Beach Hopping in Quezon Province

One of my travel buddy asked me if I'm interested for an island hopping in Burgos, Quezon, without second thought I said Yes! Oh well, I'm an island hopping enthusiast. And this is the first time I'll be travelling to Quezon. 

Quezon is a province of the Philippines in the CALABARZON region of Luzon. The province was named after Manuel L. Quezon, the second President of the Philippines, and its capital is Lucena City. Quezon is southeast of Metro Manila and is bordered by the provinces of Aurora to the north, Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Batangas to the west and the Camarines provinces to the east. 

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quezon_province)

After office, we met at 12midnight in Alabang. Yes, 12 midnight and we're not excited actually, haha. It's already 1AM when we rode a bus bound to Lucena. Travel time was around 3 hours. Then from Lucena, we rode the first trip (5AM) bus to Unisan. We told the driver to drop us off in Vista Aplaya.  Travel time was around 1 hour.

We arrived at 6:30AM in Vista Aplaya, Barangay Marao. We rented a boat for our island hopping. We agreed that they will take us to Puting Buhangin, Borawan Island and Dampalitan.

And this is it! Our adventure begins. 

We started our Island Hopping there at Aplaya. 

Mag-Asawang Bato

Power Plant Tower

We first landed on Puting Buhangin, located at Pagbilao Quezon. Puting Buhangin is one of the popular beach in Quezon. Sand is white, and not that fine.  I like the place. It's suitable for camping and picnics. There are also lot of set up tents.
 At the side of the beach, there's a cave called "Kuwebang Lampas". We went there, and it's rocky inside. The water was shallow and very clear. We enjoyed swimming inside the cave.

Puting Buhangin beach

the clear water of Puting Buhangin beach

Kwebang Lampas

the clear water inside of Kwebang Lampas

Time is up! Time to leave Puting Buhangin. On our way to our next destination,we saw Bagosina along our way:

We didn't able to land on this rock/little island. According to our boatman, there are big dogs who guarded this cute island. 

Mag-asawang Bagosina.
Our boatman said that he's selling this property for a very cheap price (haha, he's just kidding, who would want to build house on this piece of rock!)

Next stop was the Borawan Island. The rocks in this island were suitable for wall climbing. The rock formation were very nice. According to our boatman, the island derived its name from Boracay and Palawan. Meaning, this is the combination of white sand in Boracay, and nice rock formation of Palawan. 

For me, the sand in Borawan is white, but not as white as Boracay. The sand is also not that fine.
About the "Palawan" side, I haven't been to El Nido so I cannot compare.

approaching Borawan Island

nice rock formation at Borawan Island

suitable for wall climbing.

if you want to hide from the sun while you swim, this place is for you

And our last stop was in Dampalitan Island. 

tulay na buhangin

another nice rock formation in Dampalitan beach

it's unusual to see cows that were walking on the beach. hey, they also need time to relax!

cute!

It's still early when we get back to Aplaya. So we decided to visit "Kamay ni Hesus" in Lucban Quezon. To get there, we went back to Lucena Terminal, then from there we rode jeepney bound to Sta. Cruz. According to the conductor, the jeepney will pass through Kamay ni Hesus in Lucban.

After almost 1 hour of travel, we arrived in Kamay ni Hesus at 5PM. Kamay ni Hesus closes at 6PM. 

Noah's arch

The Church

We took 200+ stairs to reach the top

upon reaching the top, view was great!

 It's 6:30PM when we went back to Lucena terminal.

We ate dinner, and it's 8PM when we decided to ride a bus back to Alabang.

Expenses:
2-way Bus Fare (Alabang to Lucena Grand Terminal)	300/head
2-way Bus Fare (Lucena Grand Terminal to Unisan)	35/head
Boat Rental	2200/boat
Puting Buhangin Entrance Fee	50/head
Borawan Entrance Fee	20/head
Dampalitan Entrance Fee	30/head
2-way Jeepney ride (Lucena Grand Terminal to Kamay ni Hesus)	60/head