The Mission

This was a super interesting day. Everyone was starting to run low on cash and having been rorted blind in Australia when trying to exchange money, we decided that we would make it our mission to hunt down the best deal that we could. We had already transferred money using Western Union, it had happened at the exchange rate and been collected the same day, no extra fees and no massive spread. We found that the main agent for Western Union was in Del Carmen, a town about 40km away from La Luna. So we decided that we would ride our scooters over to Del Carmen and exchange some cash. We decided to team it up with a trip to the Maasin River, where we were hoping to use the rope swing. 

Maasin River

We drove our scooters out to the coconut plantation at the Maasin River nice and early to avoid the heat and the crowds. We met up with everyone at the place where the rope swing used to be, it had been replaced with a rickety high board construction that looked like it was safer to jump off than to stay standing on. When we arrived we found vendors selling the famous banana cue that Christine had been searching for, these were delicious fried bananas on skewers dipped in either a molasses or coconut type topping. We decided to work up an appetite with some Maasin River jumping before our banana cue. This is also the point where I lost my sunglasses, if you are watching the video you can see them sitting on top of my hat when I went in for the first jump, they are now forever in the Philippines. We jumped until we were all jumped out and then headed for the street vendors to fill up on banana cue and coconut water. 

Del Carmen

Once we had had our fill, and worked out that my sunglasses were not going to make a sudden appearance, we saddled up and started for Del Carmen. Scotty was with us until the first bend, after that it was just Byron, Christine and Myself. As a side note, if you are going to do a longer trip and you have a pillion passenger, I would advise getting a larger bike, the XRM is far more comfortable and has more power than the scooters, but more on this in the coming days. Having said that the journey to Del Carmen by scooter was a mission, a fun mission, but a mission never the less. When we finally arrived in Del Carmen, it was a sleepy little colonial style fishing village, and it was really hot. We quickly located the Western Union office, we didn’t have to look far there is only a couple of streets in Del Carman. When we checked inside we were informed that the lady who operated it was not there and wouldn’t be back for 2 hours, thankfully 2 hours was reduced to 20 minutes when we said that we had ridden across from La Luna to see her. While we waited we picked up some cheap sunglasses for me, to keep the bugs and dust out of my eyes when we were riding. We also went looking for a public lavatory. We found one, but it didn’t look like it had been in service since the Spanish had left the island in 1898, the plumbing was not connected, the roof was caving in and the whole place was in a bad state of disrepair. We then explored the other street in Del Carmen and found some restaurants, bakeries, a few shops and some old Spanish style villas. 

Paige to the Rescue

We returned to the Western Union where the lady who ran it informed us that she was only able to exchange US dollars. We sat down on some ottomans and tried to think up a solution. This is where Paige comes to the rescue, we called Paige and did what every Nigerian scammer does, we asked if she could download the Western Union app, I then transferred money into her account, she used the app to transfer the money to me. The money transferred at the exchange rate and apart from a 350 PHP handling fee, which I am pretty sure was dreamed up on the spot,  and a brief wait while the lady went to the bank to get the cash, we had our money at the best rate we could possibly get. Not only that, it had transferred at the exchange rate as it was the day before which was better than the prevailing exchange rate of the day… Winning. By this point we had around $2000 AUD worth of PHP which is around 70 000 of them, probably enough to buy one of those beach side blocks of land. We had also had a stream of locals come in to see the spectacle of the crazy Ausies trying to exchange currency, I am pretty sure that is what they were there for, as there didn’t seem to be any other reason for the sudden stream of visitors coming in for a look. We split the cash between us, hopped on our scooters and made a hasty exit from Del Carmen. We only stopped to grab a spot of lunch from one of the road side bakeries on the way back. Lunch consisted of apples, sandwiches and some pan de coco, coconut bread, quite possible one of the greatest inventions known to mankind. 

Thankfully the afternoon was a lot less clandestine, we wandered down to Flo’s place grabbed our boards and went out for a surf. The whole area along the beach from Ocean 101 to Cloud 9 was pumping with loads of tourists jiving to the chill beats of live music.