XLR8 Ventures Inc. Goes to Negros Oriental
The supposedly ordinary weekend road trip became more fun and a great experience for XLR8 Ventures Inc. employees and friends when it became an official team building activity of the company. The plan was to take two cars and go on dolphin watching and visit Manjuyod White Sandbar in Bais City, take an overnight in Dumaguete and go up to Valencia to take a dip in The Forest Camp’s cold swimming pools before heading back to Cebu. But a week before the trip, the list of goers keep on adding up and ended with five cars and two bikes. To make it more interesting, Jari, one of the Big Bosses in XLR8 Ventures Inc., came and joined us along with his wife.
The call time was 4:00 AM so that we will arrive early in Bato Port to catch the 7:30 AM barge going to Amlan Port but thanks to me, we weren’t able to because I was late (I am not really a fan of waking up early, specially 4:00 AM). 😛
We arrived at the port quarter before 8:00 AM looking haggard, hungry and some even vomited due to long hours ride. We took the next barge going to Amlan at 8:00 AM and another 45 minute travel going to Dewey Island in Bais City where our boat waited for us.
We met with our contact for the dolphin watching and Manjuyod White Sandbar trip at the wharf in Dewey Island. The boatman briefed us that we will go look for dolphins first before going to the sandbar but told us that the chance of spotting them is low because we were late. Again, because of me. 😛
We were looking for dolphins for almost 2 hours but haven’t found any. To make things more intense and feel the thrill of adventure, the boatman told us that we were lost. He didn’t know where we at due to the thick haze that morning. However, we managed to locate our way back to the island with the help of GPS.
Since we didn’t have any slightest chance of spotting dolphins, we decided to go to Manjuyod White Sandbar and do what we were eager to do: swimming, diving, backflipping and selfies.
The sandbar was not as white as seen on the internet but still worth the visit. There are cottages built on the island that visitors can rent for day use or overnight. But since we were not well-funded that time, we opted to stay on our boat. 🙂
We spent the night in Dumaguete, which was also celebrating their annual Buglasan Festival that night. It was a good timing so we took advantage of the festival to celebrate and enjoy with the locals.
After a good night sleep, we took our breakfast at the public market and tried the puto-sikwati where it was well-known for. Our next destination after our breakfast was The Forest Camp.
The city’s road rerouting gave us a hard time going out to the Forest Camp and took us almost an hour just to find our way out to Valencia.
After a 45-minute drive, we arrived at the resort. It was my second time to visit The Forest Camp and the cold pools still amazes me, specially on how the river was diverted to supply the water on their pools. They even expanded recently and had new swimming pools with slides.
We arrived home tired and exhausted but the fun and road trip was totally worth it. Although there were schedules that were not followed and not a single dolphin showed up, I believe everybody can say that it was a weekend well spent. It is true that the beauty of adventure does not lie on the itinerary but within the unexpected things we encounter.