uGoGirlFriday

Where the river meets the sea

Taking advantage of the remnants of summer days, my friends – Joedel, Dulce, Jef – and I decided to go to an impromptu overnight in Bolinao, Pangasinan, Philippines last June 9. It was really a dubious last minute decision because we were supposed to go on a road trip to Subic. But due to a series of unfortunate events (e.g. the car we’re supposed to bring wasn’t in A1 condition, the hotel we’re supposed to stay in Subic was overpriced, etc.) Joedel and I resorted to browsing the net for decent beach resorts. We ended up hesitantly choosing Punta Riviera Resort in Bolinao, Pangasinan. All four of us have never been to Bolinao. And it took us one non-air conditioned bus from Tarlac to Alaminos, a mini non-air conditioned bumpy bus ride from Alaminos to Bolinao, and a long tricycle ride from Bolinao bus station (totaling to around 5 hours) just to reach our final destination - Punta Riviera. The car not being in A1 condition was a blessing, really. It would have cost us a lot of stress and miscalculated turns, and made us cough up a lot of gasoline money to go there. Upon arrival at the resort, our jaws went hanging open in awe. It was paradise.

What made it even more enchanting is that we were the only customers at that time (It was a Friday and we were on leave so as to avoid the three-day weekend crowd – Monday was declared a holiday). It’s as if there was this mystical Hand that had the entire resort reserved just for us. We were treated like royalty.

We had all the staff at our beck and call – literally.

We checked in at Cabana 10, had lunch, rested for a bit, and then dived into the wondrous dam-like structured pool. Yep, we preferred the pool to the beach. For some reason, the beach was not that captivating. Nevertheless, the pool and the resort’s serenely carefree ambiance more than made up for it. We planned to go island-hopping. After all, the Hundred Islands IS in Pangasinan. But because it will take too much time to go to the port and we only had several hours to spend on the resort, we decided to take a different tour package – the cave and lighthouse tour. We went to the Enchanted Cave, Wonderful Cave, Cindy’s Cave, Cape Bolinao Lighthouse (built by US, 1903), and Boracay of the North Patar White Sands Beach.Similar to Punta Riviera, we had each tourist spot all to ourselves. We took several pictures in each of the four latter destinations and savored the picturesque view of our last destination – a glorious sunset in Boracay of the North Patar White Sands Beach. The sand-grain was really white and it felt gratifying to walk barefoot on it. After several poses – from candid to seductive, we reluctantly headed back to the resort. We rested for a while, had dinner, then languorously swam in the pool while sharing nonchalant stories and enjoying the evening beach view. We had a round of drinks before exhaustion fully took over and made us retreat to our cabana. Next stop… Subic! ^_^