and pray that together, we'll beat this pandemic and bring back the lives of these people in new normal, and to never forger how to be responsible of the environment as well as to keep them clean and reserve as much as possible. We don't wanna ruin this spectacular creation in which we never own, instead let's cherish it and protect our nature at all cost.
I may have not highlighted very much what you may be expecting in this island but thats more reason for me to go further and next time, I'll bring you all with me on my next visit to my second home.