We have been on Boracay for nearly a month (three weeks this time and almost another week last month), and we are leaving in a couple of days, so I thought I would share some photos. This one will contain a bunch of photos, and, thankfully, not much writing to bore you to tears.
Enjoy!
First, I have to say, this place (particularly the West side of the island) is stupid crowded. Crowded like Los Angeles beaches on Labor Day weekend. Or worse.
This is not so bad, where we are staying on the East side (the kiteboarder side) of the island. It’s actually pretty quiet and pleasant most of the time.
The other side, though…
Miles of beach that looks like this. Every day. Every night.
Can’t enjoy the sunset through all the tourists and scammy tourist sunset boats.
So, we went for a walk to get away (another one of Tam’s “lets just go look around that next corner” death marches).
The water has this crazy green color to it from some heavy algae bloom. The kids have hours of fun getting in fights with the piles of the stuff, throwing it at each other, and rolling in it like piles of freshly-raked leaves back home.
We found this wrecked hotel, called the West Bay Resort. This was partially destroyed by the government for the sudden, government mandated six-month “clean up” of Boracay in 2018, where the government demolished any buildings within thirty meters of the water and permanently closed as many as four hundred resorts and business for draining waste into the “cesspool” bays and ocean surrounding the island. They left them in a semi-demolished state, and are now just waiting for the remainder to completely decay on their own. The plan worked. Boracay is much cleaner than it was prior to the “clean up”, but now there are these strange ruins everywhere.
It is still pretty here.
There are so many great limestone rock formations to explore.
And, after the walk, we had dinner and another crowded sunset. It still has a certain beauty to it, though.
After a nice dinner and another crowded sunset we walked out on this weird floating dock made of thousands of Lego Block-like plastic squares. We were way out there, and we couldn’t believe how lucky we were to have the whole floating dock to ourselves. We sat and enjoyed a great conversation for a half-hour, while looking back towards the madness that is Boracay West Beach. It was a really pleasant place to sit and get away from the crowds…
And then the police showed up to tell us we couldn’t be out there.
Wind, Water, Waves, Wander 