In Transit: Masbate Islands

I don’t know anything about Masbate except for the fact that one of our neighbours used to live there. The only reason why we’ve decided to go to the island was to take another boat that would take us to Iloilo.

Here are some facts about Masbate from Wowbicol.com.

“Like an Indian arrowhead, Masbate lies almost at the center of the Philippine archipelago with its tip pointing towards the north of Asia Gulf extending towards the China Sea. The island province sprawls with verdant rolling hills and green landscape and rich aquatic reserve. The wild wild west comes alive in the island every year. Every May, the country’s local cowboys flock to the capital town of Masbate to display their power over untamed cattle during its festival called Rodeo Filipino. In this international fair, the arena burst with fun and excitement and shouting.”

The boat ride from Pilar, Sorsogon to Masbate City took around four to five hours and cost us P200 per person. It was such a scenic and relaxing boat ride where we saw a lot of small islands with limestone cliffs and we saw some dolphins too.

We only spent one night in the city and we went straight to Kalachuchi the following morning where we would take the boat to Iloilo.

Unfortunately, there were no boats going to Estancia, Iloilo that day but there’s one that’s going to Roxas, Capiz the next day. We’ve decided to spend the night on the boat instead and wait for the Capiz trip.

The place looks like a fishing village. There were a lot of local travellers that were also bound to Iloilo that stayed on the boat like us.

Due to extreme boredom, we’ve decided to make some fishing rod out of some tree branches and some nylon strings that we just found somewhere. We didn’t find any hooks though so we ended up just throwing everything away.

I bought some bread and threw small bits into the water that attracted some fishes. I was so bored and at the same time excited for the trip to Panay Island.

I’m sure there are a lot of nice places to see in Masbate but we didn’t explore that much anymore because we were excited to do an overland trip in Panay Island to Boracay.

After more than twenty four hours of waiting, we finally left Masbate for Capiz. The boat ride was around eight to ten hours and cost us around P400.

A family traveling to Roxas from Masbate