This summer 2009, we decided to plan out our getaway during our dinner out last March.
Well, Me, Kathe, Tep, Tin, Rachel, and Abc (the others did not manage to make it because work and other personal matters)meet up in SM N.Edsa (The Block). Just to chill out and be updated with whats happening on our lives.After few chats and laughs, we come up with our plans for the summer get together. We will be going to Iba, Zambales for the Holy week. Well, before thinking of the fun-part, we have to list down first who will be joining us.
Tere, Tep, Em, Abc, Tin, Kathe, Edward, Kat, Serg, David, Rachel, Juls, Det..(who's missing??hehe)
Actually, we've been there last March 2003 after our Highschool graduation. We stayed at Tabile's Beach resort (where my family used to stay when we go out of town...). The place was ok. Quite clean, have enough mattress for us to use, have a good water supply (they have a poso and faucets in the toilet area and kitchen lavatory), free use of the griller, electricity, and dining area.
Fast-forward....
After the permissions has been asked and coordinating with schedule availability,this is the list:Tere,Tep,Abc, Em, Kat, Rachel, Randy, Ewat, Junen(our batchmate during Highschool), Juls, Serg, Dane, Bec(my sister), and Boyet(Abc's cousin)
The planning part:
The Transportation-- we decided to assign Abc for this part, we will hire his Uncle's 18-seater jeepney for P5,000 inclusive of the driver(Abc's uncle), gas and toll fees.
The Accomodation--last 2003 the cottage cost us 700 per overnight stay. Such a cheap bargain for a one-roof cottage inclusive of a bedroom, a small veranda, toilet, and kitchen area. But wait, that's 6 years ago.... We had a rough estimate that the cost will definitely doubled or even tripled since we are going to Iba on a holiday (April 10-11). We end up having the accomodation would be at P2,500.00. And since Abc decides to bring his tent during the trip, the guys will spend overnyt at tent and the gals will be staying at the cottage where are valuable will be.
The food-- Since we will hire a private vehicle during this trip, might as well bring our baon with us. Eversince, food has never been an issue, we can squeeze a budget of a 1500-pesos for 15 people...hehe... What's important to us was to make this outing memorable as possible and be together. Well, P2,000 will be alotted to food and utensils...
The budget rounds up to a whopping.... P10,000.00. We were quite anxious about this big number. Since few of us have jobs and some were unemployed. In sharing, we must contribute at least P 700.00 each. But since due to the reason i mentioned, this will be a challenge. During out small meetings and SMS conversations, we decided that whoever can share a bigger amount than the 700-peso share they may do so to compensate the inability of the others. We then squeezed the budget to P500.00 each at least. Then we are set.
@April 9 - 9pm: Meeting place would be at Abc's house. This is eliminate the waiting time during our departure. I called Abc and told him that they can fetch me and Bec at around 3am since we have many things to bring like the stove, trays, some utensils, cooked chicken adobo, rice grain, a cooler (for ice and drinks) and some condiments.
The trip to Iba, Zambales will spend a 3-5 hour road trip via San Fernando exit NLEX. And since we decided to leave early, we expect to arrive on the place in 3 hours time.
Off we go to Iba....
Pinoy time! they arrive at our house at 4:00am.hehe ;-) But its fine. We will still encounter no traffic since its Good Friday and people tend to go to destinations during Holy Wednesday and leave the place at Black Saturday.
Before we continue the long drive on NLEX, we decided to have stopover to Shell Station in the middle of NLEX to buy some ice for the fish that we bought and other drinks. The tube ice cost us P35.00/bag. Its time to collect the contribution. We have collected a total of P 9,+++.00 which is enough for us since the budget for the food did not reach the expected 2thou.
Half-passed 5am, we arrived at San Fernando exit. After few minutes, we arrived at the crossroad leading to Olongapo and Bataan. We chose the one going to Olongapo, the drive to Zambales include a series of Zigzag roads. An hour thereafter, we arrived at Subic.
--Before this trip, Dane and me had a talk about another destination that we could try also in Zambales area. It was Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales... I am open to new ideas also to experience going to other places. But our thoughts with the other guys were seem to clash here. Because every was planned and WE ARE GOING TO IBA (period). Then, let it be.--
Arriving San Marcelino, Zambales... there are 2 routes: to Iba and to San Antonio. Well, Dane sat near to the driver and got the chance to tell the driver about the place he was telling us. To give Dane a chance, well might as well take a look on the place he was proposing. I often encounter the town of Pundaquit, San Antonio in few blogs about Anawangin cove (a place I am curious about..hmmm). When we got on the area of Canoe Beach resort in Pundaquit, the rooms were fully-booked because of the long holiday. Dane managed to bargain with the Front office personnel if we will be accomodated despite the jam-packed place. The online of expense for the accomodation was roughly P3,000.00 and we are only staying on a cottage by the beach and the public restroom while we wait to be checked in a room good for 10 people. It was 9am and the sun strikes unto our heads....hahaha, sobrang inet!!!!In the end we decided to go back to San Marcelino and proceed to Iba. We arrived at the Iba Public Market and decided to buy additional utensils, drinks, some food for breakfast, and fruits... And continue the journey to finding Tabile's beach resort.
Luckily, we spotted the signage and parked. Before getting off the car, me, Tep, and Abc go to the counter and negotiate for the cost of our accomodation. We end up at a rate of P2,500.00 inclusive of a private cottage, and additional charge for the excess people since we were 14 and the cottage can only accomodate 8 according to the owner. Well, not bad for the estimation we made. Because we were thinking that some of us will be using the tent, there will be less people sleeping in the cottage.
We finished organizing our things at passed lunch time. Good for us we got chicken adobo, salted egg with tomatoes, mangoes, bagoong, and hot rice for lunch. Everyone was hungry...didn't manage to get some pics. Its siesta time! Not a good idea to swim if you don't want to hurt your skin. Bonding moments with the guys.... some were palaying PSP, playing the guitar, Watching Slumdog Millionare(hehe), and of course, sleep.
The shores of Iba, was really intended for swimming because based on our experience, unlike on some beaches in Batangas, some parts of it were "biglang-lalim". In Iba, you will only encounter the deeper portion if you go farther from the shore. The only thing it differs from other beaches was its fine gray-coloured sand due to the Lahar content of the sand.
Spend time at the beach at around 4pm. The waves seemed to be bigger unlike before. We had fun catching the waves and jumping over them...hehe..We had lots of laughter and lots of photos also especially during the sunset. It was a picture-perfect moment...hhhaaayyy!!! My sister got a DicaPac for our Canon Powershot E1 so we can use it underwater....COOL!! Though we already tested it overnight submerged underwater with pieces of paper on it, we wanted it in action...
It is such a gamble to put your precious digital camera on a piece of plastic technology but we still tried. And we are happy on the results....the underwater shots were amazing(especially Dane's shot during the snokelling)!!!
We had a break and return to the cottage to replace the batteries for the digicam. Abc's uncle and Boyet offered to cook for dinner so we agreed. Our dinner includes: Grilled stuffed Milkfish, salted egg w/tomatoes (again ;)), leftover adobo, grilled tilapia, grilled eggplant w/ mango salsa, ripe mangoes, sliced melon, and hot rice. But wait, since I was not able to bring any pastry that my friends was looking for, i got them an activity of creating S'MORES: a roasted marshmallow with chocolate sandwich on graham crackers. hehe... Supposed to be the marshmallows should be roasted in an open fire to quickly soften but we don't have a bone fire so the heat from the grill will do. My sister loved it. Even our new found friend Junen told me its like in the TV show True Confections and of course my barkada. I am happy that they loved it.
After changing into our dry clothes ready to sleep. Serg ans Dane went to the nearby convenient store to buy some snacks. When they returned they bought an Ube ice cream and some packets of coffee and iced tea. Before sleeping we spend some time chatting while sharing the icecream by the beach. The sound of the waves was very relaxing... Afterwards, we return to the cottage and take positions to sleep. When we were asleep, Junen took the chance of taking our pictures.
Wake up at 6am and started to prepare breakfast. We have taho, fried egg, scrambled eggs, canned tuna afritada, spam, corned beef, instant pancit canton, bread, ripe mangoes, watermelon, and fried rice. After breakfast, we got a ride from a boatman for the snorkeling, he charged us P50.00/head(this is excluded in our budget). Abc's uncle, Kathe and Rachel were left in the cottage and the rest joined in the activity. During the snorkeling, there were few corals under, small jelly fishes and small fishes. It lasted for about 30 minutes, we have to go back because some of us felt dizzy (Julz even puked...)due to the waves and the smell of gasoline fumes from the boat's engine.
When we arrived in the beach, we saw Rachel waited for us. Upon getting off, Rachel told us that Em's mom was calling. So we returned immediately. Em was trying to get her one of her phones but the phone was missing (she have 2 phones). Both Kathe and Rachel heard the phone rang but did not bother to answer the call because its not theirs. According to the explanation after the incident, Kathe was about to go to the bathroom during the phone rang, she even saw the phone in the front pocket of Em's bag. Rachel on the otherhand was left in the room while Kathe is in the bathroom. Rachel explained that since the phone continuously rang, she wanted Em to know it so waited until we arrived from the snorkeling. The only wrong thing she had done was... to leave the cottage wherein she knew that Kathe is in the bathroom and no one will be there to look after our valuables since there was several cellphones, DSLR, PSP, and a laptop. She should have locked the door and let Kathe know that she will be leaving.
Well, eventhough some of us have questions regarding that unwanted incident, its time to pack up because our check out was at 12noon. During that time, I felt the tension between Em and Rachel. They were not confronting each other but I can sense it.
We paid the fee for the cottage to the owner, buy some pasalubong(mangoes!!!), and hit the road going to Rachel's mom in Pampanga to have lunch. We should have taken the old route to Pampanga but the driver decided to take Dane's advice to take the new route to SCTEX. The highway will lead to NLEX according to Dane. So lets give it a try. Unfortunately, since this road was still under construction, the exits to Pampanga were not accessible yet. So this journey took us way double the expected travel time. It's almost 5pm when we got to Porac, Pampanga and we were all starving. The late lunch but early dinner includes: Sinigang na Maya-Maya sa Miso, squid adobo, grilled tilapia, mangoes and rice. After the meal, Serg and the other guys, suggested for us to check on the bags and search for the missing cellphone. And nothing was found.
Hit the road again to drop by SM-Pampanga to deliver some of Em's Avon products to her couz. They spend about almost 20 minutes inside the mall to meet (the mall was quite big and have many entrance point. Finnaly, they arrived, I know they bought something but when they got near to us suddenly the "red box" vanished.......so all is set, we should continue the journey going home. In the middle of our trip, I saw Edward, Julz and Em seems doing something unusual...haha...
Ewat and Julz cannot manage to open the cake box...And Serg exclaimed, "Ate Tere, pikit ka!!" Nice one, they have a surprise for my birthday other than the spill-proof cup that they have given me. I was touched because that was the first time I was put into a surprise setup(though I immediately sensed their plan ;)hehe).
We arrived at Malinta Exit, at 8:00pm. They decided to send us home first. Upon arrival to our house I invited them to have a snack while we view my shots in the screen.hehe... I got 300++ shots...hahahahaha.... :)
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