Twitching and Touring

There are 7107 islands making up the Philippines archipelago so visiting yet another island is an easy option on the sightseeing list.

Olango Island is a short ferry ride from Mactan Island where Cebu Airport is located and the ferry terminal is located right next door to the Hilton Hotel, which looks as though the external paint scheme was chosen by Paris as it's bright pink. It doesn't exactly blend in with the surrounding environment.

The Pink Hilton Hotel

I say that it's only a short ferry ride to Olango Island but the ferry is the slowest I've ever been on, travelling at a mere 4mph it seem to take ages.

Olango is famous for its bird watching sanctuary as it is on the one of the principle bird migratory routes so having taken our bikes we took the short cycle ride to the reserve. The entrance fee to the reserve was Php100 but for locals it's only Php20. I love the two tier pricing for tourists. If only we had it in the UK.

When we wanted to head out to the observatory to see the birds I was told that I'd have to pay an extra Php500 if I wanted to take photographs. So let me get this right: I pay 5 times what a local pays to enter the reserve and then I'm expected to pay an extra Php500 just to take some sodding photos. Consequently, I had a bit of an argument with the staff and they conceded that I only needed to pay if I was going to take photos like the one on the wall (which was a full frame photo of some wader) and as I pointed out that I'd left my 1000mm super-telephoto lens for my compact camera at home I was highly unlikely to be able take a photo of such clarity. As it turned out, at the bird hide (which wasn't very hidden) the nearest birds were but mere dots on the horizon. I doubt if even Hubble Telescope could have managed a full frame photo at that distance so I was pleased I hadn't paid the Php500.

Bird Watching Platform

I stayed at the observatory for as long as I could but as there were a couple of kids there banging around and jumping up and down I figured that if they were irritating me the chances of some kid loving birds coming close were negligible. Added to which, there was some local wandering around in the shallows collecting shells and dressed like a scarecrow so I reckoned the chances of seeing anything worthwhile were zilch.

We had lunch back at the reserve's entrance but I had no appetite as it was unbelievably hot and humid.

Shortly afterwards we were back on our bikes and heading off to a beach. Not much to do there except fall asleep in the sun.

The good news, so I was told, was that we were going back on a super-fast pump boat so no more dilly-dalling on clunky old ferry. In reality, once on board the pump boat we had to sit there for an hour as they won't leave until they're full, so it kind of defeated the object as the ferry left before the pump boat and was back before us. But none of that matters because it was "faster" than the ferry!

Going back there was quite a heavy swell and at one point a huge wave crashed over the side of the boat swamping it and causing the onset of some panic and hysteria in some of the passengers. I nearly became a Philippines shipping accident statistic but at least it livened the day up.

Bird Life (Caged)