The first post-taifun crossing from Puerto Princesa to Cuyo is surprisingly mild. The captain of the “Blessed Sea Journey” is a real sparrow: after seeing his girlfriend shivering in full winter gear, he turns down the air conditioning in the icebox tourist class to such an extent that 17 Filipinos will probably die of heatstroke by the next morning. Mild waves rock us to sleep.
Some magical places make you cry when you leave. Cuyo does this even on arrival. Early the next morning, the landlady of Niki’s guesthouse greets me by name after almost a year. All the children wave. Every second one of them wants to fondle Steffi’s curls and take a photo to prove that her curls are completely unknown in the Philippines.
There are currently just five tourists on the island. I recognise one dear Swiss man from last year. The expat baker in Jena delivers the best bread free of charge, as he has done for 20 years, and many good Filipinos from the last trip stop by for a chat.
Our room looks directly over the beach promenade towards the sunset. Every evening, we sit in front of red horses to watch the fireworks on the horizon and the life of the inhabitants of a remote island. Peace is simple.
The captain introduces us to his family and insists on cashew nuts as a gift. Players from the legendary poker rounds of my last visit shout “Welcome back!”. And Grandma Haydee conjures up the most delicious dishes from the simplest of ingredients at the market round the corner
Dishes for little money.
When the Amihan wind finally sets in again on the twelfth day of the trip after a long typhoon and lots of rain, life is perfect. Steffi quickly realises that kiting is not for her. This gives me more time to edge my second 13er Edge in a cosy 16 knots at the most beautiful turquoise-blue flat-water spot in the Philippines.
Cuyo’s kids sing in chorus for a song I didn’t manage to write last time. My new little Alesis V-mini organ is the best toy on site. Fat fruit buntings flutter around the trees in front of us.
After four wonderful days, the Milagrosa ferry to Iloilo arrives almost on time. We wistfully climb aboard. It’s raining again. In heavy seas, the bow-side Tourist Class in particular jumps up and down a few metres. Together with the strong roll of /- 20 degrees due to the sideways wind, there are excellent opportunities for feeding fish for several hours.
In the morning the spook is over. We slowly embark in Iloilo, four of us jump into a taxi to the minivan terminal and drive 4.5 hours across the whole of Panay to Caticlan. The ferry to Bulalacao is cancelled, so it’s another five hours on the Starlite ferry to Roxas in the north.
The harbour there is one miserable brothel full of weirdly wailing videoke sirens. Our hotel Maur fits in perfectly with this: everything is a mess, six-legged creatures jump around the room. A beautifully draped, bloody towel lies on the sheets. Plastic crackles underneath. An original Bob Ross picture watches two travellers instantly fall asleep after 27 hours on the road…
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.