Sun, sea and spa

If you really love Boracay, you’d avoid it during Easter break, when it’s at its most packed and frenzied. It can be painful, like seeing a lover deliriously drunk on cheap vodka being pawed by amateur, over-eager adolescents out for a cheap thrill. Okay, maybe it’s not that bad. I was there over the Easter holidays a couple of weeks ago, explaining my presence on the island’s most chaotic dates as work-related, and actually broke the promise I made to exile myself in the hotel room.

The last time I was on the island for Holy Week was six years ago. I was a couple of weeks short of 23, had just quit my full-time job and was in the flirting stage of a possible relationship; Boracay in super peak season, with all the crowds, cocktail shots and incessant partying was the ultimate invitation for debauchery. This time around, however, I was at the opposite end of the spectrum: older, hounded by deadlines, slightly claustrophic and highly doubtful of my ability to party like a rock star, on the beach, nonetheless.

But the invitation to experience Nivea’s Sun Spa was just too hard to resist. I was a massage whore first and foremost. And nothing, absolutely nothing, beats even a one-hour session by the ocean, being kneaded, pushed and stretched by strong, capable hands — not even swimsuit-clad bumper–to-bumper human traffic and overpriced tricycle rides.

Each year, the skincare brand welcomes summer with an event at Boracay. This year’s Nivea Sun Spa treated beachgoers to free massages and trials of their sun and bodycare products. Nestled at the beachfront of Sun Village Central Resort, a great option for beach-loving urbanites who appreciate the island’s retail and restaurant appeal (D’Mall is a few meters down while Starbucks — not kidding — is a short walk and a holler away in the opposite direction), the Nivea Sun Spa afforded a lot more tranquility than I expected. Cots laid out on the sand were housed in huts sheathed in white, flowy chiffon curtains that effectively blocked out the sun but still welcomed the breeze. All in a space decorated with brightly-colored Japanese lanterns and cheerful buntings hanging from bamboo structures. To the side of the setup was a booth that sold Nivea’s complete range of products — skincare, lipcare, deodorants and suncare.

The biggest draw, however, was the small sign that read “Free Massage,” discreetly tacked right next to a banner advertising Nivea’s new Immediate Sun Protection SPF 50 sunscreen, a fast-acting product that disregards the notion that you have to wait 15 to 30 minutes after application before stepping out into the sun or into the water. Initially, you get a free massage with every purchase of a Nivea product, which isn’t such a big deal considering you get amazing suncare and a great rubdown.

I had my massage at five in the afternoon, an hour before sunset and right after a jaunty and dusty island tour atop an ATV. That massage, I tell you, restored my faith in Boracay and everything good about it. Lying there, facedown, as a professional therapist worked out the kinks on my neck, I couldn’t help but wax positive about how sun, sea, breeze and Nivea’s lavender-infused Body and Soul Skin Oil go so well together. And the best thing, I reckon, about a massage on the beach, is how sand stuck to my back or the therapist’s hands, somehow, becomes part of the treatment, as if I was getting an exfoliation and a kneading in one. I didn’t even mind the old school Bonnie Bailey tunes blaring out from one of the randomly-set up speakers — even that seemed just right.

I had dragged another friend to get a treatment with me. Though a big massage fan, he had not found the time to get one in so many months. Soon as he stepped out of his hut, a beatific smile on his face, he exclaimed, “As soon as I got in there, I wondered why I stopped going in the first place.” And standing there, sunset blazing in front of me, the low tide affording the finest sand bar stretch, my skin smelling of lavender and my head clear for the first time in weeks, I couldn’t help but think how much his thoughts echoed mine.

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