Siquijor is its own little island province and the coastal road that circles the island is only 72km long. It's a quiet island, with lots of small villages. Beaches ring the perimeter and [small] mountains in the interior hide waterfalls and quarries and rumors of healers brewing traditional medicines.
So you know what we did as soon as we woke up on Sunday morning, right?
After a relaxing and low key Saturday evening, we spent the day Sunday exploring the island, adding to our rice paddy photo collection (rice is just so green and pretty!):
Checking out the beaches:
And rounding bends in the road to find gorgeous coves:
We visited the coral-stone San Antonio de Padua Church built in 1857 in the village of Lazi.
Since it was Sunday, there were services going on. The entire town seemed to be gathered in the shade of the enormous and awesome tree in front of the church enjoying their Sunday. We got lots of attention pulling up on our bike.
We stopped interrupting their Sunday and headed up into the mountains to visit the Cambugahay Falls. We'd been warned of "Organized Child Crime" (seriously, that was the warning) at the falls and heard stories of children hanging out in trees until a wallet or camera was left unattended and quickly climbing down and grabbing it. So we left the cameras locked in the bike seat. I looked around and didn't see anyone hanging out in trees, but I didn't feel like hiking back to the road at that point, so you'll have to just imagine it.
The falls were lovely though, several levels of cool green pools (similar to the ones in Laos). A group of guys was hanging out when we arrived and there was only one other woman there, so I skipped the actual swimming (I didn't feel like stripping down to a bathing suit with the audience), but Kyle jumped in and did a flip off of one of the ledges to great applause from the onlookers.
When we were nice and cooled off, we headed back to Lazi to peek inside the church (I loved the blue ceiling and the gorgeous wooden floors!)
We'd considered staying on Siquijor longer, but we wanted to get a dive in and needed to head back to Dumaguete to arrange a trip, so Sunday evening we took the ferry back. This time we booked with a different ferry company though--one that offered open windows, fresh air, and a sun deck if you wanted it. Still, none of the ferries are exactly luxury travel:
One so-long shot of Siquijor through the window:
(The windows did get closed halfway through the trip though because everyone was getting wet.)
Then we headed to the island of Negros.