March 24th 2015 Peneplata, Samal- Driving around Samal Island

This is Lloyds motorcycle that I rented for 7 hours for 500 pesos. Trust me, it was way better than the others they were trying to rent me.

This is on the south side of Samal Island.

I saw this dog walking and it looked like Golum from a distance as it moved awkwardly as its legs don't fully work. Poor thing. I have seen a lot of dogs like this missing hair and very pinkish looking exposed skin.

 

You can see a big black pig sleeping between the coconut trees by the ocean.

This is the town of Babak as I pass through and head north to check out the coastline.

This is a map of Samal Island. Orange is the main paved road and red is where on the dirt bumpy roads I drove. You can see where I circled in Red where it says CATAGMAN is where the Punta Del Sol Beach Resort is located on the island.

This is a beach in the north coast of Samal.

So I rented Lloyds motorcycle for 7 hours for 500 pesos and I basically drove for 6 of those 7 hours exploring most of the island. One thing that I didn't realize is that Samal has only one main paved road that runs down the west side of the island (see photo of orange line on Map). The rest are very bumpy dirt roads but I just kept on driving to the southern tip of the island and after exploring enough there I went to the northern side of the island and basically drove all around the island until I came to a resort and found it on my map and realized I had just done the coast line of whole northern half the island. 

People are super friendly and as I drove through their little neighborhoods people would yell out "Hi Joe!" and small kids were always waving at me. One time 6-7 school girls in uniform were walking and saw me about to drive by them and one yells out "Hi daddy!" and they all started laughing. I have been called dad and daddy 5 separate times by young filipinas since being in the Philippines. I don't know why they say that. The kids ALWAYS look at me and smile and wave and when I wave back it puts a big smile on their face. They really like foreigners here. I know most of them have never left the Philippines so have only seen the white foreigners that visit or the ones they see on hollywood movies and TV. My butt was hurting from sitting on the bike so long so I brought the motorbike back an hour early as I was done seeing the island and definitely got my 500 pesos worth! Lloyd drove me back to my resort and I went for a swim and decided I had already seen enough of Samal and that tomorrow I would start my journey to Cagayan De Oro. My right ankle was very sore from shifting the gears on the bike for 6 hours and I was limping when I walk to the ocean for a swim. 

Later on at 7pm I checked to see if their kitchen was open but the guy told me the cook had already gone home so I just got a beer and chilled out and enjoyed the nice quiet solitude of the resort at night with some lights turned on the coconut trees and you can see all the lights lit up across the ocean in Davao city.