Beach Break

Every volunteer needs a break every once in a while, so on the Sunday before Christmas, we went to Tulaan, a beach nearby. All volunteers work six days a week (Monday – Saturday) with a two-day weekend once a month, so the Sunday agenda is pretty vital to relax after a hard week of work. We woke up around 9:00am and piled into Melvin’s jeepney, eager for the beach day to help us unwind.

Everyone packed into Melvin’s Jeepney for a fun day at the beach!

Obligatory “out the window” shot of us driving. There will be more of these

Armed with three bottles of Tanduay and not much else, we cruised the open road, singing along to Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” like we were jumping in the hoopty hoopty hoop. We decided that since there wouldn’t be much food at the beach, we’d stop by a market and buy a bunch of food to barbecue for lunch. I took the opportunity to get some coconut buns and a bottle of C2, which is an apple-flavoured green tea and is absolutely amazing.

Stingrays we saw at the market where we got food for lunch. We didn’t buy these, but we did end up getting a bunch of veggies, fish, chicken, and pork

View from the market

After leaving the market with three more bottles of Tanduay and our food, it was only a short while until we arrived at Tulaan. Melvin parked the jeepney and we made our way out of the parking lot and down to the water.

The beach! We rented out this hut to store everyone’s stuff and hang out when we weren’t exploring the beach or in the water

Me trying to be artsy fartsy

Shot of the whole beach from our hut

While everyone else put on sunscreen and decided to go into the water, I wanted to explore the beach a bit. Call it a fear of getting cuts on rocks in the water and then having to work in E. Coli water or my lack of foresight in forgetting to pack a bathing suit, but I hadn’t gone on a walk by myself or climbed over rocks in a while so that’s exactly what I decided to do.

So walking down the beach I found this cool spot where I ended up taking tons of pictures. This is the first of many

…aaaand this is the second of many. Check out that sky reflection and the person passing by right in the middle of the frame. Trying to be artsy fartsy again

Same part of the beach as above but taken from the point of view of the person passing by

Pretty beachhhhh

Picture of the beach after I walked pretty far from our hut on my own by the rocks

An endless supply of rocks to walk over and explore

Found a hut and table further down the beach after the rocks

Kasia also exploring the rocky area of the beach and taking some pictures from the water

I love this place

I met up with Kasia who also seemed to be wandering the beach and taking heaps of pictures, but I ran out of water pretty quickly after so I headed back to the hut to fill up. When I got back, Melvin was getting ready to cook the pork, fish, chicken, veggies, and squid that we picked up at the market so I stayed for a bit and watched the master on the barbecue.

Melvin cooking lunch for the group on the barbecue

Remember when I said I found this cool spot and took a bunch of pictures? Well I went back and got a color one

Ash got drunk so Josh made sure he stayed hydrated

Oh yeah, we also had squid for lunch

After we finished eating everything off of banana leaves that Melissa found, the group decided to walk to a waterfall that was supposedly 100 meters from the beach. It was probably actually more like 800 meters, but no one was really able to explain the metric system to the folks who didn’t use it, and we ended up just walking anyway.

After lunch, the group takes a walk to a waterfall nearby

Walking to the waterfall

After walking on the muddy path for a bit, we arrived at the waterfall! Everyone jumped into the pool at the bottom of the falls while I scampered around taking pictures of everything from the safety of the rocks around the water.

We made it to the waterfall!

Everyone enjoying the pool at the bottom of the falls

View downstream

As close as I could get without getting my camera wet

Mustafa standing in the falls

Melvin letting the water wash over him

Pretty picture of the road

Pretty picture of the road the other way

After walking back from the waterfall, I made my way down the less rocky side of the beach. It was great to see the locals hanging out in their huts with homecooked meals on a lazy Sunday, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I got some pretty great pictures on this side of the beach too!

After the waterfall, I walked down the other end of the beach to find this dock

And more huts

Boat tied to a tree down the beach. This is my second favorite picture I took this day. The favorite is…

Stunning.

Me probably thinking about something

We stayed at the beach until sunset, when we packed up our bags and headed back to the jeepney to make the trip back to base.

Was able to catch this boat on the water with the sunset in the background right before we left

With the hard work we do during the week and the constant feeling of being exhausted, I’m really glad a group of us put in the extra energy to wake up and see the island a bit on our day off. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we all deserve a break from time to time, and even though the work we are doing requires us to be present during the entire week plus Saturday, a trip to the beach is sometimes necessary. After all, staying at base and blogging/sleeping/eating isn’t the only way to feel refreshed for the work week ahead!