Poop Eating Crabs

On the City Tour yesterday we learned that on Mactan Island there are areas without any septic systems. This means that many people poop in the grass or beach side and have the crabs eat it up. The crabs are then eaten by the people- the "Circle of Life" is what our tour guide called it. Not sure how that actually works.

We learned and saw many interesting things on the city tour. We started on Cebu and visited Fort San Pedro, a fort created when the Spanish had rule. We also saw Magellan's cross (or remnants of it) at the Cathedral in town and saw the masses of people going into the church to pray to St. Nino during Holy Week.

We visited some old house where a very famous and wealthy priest used to live. We also saw a few statues of Magellan and other warriors. All in all I was not very impressed by the monuments in Cebu. They are small and not particularly nice looking. I think this is actually just a bit of my snobbery coming out in that I am used to seeing churches and monuments in Europe where everything is big, beautiful and ornate. Here, things are small, not well kept and surrounded by the poverty of Cebu.

We ventured over to Mactan Island to get a feel for the history surrounding the port city. We saw Lapu Lapu's shrine (the guy that killed Magellan) and got to see the port where his ships used to be. It was low tide so we could see all the disgustingness that is below the water. Millions of little crabs, sewage smell and trash everywhere. Many young boys were walking through this slushy water digging crabs up (I think?).

We also found out that Lapu Lapu (the Filipino king who defeated Magellan) was 4'5" while Magellan was more like 5'6. Filipino men are little munchkins. Many of the men that come into the clinic are about half the size of their wives.

Lastly, we stopped at place called Alegre Guitars- a family run guitar manufacturing business. It was truly amazing. They do the entire process in a little yard/work shop next to the house. They start with drying the wood, assembling the guitars, testing the acoustics and eventually come out with beautiful guitars of all shapes, sizes and colors. Our tour guide picked up a $7,000 guitar and strummed it for a bit. Pretty incredible.

Last night we had spaghetti and meat balls at Hilary and Davids (a nice alternative to our usual tuna or egg salad sandwiches) and watched an episode of Lost. We also stuffed Easter eggs with candy for the party on Saturday and ate home made chocolate chip cookies! SO AMAZING.

Time for our weekly grocery shopping escapade. There are more pics up on the right hand side! Take a look