Padre Burgos, Quezon: Villa Anita and Borawan

 Our 3^rd Quezon – Bicol Escapade happened in 2011.  This time we opted to go to Padre Burgos.  I went to Calauag first and stayed there overnight.  In the morning, Cam and I took a bus going to Lucena from Calauag.  I was able to take a picture of the view on the top while traversing the Bituka nang Manok road in Atimonan.  

From Lucena, we rode a minivan to Padre Burgos.  We rode a tricycle looking for a place to stay.  We weren’t successful in Tamarind Tree Resort but found the Villa Anita Butterfly Garden and Resort, aling the Padre Burgos – Andangan National Road.  It was already past 1PM when we arrived in the resort.

The resort has a huge garden and fish pond. There’s a restaurant inside but just across the resort was a Pavillion for a large number of visitors.  There were portions that were under construction especially the bigger swimming pool.  The cottages were Nipa Huts with aircon.   The staff told us of the beach front area of the resort which was a 10 minute ride from the resort. 

We were accompanied by the driver of the resort and drove us to the Villa Anita beach front.

It was low tide that morning and we enjoyed taking pictures and walking around the rocky beach.  There was a floating “balsa” in the area.  And we stayed there and waited for the sunset.

The following morning we were fetched by the boatman in the beach front of the resort to start our island tour.  The ride was about 15 minutes going to Borawan, just across the beach front of Villa Anita.

Borawan came from the combination of the words Boracay and Palawan and located at Pagbilao Chica Island.  It is along the coastline of the Tayabas Bay. There are rock formations along the way.

Borawan is a place for campers.  As of writing, there's a resort already and that the place is being maintained properly.  When we visited the place, there were campers, a caretaker with their small store for your needs.  Because it was the Labor day weekend that time, tourists flocked the island, so we went to the other side in a quieter place, where we had the towering rocks all by ourselves.

But honestly beware of the secluded place without the nets, I was stung by a jelly fish here.  If you could zoom the picture below, you'll see how big the jelly fish that I encountered, and it was painful and the black scar lasted a year.

But all in all, Borawan is a good place to go, it just depends on your expectation. 

But for me, every new place is worth to travel.