Boracay

Just in front of our hotel.
Crystal clear waters.

All right, I have already shown you the exquisite sunsets in Boracay, so today I will tell you a bit more about the island.  

Sue and I

The sand is the whitest and finest I have ever seen and the resorts and hotels groom it every day to keep it clean.   The sea graduates from a light turquoise to a darker blue and is amazingly clear and very warm to swim in.  There is quite a bit of movement along the beach, with may people walking and boats sailing to and fro.  The difficult side is the hawkers who want to sell you cold drinks, pearls, sunglasses or give you manicures.  Although they try to sell, I did find that they would take no for an answer and move on.  We saw one or two beggars in the town center, but that is not the norm, despite the locals often living in fairly primitive conditions.  

The hotel bar and restaurant

Fragrant frangipani
outside our room

The place we stayed at was right on the beach and the restaurant was open-air, with sand for a floor.  In the mornings I would wander down (barefoot), select a table and settle my chair into the sand.  A towel on three sunloungers would secure them for us for the day.  And so began each day!  We watched this frangipani unfurl itself over the course of the week until is was the spectacular sight you see here.  Before going into any room you were expected to stand on a bamboo slatted mat and rinse your feet with water from an urn that the staff filled up each day.

There are urns with
water at every
entrance to wash
your feet with

Kite surfers on the other side
of the island.

On the other side of the island (at that point the island is only about 300 meters wide) there was a blustery breeze and we estimated about 100 kitesurfers.  A truly stunning sight!

One massive prawn!

Local fish at the
market

There was a vast array of food to select from, but the fish was probably the most outstanding.  I have truly never seen prawns the size of these!   We also had fresh crab - and they were BIG suckers!  The scallops were small, but presented in a cream sauce with fried garlic bits on top - very nice!  One day Sue and I went into the village and ate lunch at a Greek restaurant, where the specialty was flaming cheese!  Very spectacular.

Flamed cheese
starter at the
Greek restaurant