Day 4: Nabas to Boracay

Our day started nice and early! Cyril met a few kids from the basketball game the night before and told them we would shoot around with them first thing in the morning! When we arrived to the courts the next day we were surprised to see how many kids were there. It is evident that several of the kids here live and breath basketball 24/7. It's inspiring to see how passionate they are and it reminds me of when I was their age. I would be playing street hockey everyday from the time school ended until bedtime. During our shoot around Ross and I distributed more equipment while Cyril gave a brief lesson to a few girls who were keen to learn more about basketball.

After the shoot around we had a quick breakfast, where Cyril and Ross loaded up on pastries. In their defence, they were incredibly delicious. On this trip though we have had our vices. Mine is probably soda. Every shack we stop at I will buy a cola and finish it within a few seconds. Cyril's is definitely pastries and Ross has too many to list.

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By 9:30am we were on our way! Today was exciting because our wolf pack of three was turning into six. Ross' uncle (John), brother (Sean) and brother's girlfriend (Sally) were all joining us for the last stretch. At first, we had a challenge finding them. The meeting spot that they gave us turned out to be in the middle of the jungle. Clearly this wasn't a good move to make the three stooges go into the jungle. We biked roughly 2.5 km into the jungle and we couldn't find them. The off roading was fun, but it wasn't good for the trailers we were carrying on the back of our bikes. Thus we decided to change the meeting area and thankfully we eventually found John, Sean and Sally!

The distance from Nabas to Boracay is only 20km, so we thought that today's bike ride was going to be fairly easy. Unfortunately, we underestimated the hills and the heat. A deadly combination. Each day that we have been biking it feels like it's been getting hotter and hotter. Due to the heat, Ross and I have some pretty epic tan lines. Someone should have told me not to wear my sunglasses for the entire trip.

Once we hit the hills Sally put all five of us guys to shame. She made climbing hills look so easy. Her hair and makeup looked perfect while I was almost passing out trying to catch her, Sean lost his tire and the rest of the guys were slowly making their way up.

After we passed the stretch of hills we made many stops to hand out equipment. This was the first opportunity for John, Sean and Sally to hand out equipment and play with the kids, so it was extra rewarding for them. It never gets tiresome to see the joy and excitement of the children when they receive a simple piece of sports equipment. Furthermore, it's been really awesome when we have had the chance to spend time with the kids and play with the sports equipment we gave them. We are all hopeful that the sports equipment will be shared and last for a while. Cyril and I had a small debate about whether we buy high quality equipment and hand out less or buy lower quality equipment and hand out more. I don't think there is a clear answer, but hopefully what we are doing will inspire lots of people that in the future we can afford to buy large quantities of high quality equipment for Wehaul2play trips.

By 3pm we reached our final destination. It pains me to say that Cyril technically won the final yellow jersey. In controversial fashion if I may say so. All of us were making a stop to drop of equipment and Cyril told us he was going to bike ahead to handout more equipment. 10 minutes later we reached Cyril and he's standing underneath the final sign with a smug look on his face. He claims he didn't know the sign was up ahead but we have already coined him the Lance Armstrong of Wehaul2play.

The final stretch! Boracay is our final destination! However, we will still have a couple more days of distributing equipment while we are in Boracay. Overall this experience has been incredible. I've learned so much and everyone we have met along our journey has been so tremendously kind to us. The beauty of the Philippines has left us in awe and to top it all off I couldn't have picked two better guys to do this trip with. We have had many laughs already and there's been a good balance of chirping and supporting each other.

Love ya Ross and C!

 Cheers,

Isaac