Mom picked us up from the heavily crowded, polluted NAIA Terminal 2 arrivals driveway, and from there we skipped over Manila and drove straight to Tali Beach, where we had borrowed a relative’s friend’s villa. (The trip is normally about two hours’ drive, but took six hours thanks to pre-New Year traffic and heavy SLEX construction. We also swung through Tagaytay to pause for food and restrooms, but unfortunately didn’t get much of a view of Taal through the mist.) The villa at Tali was a lovely Mediterranean affair right by the sea, its architecture airy and wide open to the sea, with several bedrooms, a sprawling backyard and pool overlooking the bay, and a sunny second-floor balcony with a view. We did a Dec. 31st dive at Fortune Island, and New Year was spent with relatives at Punta Fuego. Some photos from the four days we spent there:
