Batanes
Photo by Gail dela Cruz-Villanueva

It was around 5am in the morning. All of my travel mates were still asleep. I decided to go outside of the Novita house we were renting for a morning walk and to buy hot pandesal. It was raining quite hard outside. The wind was so strong and gusty an umbrella seemed useless. The weather was so bad I was almost sure that we were going to be stuck in this place for at least a couple of days more. This place is frequented by typhoons that is located in the northernmost part of the Philippines. We were in the province of Batanes.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to visit the beautiful islands of Batanes together with my wife Gail. We were so stressed with work and this was our November weekend getaway. We spent the weekend there together with a group of fellow bloggers. This trip was made possible thanks to SEAIR and Columbia Sportswear. We stayed at an ancestral house turned into a sort of apartment for rent called the Novita House in the town of Basco.

Okay, so the moment I went outside I was so astonished to see that it was business as usual for the folks there. The Ivatans (the locals of Batanes) are so used to typhoons they know exactly what to do such situations. I managed to get to the town’s bakery with help from lola and bought hot pandesal for the group.

Here are some breathtaking snapshots of the places we saw in the Batanes. All photos taken by my wifey Gail:

Batanes

Batanes

Batanes