A travel & adventure blog by Kara Santos
On the first day of 2014, I took a solo motorcycle ride as a “good luck ride” for the year ahead. I ended up finding a very nice waterfall not that far from the city. This relatively unknown waterfall that’s just an hour away from the Quezon City area is a promising weekend destination for motorcyclists and mountain bikers.
Continue reading “Palo Alto Falls & Leisure Park in Baras, Rizal”
It seems like only yesterday when I decided to put up this blog to chronicle my real and virtual adventures. But here I am, writing the third edition of a year-ender post, which is apparently my 200th blogpost as well! Time flies when you’re having fun. It’s been a really awesome year in gaming (separate post on this) and not a bad year in terms of travel. I wasn’t able to travel internationally, but I discovered a few off-the-beaten path destinations closer to home and got to tick a few places off my bucket list. Here are some achievements unlocked and noteworthy adventures in 2013:
Beyond: Two Souls is an interactive drama action-adventure video game for the PlayStation 3 console starring actors Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. It was developed by French developer Quantic Dream, the same team behind the hit Heavy Rain.
Released just last October 2013, the game has received mixed reactions from critics. I was excited about it when it first came out, but after one playthrough, I found the whole gaming experience a bit disappointing. Overall, playing Beyond: Two Souls feels like watching a bunch of (cool) cutscenes, where your actions have very little bearing on what happens. Continue reading “Game Review: Beyond: Two Souls”
With its refreshing view of the mountains and cool breeze, the Sierra Madre Hotel & Resort in Tanay, Rizal is a favorite stopover for motorcycling and mountain biking enthusiasts.
This homey resort is very easy to get to from Quezon City. Just take the Katipunan road heading towards Marcos Highway, straight on past Cogeo market, through the twisty mountain roads, and you’ll eventually find yourself at the hotel located along the highway. The road is very well maintained and not a lot of cars pass here, which makes the drive a very pleasant one. Continue reading “The Sierra Madre Hotel & Resort, Tanay”
For a small, laid-back town, Coron in Palawan has a lot of restaurants serving a variety of international fare catering mostly to foreign tourists. However, it’s not the most budget-friendly place to eat. Dining out can be pretty expensive here, so you’ll want to plan your meals strategically or choose only a few good ones. If you’re planning to spend the holidays in Coron, here’s a rough guide on the best places to eat around the Coron town proper. For things to do, see my previous posts on Coron.
Continue reading “Food Trip: Coron”Most people equate Vigan with the historic Calle Crisologo. With its cobblestone streets, old Spanish style houses, horse-drawn carriages, and old world charm, it’s easy to see why Calle Crisologo is considered one of the most beautiful streets in the country. I admit, walking around here during one afternoon to look at furniture and souvenir shops is actually my only memory of Vigan from a previous visit some years back.
The areas of Laguna, Quezon and Batangas are ideal for quick day or weekend trips from Manila. I usually like taking solo motorcycle rides to the Sierra Madre area (passing through the Marikina-Rizal highway) for some fresh air during the weekend. But for those who drive cars, most of the destinations are quicker via SLEX. In fact, the famed Viaje del Sol route lists many charming and unique places that celebrate Filipino culture, that you can visit on your road trip.
Continue reading “Road Trip: Cafe Lago & Lake Pandin, Laguna”
One of the most memorable trips I took this year was to Tawi-Tawi. This island province located in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is the southernmost province of the Philippines. Often misunderstood by the outside world and the rest of the Philippines, Tawi-Tawi is not your typical tourist destination. The concerns about the peace and order situation in the surrounding areas have kept the place relatively off the tourist radar. I know only a handful of travelers who have ventured to this part of the country for a vacation. That’s probably the main reason why I wanted to go there in the first place. Thanks to a trip to Zamboanga City earlier this year, I got to tick Tawi-Tawi off my bucket list.
Thank God I didn’t insist on driving my own motorbike. That was all I could think of on what seemed like never-ending stretches of dirt roads from Coron to Calauit. Our destination was Calauit Safari Park, a game preserve where animals roam freely, located on a small island at the tip of Busuanga, Palawan. A map showed that it was roughly 70 km away from the Coron Town proper and locals said it could be reached in about 2-3 hrs time by motorbike. But like a real life version of Excitebike, the terrain seemed to challenge us with increasing levels of difficulty the longer we drove. There are dirt roads, then there are demented dirt roads. This was the latter dialed up a notch.
It’s hard to just go about our lives with the widespread devastation left by super typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan. The catastrophic typhoon battered many provinces in the Visayas region including Tacloban, Samar, Bantayan, Camotes, Negros, the Calamianes group of Islands and Panay. While it may take weeks to get an accurate tally of the devastation, it’s widely believed that thousands perished in the storm.
I know that for many people who are safe at home in Manila and elsewhere in the world, seeing the photos online is just overwhelming and we all want to do something concrete to help. I’m really thankful for the outpouring of support from other countries and from fellow Filipinos eager to do something to help. Aside from donating cash and relief goods to major disaster relief agencies, here are some creative ways and suggestions I’ve seen online from fellow travel bloggers and groups in my network how we can help in our own way. Continue reading “How you can help in #YolandaPH relief efforts”
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