Currently Listening Here Comes the Sun By Nina Simone see related

I have this travel magazine for almost three years now and that's how long I have been pining to go to Batanes. You know what ? Maybe even longer than that.

As the author of the article for that magazine perfectly put it:

 

*While Batanes tempts, lures, seduces, and sweeps you off your feet, she keeps you away.*

Everything will always work out in its own pace.  Time and again, I forget about it. Time and again, I get reminded of it. Time and again, I am a witness to it. Just like last December while I was mentally listing down my to-do-list for 2008, I found myself with two credit card numbers, seven amazing souls and a perfect set of dates for me to book. (Two days prior to our departure, another soul purchased her tickets to join us in our journey through Batanes completing our circle of nine. )

We did our research for this trip. We should. With a whopping 11K php round trip tickets, a five-day off from our day jobs and the perfect travel company, no time should be wasted on the road.

 

We are very, very grateful to the Batanes bloggers we have stumbled upon and to pay it forward, this will be a *public* blog series.  The research we have gathered were mostly based on an arranged Batanes package trip. This series will be for everyone who is brave and adventurous enough to explore the place in true backpacker style like we just did. I hope that after reading this, Batanes will move up right into the top of your travel lists.

I will again be away from Manila this coming weekend but I will leave you with these fast facts about Batanes (lifted from Stopover, Volume 4, Issue 16, 2005) to kick off this travel series. I require you to read them.

Batanes is the northernmost province of the Philippines, lying in a vast expanse of water where the Pacific Ocean on the east merges with the South China Sea on the west.

Batanes is 860 kilometers north of Manila and only 190 kilometers south of Taiwan.

Its geography is a gorgeous blend of steep hills and deep canyons in Sabtang, gentle rolling hills and flat lands in Itbayat, and level and near-level lands in Batan, the three major islands of the province.

If you expect luxury, look elsewhere. There are no moviehouses, no markets and no shopping centers.

The main language, spoken by 94% of the Ivatan population, is peppered with Spanish pidgin and spoken with the lyrical lilt of the Chinese.

The villages are quaint, unspoiled and worth a few days' trip.

Walking is the best way to go around the province so as to bask in its wildly beautiful scenery made up of very old churches, picturesque meadows and seas that surround the island.

D I O S   M A M A J E S !