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Oslob Whale Sharks.
We argued over the air con last night, I don't understand why Chris can't have the room at a normal temperature instead of feeling like we are sleeping in a bloody igloo! I won the argument in the end and we both slept very well. We woke up at 7am, good job we did, building work started at 7:30am right on the other side of our wall!
Everyone was already up in the house. We spoke to the owner about the whale shark tours and she gave us a breakdown of the cost for fins, snorkels, swimming fee and our own guides and boat. It only came to P1000 so we said we would book it through them, we just needed to get some cash out from an ATM. We asked the owner where the nearest cash machine was and he just laughed at us and said there weren't any near. The nearest ATM was at least two hours away! The area really was in the middle of nowhere. They told us we would have to get a bus to a port, take a boat across to an island then a tricycle. We really wanted to swim with the sharks today so we decided to go straight away. We only had until 12:30 midday to do the tours, so the owner kindly gave us a lift to the port and also agreed to pay for our tickets until we got back.
We had to wait about 45 minutes for the boat so we had something to eat. We were the only tourists there, in fact we hadn't seen another tourist since we were in Cebu.
When we got on the boat it took half an hour to get across, we jumped straight into a tricycle and asked the driver to take us to a cash machine as quick as possible and then back again. It took half an hour to get there and back and we just made the boat heading across at 10am. We were doing great for time, we didn't even have to wait for a bus back to where we were staying. We showed the driver the address the owner had written down for us then took a seat. Well I say seat but we were actually sitting on tiny plastic stools placed in the aisle. We didn't mind though, we knew we were only ten minutes away.
When the driver stopped and told us we had arrived I turned to Chris and said we were in the wrong place. Neither of us had been concentrating on where we were so when we got off we were both confused and lost. We were right outside the whale shark tour place but where was the house? It was only one road how could we be lost? We showed the address to someone on the road and they said we were in the right place, so we started walking.
Nothing looked familiar, we were so hot and were walking up hill, we argued with each other for about fifteen minutes until we reached a sign saying 'You are now leaving Tan-Awan.' Great! We must have walked the wrong way! So we caught the first Jeep Jeep that came by and kept our eyes open for the house.
We didn't realise how far we had walked in just fifteen minutes, then just past the whale shark tour place was the house! It was just around the bend which was why we didn't see it when we were dropped. The owner was outside waiting for us and said he was worried we wern't coming back without paying first (As if we would leave our bags).
We quickly ran in and got our swim stuff then went over the road with the owner to the boat area. Nothing has been developed fully yet, we were given a briefing under a canopy in an open area. It looks as if a resort is being built in the area but other than that, at the moment there is just a ticket counter and the sea. We asked about our fins and Chris's snorkel. They came back with just two pairs, Chris's were too small but he managed to squeeze his feet in anyway and my fins were ridiculously too big. It was frustrating because they just looked at me at first as if I could suddenly grow bigger feet. Then after moaning they went and found some oversized boots and large fins with straps. I managed to get them on but I wasn't sure how they would be in the water.
Once our gear was sorted out we were taken to our own little boat. We were given baby size life jackets which we took off as soon as we were away from the shore, the guides didn't care as long as we could swim.
We were only between thirty and forty meters away from the shore when we saw our first whale shark. It was swimming along with a small fishing boat because fishermen feed them krill. We jumped into the water straight away for a closer look. It was amazing! The huge spotted creature wasn't at all fazed by us, we were able to swim within a meter of it.
It was great but there were a lot of people there splashing about in the water, I saw one person grab the shark by its tail. The fishermen and guides did shout at people when they got too close but not everyone listens. We liked swimming down beneath the sharks and looking up at them, for that short moment it's quiet and we felt alone with the animal.
At one point we were swimming with three sharks, the smallest was about four meters and we think the other two were about six meters long.
We swam with them for about fifty minutes then got back on the boat, it was a great experience and we have decided to go again first thing tomorrow morning when, hopefully there are less people.
We ate in a cheap local resturant while we dried off. The food was nice, they seem to serve the same dishes for breakfast lunch and dinner though, pork belly, pork steaks, chicken and rice. We decided to add dried fish heads to mix things up. They weren't bad!
We drank a hot choccy each then started on the beers, then we went to a local shop and bought a very cheap one litre bottle of Boracay Coconut Rum for just P80! (Thats about £1.10p).
We took it back to the restaurant and asked for two fresh coconuts. We drank half the milk then filled them up with the rum, mmm it tasted like heaven!
It didn't take us long to finish the bottle off, we got talking to a girl named Hope that worked at the restaurant. She was 17 yrs old and invited us to go back to her town for a drink later with her friends. We had nothing better to do and we thought it would be nice to drink with some locals so we agreed. It was only 4pm, we got on the jeep jeep twenty minutes to Oslob town and bought another bottle of rum and a large coke. We were expecting to sit in a bar or someones house but instead she took us to a quiet park by the sea next to an old Spanish Cathedral. We felt a bit awkward at first because Hope and her friends were a lot younger than us and we told them that we wouldn't be sharing any of our alcohol with them. Hope said she doesn't drink anyway and a few of her friends tried to convince us that they were old enough to drink but we didn't want to be responsible or take any risks. Plus it was our rum and we didn't want to share it anyway lol.
Hope got us some cups from her house and we watched the sun go down. Hopes brother and two of his friends came a bit later. The boys told us they were in a famous dance group so we asked them to show off some of their moves. We clapped but personally we didn't think they were very good. Hope taught us how to do the doggy and I taught them all how to rolly polly with a star jump at the end. They thought I was actually being serious! The youngest girl, Hopes sister really liked it, then a few other young kids nearby came over and joined in! I felt like a teacher in a PE lesson lol. Then Chris got into a pyramid with them all.
We felt pretty drunk by the time we finished the second bottle of rum and were hungry so we went and got some food at a local street barbecue. We ended up getting dinner for us two, Hope and her whole family for just P67. It was nice to meet her mum although all she wanted to talk about was god and religion.
At about 10pm we decided to call it a night. We waited ages for a bus but when one came it drove straight past us. Hopes brother ended up dropping us back on his moped, I wasn't to happy about it but we had no choice. It took about twenty minutes to get back, Chris enjoyed the ride but I didn't. The road was so dark!
We must have got back at about 11pm, everyone was asleep so we tried to be quiet coming in and went straight to bed.
Charlotte & Chris
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Brook Williams Tan-awan, Oslob, Cebu is now one of the tourist destination because of the oslob whale shark being feed by the local fisherman.