We hired a motorbike and hit the jungle lined road north from our spider riddled nipa hut. Out first stop was an adventure park where we went Zip-lining over the Loboc River. I don’t know how or why we haven’t ended up zip lining before on our travels but by god was it awesome!! We were put into what looked like a straight jacket and told to collapse down where we’d fall flat into the harness. For the first ride across we could go at the same time. We were let loose and flew over the dense jungle and eventually over the emerald Loboc river winding its way through the forested hills. It was so incredible! The end section was crazy as we were moving so fast and the wall was approaching quickly but we weren’t slowing down and at the very last second we somehow had a smooth brake system slow us right down and we gently stopped. Our flip flops were untied from the harness and we walked up a hill to the zip line station back across the valley. I went first and asked Craig how I looked in my straight jacket/dress to which he jokingly replied sexy. The guide strapped me up and then I had to lie down again and he said in a really slow monotone voice ‘drop your sexy body’ and we all roared with laughter.


Our next stop on our trip was the Loboc Tarsier Conservation, but we seemed to be driving for far too long so we asked some locals who sent us back about 8km. A trail led through the forest and soon enough we spotted our first tarsier. It was teeny tiny!! About the size of a fist. He was sleeping on a tree branch and looked to be smiling, I think he was having a nice dream. Occasionally his eyes would open and they were like huge grapes. Such a bizarre little creature. They’re nocturnal and territorial so they usually go back to the same tree to sleep every day.
  

The road north from the tarsier place led through a man-made forest which made a nice change of scenery. The final stop was a viewpoint of Bohol’s most famous attraction, the chocolate hills. An earthquake a few years back wrecked the viewpoint so half of it was still being constructed by workers. The chocolate hills are unusual rounded hills that rise from the flat ground although they looked more like mint chocolate when we visited. They weren’t as good in person as they look in photos but still a nice sight.

We had an option of riding back the same way or taking a loop drive back towards Jagna through rural Bohol so of course we took the latter. It was a wonderful drive passing tiny villages, where all the locals were smiling, shouting hello and even high fiving us as we rode past them. We even saw a really old man riding a horse and wearing a cowboy hat!

The scenery south from Sierra Bullones was awesome, rice terraces were popping up beside the road and albeit they weren’t dramatic like Banaue, they were fluorescent green with palm trees dotted amongst them and tropical birds flying above us. The route gained quite a lot of elevation and there were some steep mountains around. We started to wonder if we’d taken a wrong turn but as we reached the top we spotted the ocean in the distance. We rode all the way down via winding roads and past thick jungle till we hit Jagna. We refuelled on doughnuts and Mountain Dew and drove the main road along the coast which wasn’t even busy and at times we were just a meter from the sea.