Day 22

Today we climbed a nearby hill that overlooks the harbor and Mayon volcano. It was a lovely view. Afterwards we took a walk through what appeared to be a squatter’s settlement right by the beach. Many of the houses were built on stilts using local materials like bamboo and thatch roofs. There were some Mangrove trees in the area and many of the houses were perched over the sea water. Here we were finally able to find some more nice guayabanos (soursop) and star apples.

We plan to leave tomorrow for Samar and Leyte, mountainous islands directly south. We will be taking our first inter-island ferries on this leg of the journey and expect to be traveling through many coastal areas. We will probably pass nearby to the area featured in the news recently were torrential rains resulted in a landslide that killed hundreds.