I awoke early again and thought to catch my first glimpse of "paradise" since there was not much of an expansive view last night. I got my camera ready and stepped outside on to the deck. Ahhhhhh. So beautiful. Truly a million-dollar view. I popped the lens cap off my camera to capture the moment and all of sudden my lens was completely fogged over. I opened the door to our room, stuck my camera inside the door until the lens cleared and then quickly snapped a picture. Even at that, I think it was still a little foggy. There wasn't much I could do, the fogging over was pretty instantaneous. I think my first shot was about the best one I got.
Kristen and Chris were up around 6 am. Chris needed more minutes for his phone, so the three of us walked down the hill to the outskirts of town to the closest tindahan (small roadside store) to purchase more minutes. Kristen and I walked along the shore and found some pretty cool shells while we waited. We decided to try and find the "private beach" access to our hotel. It couldn't really be that spot on the far end of the beach covered in inches of algae could it? Yes. Yes, it could. Uggh. It was mushy to walk over, each step disturbed the flies, and it stunk. Apparently, that private beach area isn't so lovely until the winds change for the season. That water was pretty amazing though.
We had thought that the girls would be able to swim starting at 6:30 am (we were all up and about then) but there was conflicting information. Sadly, they had to wait until 8:00 am. Oh well, we didn't enforce the "don't swim for an hour after you eat" rule. We chose to eat breakfast at the hotel. People on TripAdvisor had raved about the mango pancakes so we decided to try them. They were delicious, but breakfast turned out to be our most expensive meal of the day.
The girls sunscreened up and swam the morning away. The pool had direct sunlight and the temps were hot; I tried to stay in the shady part of the pool. The Palm Beach Villa was a small resort--there were only five rooms--so we were careful about keeping the girls' noise and roughhousing to a minimum. Running around the pool was a no-no; the tiles were uber slippery even if you were walking carefully. Misha actually crashed once and learned quickly to be careful.
After spending time making calls to the airlines, Chris was finally able to reach a young women named Let who seemed the most helpful. He was able to ask for her by name each time he called, but still, no luck. His spirits were definitely deflated. Subsequently the rest of us were pretty bummed as well.
We spent a leisure morning by the pool resting and watching the bay. Such a beautiful scene. I was able to take pictures without fogging my camera as the sun rose.
We chose to go exploring after the girls had been swimming for awhile. We wanted to see what this D'Mall was all about and then check out the White beach on the other side of the island. Apparently it had beautiful sandy beaches that were top-rated. It was also the windier side of the island at this time of the year with much more action, noise, and....algae. Yep, the drawback of the wind was that it blew the algae up to the shoreline. Pretty disgusting. It was about a fifteen-minute walk from our hotel to the other side of the island. We walked around the D'Mall a bit. It was an outdoor mall with shops. Nothing like you might be thinking if you are referencing a mall in the United States. But it was busy with people and great for people watching. We checked out White Beach as well and then decided that lunch was necessary.
We made our way back to this crazy restaurant called The Hobbit House. Misha even took pictures of it for her friend. Our waiters were also little people as the restaurant claimed to have the shortest waiters around. The service was slow and Misha's plate was even taken to another table. While we waited I took Kristen to the restroom back at the mall. I had to collect 5 pesos from Chris before leaving to pay for the experience of picking up our toilet paper at the door. When we returned, we realized that our restaurant had its own CR. Oh well.
We found a small grocery at the entrance to the D'Mall and decided to pick up a few snacks, more bottled water, and breakfast items for the next two days. We were able to find cereal, milk, and juice. As we reached the beach on the south side of the island, Kristen and Misha wanted to swim and snorkel. It was shady and much nicer--no wind, no gross algae. Chris and Amy returned to the room with the groceries and to pick up the snorkels. Amy very obviously scrunched up her nose as she squished across the algae patch to our hotel beach, but it was just a much faster route.
While Kristen, Misha, and I waited in a shady spot, we collected shells, waded in the water, and steered clear of the "jellies". They were tiny and cute, but we were later told their sting was much more potent. After Chris and Amy's effort to return with the snorkels, the girls all decided they would rather swim in the hotel pool. Kids.
We wandered back over the algae again. Ugh. Chris started talking with the Palm Breeze manager, Marisel, and a few other ladies. The girls didn't care to wait for him and so jumped in the pool. It was as warm as a bath tub. Not terribly refreshing, and that is something coming from me, I am not a fan of cold water. When Chris got in with the girls, I got out and showered. It was nice to have clean hair.
The girls were browning up quickly. Amy had a bit of sunburn on her nose and more freckles emerging. She didn't care for the freckles, but I thought they were adorable.
We didn't realize it because our hotel had a generator, but there was a brown out on the island (the power was out). I can't imagine if we didn't have air conditioning. We trooped back down to the White Beach side of the island for dinner. I noticed the candles burning in many of the shacks and tindahans along the way.
I was wearing flip flops and could feel the sand rubbing between my flip flop strap and my sunburned foot. Ouch. Don Vito's Ristorante Italiano was our choice for the evening. We all ordered pizza to share. Our waiter was nutso. He didn't seem to understand English or Tagalog and seemed to just stare off at the beach. Kind of freaky was what it was. We wanted to change the girls' water order to sodas, but he said no, we think, that they were already prepared. Whatever. After dinner, we started back toward the other side of the island and stopped for ice cream. We realized too late, that the ice cream bars had suffered from the brown out, and the ice cream melted within minutes.
To go along with our cereal for breakfast, we stopped at the bakery across from the main grocery store and picked up some pandesol. It wouldn't be fresh in the morning, but the girls would eat it regardless. We tried to refill our water bottles. Some motorcycle-driving dude stopped right in front of the shop and nearly knocked Chris over while succeeding in slicing Chris' leg. Crazy drivers here. The water shop was closed anyway. We were a bunch of tired Americans at this point and decided to hire a trike to take us back up to the hotel. Chris bargained on the price. The driver, thinking he would have an easy fare with some Americans, wasn't happy to hear Chris speak. I climbed in to the back with the girls and the driver pointed at me and said in broken English that since I was heavier, I needed to be up front to balance the weight. Bastos (rude).
We should have just taken that as a sign. His engine was not terribly powerful and struggled with all five of us, him, and his friend on the flat surfaces. As we began to climb the hill to the hotel, it was immediately apparent that our driver knew we weren't going to make it. Both he and his friend tried to move their weight forward as they sat on the motorcycle. Chris and I, sitting inside the trike, both quickly took a cue from the driver and tried to sit forward as well. To no avail, and suddenly, I'm thinking as we veer toward a tree, "We're going to crash." The driver slowed enough that I was able to climb out along with my girls as I shouted, "Get out!" The sneaky guy took off again with Chris still in the trike. He didn't want to lose his fare. He didn't make it a lot further up the road before he had to stop again.
We gratefully returned to our rooms and the cool comfort of the air conditioner. The girls began getting ready for bed. Kristen had just headed in to the bathroom when all of sudden she came exploding out the bathroom with her underwear and shorts around her ankles, screaming, "There's a bug. There's a bug." All three girls jumped on their beds as though they had rehearsed such an event. Girls, let us introduce you to Mr. Cockroach. Misha was on her bed spouting, "A cockroach can live for up to nine days once it loses its head...." Not helping. In Kristen's defense, the cockroach was about two inches in length. Chris cornered it behind the bathroom door and smashed it. When he returned to check on it, it still wasn't dead. Ugh. Another smashing required and much calming of our children.
You should know that Kristen never used that bathroom again for our entire stay. I'm surprised she even stayed in the room to sleep.