Foot and Fire

While planning for our Siquijor trip, I was looking forward to an array of gayuma and other amulets in bottles, small pillow charms, necklace and other pieces for pasalubang but I wrongly anticipated the charm of this island dubbed as the Island of Fire. They do not sell them indiscriminately and one has to purposely go to the mountains and see the faith healers if one really wants to "design" or "cook" a love potion or gayuma, killer portion or hiwit and other more medicines, protection and charms of sort. I am no expert on this, so forgive the amateurish introduction. What I got: It is the smiles of the folks, a thread that sew the common blanket of Filipino trait of warmth and welcoming. Here are some photos of interesting bits I photographed as we roam around Siquijor. POSTCARD FROM SAN JUAN, SIQUIJOR: By the waterway where spring water flow,  residents bathe and do their laundry in this common area. POSTCARD FROM SIQUIJOR: The woman is all smiles...

POSTCARD FROM PIER 3, DUMAGUETE. Having arrived from Siquijor, we were here waiting for a pick up from Harold's Place where we booked our Twin Lake and Casaroro Falls Trip. Photo by Maria O Palmes.  Preparing for our itinerary, I found out that there are almost no blog and sites giving updated tips on travelling to Siquijor from Bacolod City. The latest I got was 2008. Hence, I made it a point to include here some useful tips for those who want to see, touch and taste Siquijor. Our journey started in Bacolod. To save the money for the lodgings, we took the night or special trip of Ceres South Terminal (Tel. No. 034-4334993) and slept the night in the bus. Ask for the special night trip from Bacolod to Dumaguete (Regular Fare as of August 2012, P320; bring your ID for discounts) as you won't be given the idea of this trip if you ask for the first and last trip only (B-D it's 12mn; D-B it's 1am). Ceres is a bus with seats and since the travel is nighttime, ...

The beach is not only about waters. It is all about life within the ecosystem too. Sandugan beach area of Larena, Siquijor is not without any offering in this department. Here are my takes of the life in the fine white sand of Siquijor Island from starfishes as wide as my hand to urchins of many hues from black to blue... This is the part II of Mystery of Syquijor Unravelled blog ... Black sea urchins Black sea urchins joined by a red orange one... red orange hue ... some weeds weeds? must be seaweeds... starfish as big as my palm seaweed another sea urchin? like im in a hundred islands corals and starfish interesting organism seaweed colorful sea urchin... Residents gather the yellow content of the sea urchin and use it in an omelette or boil the shell whole and use the soup.... fishes black and orange-blue hue... No sunset but still smiling... sand formation... refined sand, wh...