Baler cock fights

These cock fighting arenas are total madness!
Not something I'd agree with, yet a quick death.
Seems like something out of "Gladiator".

Jamming with the locals

The journey to Baler

Traveling at Christmas in the Philippines isn't recommended
and we had to find out the hard way. Hundreds of people plus their
Christmas luggage waiting for transport back to their families.
We ended up on a bus with twice as many people than the vehicles capacity,
on top of that the bus left 2 hours later than planned and took 10h instead of
the promising 7. A journey from dawn till dusk.

Kiddos Point

We stumbled across a point break near the town of Cabugao.

This small fishing village is well off the beaten track and rarely visisted

by travelling surfers. On arrival we fouind the only accommodation to be closed,

but the local surfers instantly found us a comfortable homestay.

After settling in we were introduced to all the young local surfers

who unfortunately have to share boards as there is much poverty here.

We even met Kiddo, whom the point is named after.

The promising arrival

Searching for waves off the beaten track, we arrived at the beautiful Saud Beach, Pagudpud, northern Luzon.The friendly and ever smiling locals have set us at ease as wait for the swell to arrive and slow ourselves down to mirror the pace of life here. Our room faces a promising reef to small yet to surf but I've been keeping my eyes on it since 2 days now hoping the ever growing swell will bring what we are hoping for...

Early morning walks

Dog became Dingo!

paintings

paintings by Alexa Poppe

"Da Dog"