African Animals in Philippines?

Two and a half hours on the dirt road hurt.

I woke up at 5 AM today to leave by 5:45 AM for a visit to the Caluit Game Preserve and Wildlife Sanctuary. Erich, Sara, Nina, and I decided to visit it because it sounded interesting and different. Several decades ago, the president of the Philippines made a deal with Kenya to deliver zebras, giraffes, and several other African animals to the Philippines. In Caluit, they live in an open field which tries to resemble the native scenery of Africa. The preserve is controversial though because it was thought to have been used by the president of Philippines as a hunting ground.

All I knew about how we were getting to Caluit was that we were going to take a truck then a boat to the island. I thought the drive to the boat was only going to be for an hour so I agreed to sit in the back of a truck with Erich. It was uncomfortable, especially when we started driving off-road. About 90% of the drive was on a bumpy dirt road and the drive turned out to be two and a half hours long. The driver dropped us off on the side of a dirt road and hired a boat for us to take to Caluit Island.

Pier to the banca.

The boat was a small banca that basically took us across a lake. We docked on the game preserve’s dock right in front of the entrance. We talked with a man in the front gate that said that the car that would drive us around the park was unavailable. We paid an entrance fee which I tried to get a discount on but I couldn’t convince the man I was Filipino which I’m not. Instead of waiting for the car to take us around which had a chance of never arriving, we decided to walk the park.

Franek and Nina on the banca.

None of us really knew what to expect and if we could even walk the park on our own. Not far into our walk, we saw some native Filipino deer walking around. Franek went out to take pictures of them. The next animal we saw was a giraffe eating some tree leaves. Pretty cool, I don’t think I’ve seen a giraffe in a “natural” environment. Not much farther along we saw a group of zebras in the distance. The whole experience was a strange feeling of being on an African type terrain in the Philippines.

Zebras take shade at Caluit.

A curious giraffe investigates me.

What side of the cage are you on?

Posing for Erich's and Nina's cameras.

A man approached us and had us sit down in a waiting area. It didn’t take much time for Franek and then me to venture out of the waiting area to take pictures of a giraffe in a holding area. Along the way to the holding area I took pictures of zebras I tried approaching. My zoom lens wasn’t long enough so I had to get fairly close to them. When I got near the giraffe’s cage it approached me curiously. I thought it was funny we both were curious of each other trying to figure each out. After a few shots, Sara, Nina, and Erich joined me along with our tour guide.

Caged bearcat.

The tour guide walked us to different parts of the preserve and showed us various caged animals. The animals we saw didn’t seem happy in their cages which devalued the preserve in my mind from an “eco-friendly” sanctuary to just a big zoo. Some of the caged animals were a bearcat, alligator, a couple porcupines and monkeys. The tour guide harassed the alligator to show it to us with a bamboo stick to the point of cruelty which no one in our group appreciated much. He said they feed it a chicken and a chopped up dog once a month. For some reason, he emphasized chopping up the dog.

Time to eat. Someone in our group entices a giraffe.

My branch was was sadly scarce on leaves.

Walking back towards the entrance we were able to feed the giraffes tree leaves. This was probably one of the highlights of my time at the park. Once we started feeding one of the giraffes, several more walked over to be fed. It was my first time really interacting with a giraffe which was fun.

That's not a giraffe... Erich, save some for the giraffes.`

By late morning we all left the park and headed back to Coron. I didn’t want to sit in the back seat again in the truck and so was upgraded to sitting in the front seat with Sara. I didn’t mind sitting with Sara but I wasn’t sure how we were short a seat because we didn’t have two people sit in the front before. We were back in Coron by 2 PM.

For lunch, Erich, Sara, Nina, Franek, and I walked to our favorite bistro. I had a very tasty mango shake and pork tenderloin with herbs and butter sauce. The bistro is foreign owned so the food was quite good and cheap. Afterwards, I went with Sara and Erich to the local travel agent to book our flights out from Basuanga, Coron to Manila. We then hung out at the Sea Dive restaurant to go on the Internet using my laptop.

For dinner, we went back to the bistro and all shared a couple pizzas and salads. I drank a rum and mango drink which was delicious. Its great how you can mix rum with so many good things. After dinner Nina really wanted to try a halo halo dessert drink before she left. We found a small family owned restaurant where she had her halo halo. I have no idea if it was good there. Next we went to Helldivers bar to have a few drinks and shoot some pool.

Back to our rooms, there was no water pressure which was really annoying. I can work around not having electricity for a while but not having water to shower, brush teeth, and clean up with was inconvenient. I had to fetch some free bottled water at the Sea Dive restaurant just so we could brush our teeth.

- jason