Planting Around the World – Mission 3 (Boracay, Philippines)

In our Planting Around the World Mission our challenge is to plant at least one tree for every country we visit during our world backpacking trip. Why? With all the talk about carbon emissions we may help the environment in our small way. But also because we love gardening, plants and nature, we thought it would be a respectful gesture towards the countries – and its people – we visit. And of course, hopefully, a long lasting memory of our visit.

Today we decided to make an excursion to the remote Paga Beach on the North end of the island. We started with a long walk up the entire white beach and then around the rock outcrop to the next small beach called Diniwid and from there to the main roan leading vertically through the island. Along the way I couldn’t resist taking a dip with the local men who dived to the sea bed and used thin, sharpened bamboo sticks to catch sea worms out of their sand burrows. Apparetly very good to eat, but the sight of a penis-snail is not very appetizing so I took a rain check on that opportunity.

We took a tuk-tuk to Paga Beach in the end as it was much further than we had expected and did not spend more than an hour there as there was nothing much happening or to do.

On our return journey to our guest house at Angol we spotted a nursery from the back of the tuk-tuk, and thus our job was now clear!

We returned to the nursery and another unusual conversation later, off we went on the back of a tuk-tuk with a little fire-blossom tree in hand. Needless to say, we got a lot of looks from all around.

Finding a place to plant was again a puzzle, but since we noticed the owners of our “LM Residence” guest house were clearly plant lovers, we decided to chance finding an easier solution by asking the owner’s daughter whether she would allow us to plant the tree in their garden.

To our surprise she loved the idea and immediately summoned family members to decide on the right location. She told us about how her father, a lover of plants and gardening, had recently taken very ill and this was the reason why the many plants we saw potted around the garden had not yet been planted in the ground as intended.

So, cameras in hand and smiles all around we dug and planted and patted and watered, the little tree finding its luch new home between a couple of large trees at the front of the garden, just behing the road-side fence. All being well, we hope one day to see this tree much taller and in full bloom, showing its lush yellow blossoms to all passers by and offering more privacy to the guest house’s inhabitants.

To the LM Residence family, we would like to offer our thanks for a wonderful stay, for allowing us to plant a tree in your garden, much pleasure with your new green “family member”, and our prayers for the quick recovery of the father of the house. May you be enjoying the pleasure of gardening again very soon!

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