The South Pacific islands are one of the most desired and challenging travel destinations. Most people believe they can’t afford to enjoy places like Bora Bora or Fiji, and it’s true… unless you plan smartly.
Picking a destination in the South Pacific
First, let’s take a look at all countries and territories (a total of over 20,000 islands) that compose the three key regions of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.
Polynesia:
The waters around Coron, in the Palawan archipielago, are a world-class destination for wreck diving. There are 24 Japanese ships sunk during an American strike in 1944. The story of this fleet is one more chapter in the fascinating Philippine history, which includes key roles in the Spanish-American war and WWII, mandatory reading for anyone visiting the country.
After an exhausting safari and a day walking the streets of Stone Town, we were completely ready to relax in our final destination: Kendwa. We chose Kendwa because it has the best swimming beach in the island, even if not as cheap as Nungwi or as scenic as Paje.
One of the goals of our Indonesia trip was to dive in the Komodo National Park, which apart from hosting the last dragons of the same name, contains one of the richest marine reserves on the planet. We had made a reservation with a local diving company, Wicked Diving, which lived up to the expectations of its near-perfect Tripadvisor reviews. They also ended up having Spanish dive masters 🙂 and together with four other PADI divers, we went on a 2-day sailing trip with 5 dives.The plan was pretty simple: dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, sleep, repeat. It’s definitely worth bargaining with any operator, as we realized that we had been able to get a significantly better price than the rest of the group (~$250 vs. ~$350).
Full trip report coming up soon
From Buenos Aires, we took a long (~18 hrs) but comfortable bus to Peninsula Valdes. The bus stopped in Puerto Madryn, the nearest city, and from there we took a taxi to Puerto Piramides, the small town on the actual peninsula. Peninsula Valdes is the most important natural reserve of Argentina, famous for the abundance of sea mammals. I’d recommend staying in Puerto Piramides; it’s a quite charming town, and you can easily organize any activity directly here.
Continue reading “Whales, sea lions and more in Peninsula Valdes”
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