I spend the rest of my time in Bohol just lounging around Panglao Island, dividing my time between Dumaluan Beach and Alona Beach. My resort, the Marilou Resort is in the former. It’s a budget resort with a great beachside location and clean, spacious rooms.

It’s also beside Bohol Beach Club, a more expensive resort, so I take a stroll there one morning. Further west of the beach is South Palms Resort, which is a higher-end resort, and today there are a sizable amount of guests. I hear from a local that a contingent from the local Department of Education office is having a conference here. Still, there seem to be a lot of Tagalog-speaking visitors, so maybe tourism in the province is indeed picking up.

I also discover through her Facebook story that T, one of the friends we met and traveled with in Iceland three years ago, is in Bohol. So I make my way to Alona Beach one afternoon to meet and catch up. It turns out that T’s mother is from Bohol, and after almost two years of being cooped up in their place in Pasig, she has decided to return to the province, where the air is cleaner and COVID cases are generally lower.

So we talk about resuming our respective travel plans and all the other things 2022 might have in store for us. It’s hard to say for sure, seeing that nothing for the last 18 months have gone according to plan. But that’s something to be seen later on. For now, we enjoy the sunset, the relative peace of Alona Beach, and the general beauty of Bohol.