Known to the Spanish as the Island of Fire, Siquijor is just 340 square kilometres, all palm fringed beaches with a mountain in the middle. The Spanish called it la Isla de Fuego because of the eerie glow from the fireflies around the island at night. The Filipinos called it the Voodoo Island, or Island of Witches. It’s said that many Filipino people won’t come here due to it’s reputation for black magic, shamans and magic potions. Nowadays visitors seek out these mystical mountain healers for good, but some still fear the dark side.

Usually if you want to see the healers you have to hire a guide to find them. But my visit coincided with the Healing Festival when they congregate for 3 days on the mountain. More on that later!

I booked into the wonderful Tagbalayon hostel / guesthouse for one night before I had to move – I had arrived at Easter and everywhere half decent was fully booked. On the pickup from the port I met Shae from Australia and we headed straight out to go snorkeling on the beach opposite, a marine park. It’s actually very difficult to get into the water and swim when it’s only a foot deep when you’re wearing flippers and you don’t want to tread on the coral or get stabbed in the foot by a sea urchin 😂 I was centimetres away from squishing a beautiful blue starfish when Shae screamed STOP! I saw more beautiful colourful fishes on this free outing than on that rubbish day trip on Bohol.

There are no buses on Siquijor Island. Transport is by motorbike or tricycle. I opted for a local guide to take me around on his bike with Shae following on hers – she actually knew how to ride one. This is a really fun way to see the island and gives you the opportunity to check out all the sites without getting lost, then you can return later on your own if you want to.

My favourite stop was the cliff jump – although personally I don’t enjoy jumping into deep water our guide had a great time. Video below! After that he was keen to chill on a secret beach for a while 😂 Payment is on a donation basis – after asking around 800 pesos was apparently the going rate but this works out just £5 each for an entire day which didn’t feel enough to me.

Eveyone on the island seemed to be at the Old Tree, which is also a natural fish spa. I also don’t particularly enjoy having fish nibbling my feet 🤷🏻‍♀️

Siquijor turned into girls on tour when we met more solo female travellers and formed a little group, making plans each day to zip around the beaches on scooters and try different places for dinner. Some things are more fun with other people 😎 Siquijor is so small that every day one of us would run into someone we’d met before.

Naturally we decided to go to the Healing Festival, bringing along Alexandra from Finland on her pink scooter.

After we filled up the bikes with gas from glass Coke bottles we realised our paper map was useless and we didn’t actually know where the festival was or what it would look like. A man told us turn around, take the first left and ask for San Antonio… I love days like this!

We made it to San Antonio after accidently driving past it (it’s just a tiny cluster of little houses) and after several more stops to ask directions we learned the festival was at the Bandilaan Mountain. One more false start when we recognised the name of a cave (some healers hang out in mountain caves) and only after queuing up for a while did we realise we were in the line to go caving, unrelated to the festival 😂

Eventually we arrived at an extremely well organised festival with staff wearing official tshirts directing us to parking spots. After a steep climb up through the national park we reached the mountain top with its Easter Cross – still no healers in sight.

Next clue was a ‘band’ providing entertainment, cue bad singing and reading the words from an iPhone over a sound system which everyone seemed to love. After asking a few more times ‘WHERE ARE THE HEALERS??’ finally we found some little areas under the shade perched high up, with signs for various treatments and long queues of locals and a few tourists. Here we met Nathalia from Poland in the queue for the Bolo Bolo healing. We’d come this far so decided to stick it out and queue for all of them, not that we really knew what they entailed 😂

First up Bolo Bolo. The healer, a man probably in his 40s or 50s, took a jar filled with a clear liquid, with a stone at the bottom, and started blowing into the jar through a straw while moving the jar around my body. If the water becomes brown, you have a problem. Thankfully it remained clear and the healer simply said ‘your body is clean’. Phew. Payment is on a donation basis – we probably over paid for fear of upsetting the healers and being cursed.

Next, Hilot Massage and Palm Reading. Four ladies were doing slightly different massages with the most amazing scented oil any of us had ever smelt. I don’t know what it was, maybe a coconut base, but the glass bottle was full of unrecognisable herbs. Alexandra said her head was bruised after but I loved mine. They spoke only a few English words so the palm reading was interesting…. no privacy here either as the people in the queue jumped in to helpfully translate our readings. I have a feeling a lot was lost in translation as many people received the same fortune. Apparently I’ll be rich by the time I’m 50 👏 cue somebody in the line to offer to marry me at 49 😂

I really enjoyed this festival, it was great to experience something totally different with mostly Filipinos. The drive was also incredibly scenic. I wanted to buy the scented oil but the following was a little bit more than I was looking for – if I bought this and it started bubbling I think I would die of panic.

The fun didn’t stop there as the next day Alexander and I had signed up for a trip to the miniscule Apo Island, the most expensive outing so far at about £30 for the day. Only one company runs these trips, the most expensive resort on Siquijor, Coco Grove. It was also possibly the best day trip I’ve ever taken. Prepared for a rickety old row boat, we were amazed to board a huge luxury boat with comfy airplane style seats, towels and banana cake which won everyone over. We ran into Nathalia again and also picked up Amelia from England.

After an hours cruise we transferred to speed boats to reach the shore where we got two guides for our group of four. There were 65 people in total and I thought it was going to be chaos – but the ocean is big and the individual groups are small. Straight away we encounted giant turtles, wider than me and well over 1m in length. It was almost as good as the whale sharks, especially when you’re swimming along side these graceful creatures and they come up to the surface for air, sticking their cute little heads out next to you. Luckily Nathalia took some photos! The water was so clear I could see the divers below me.

Again it’s hard to keep your distance as sometimes they turn and swim towards you. We all screamed when that happened. I even saw their tiny little teeth 😂

The day continued with buffet lunch (beer and chips!!!) on a gorgeous beach.

I ended up spending 5 nights on Siquijor as I hadn’t booked my ferry ticket in advance and discovered all the seats were sold out until after Easter weekend. There are worse places to be stuck! 😎

I did have to spend two nights in my worst accommodation yet, John Lhea Beach Cottages. Let’s just say that I did not have a beach cottage, I had a windowless room in a building away from the beach, unless you count the two windows (just a fly shield in place of glass) into my next door neighbours room, including a window into their bathroom!

The flimsy blind was on their side so I had to shout out to them to please close it as I could see them and hear EVERYTHING. It also meant I couldn’t sleep until they did as their light was essentially my light. I couldn’t even tell the owner / staff as there was never anybody around who was not sleeping 🤷🏻‍♀️

Eventually I got a ticket off this island by paying a man £3 to go and queue up at the port at 5am and buy it for me 🙈 There is always a way in The Philippines! Next stop, the even smaller Malapascalua Island…