TRAVELING ANA'S ISLAND OF MINDANAO WITH THE FIGHTER BOYS

My interest in the Philippines was initially piqued by a vlogger named Reekay(short for Enrique), a Hispanic from California who lived in Phil for over six years.  Reekay has since moved on to Saigon(Ho Chi Minh City), Viet Nam and I keep up with his travels and experiences there.

FinnSnow, a young man from Iceland, who has chronicled his travels through twenty-five countries the last decade, finally settled in the Philippines.  His breathtaking drone photography and underwater shots with his girlfriend, Sherlyn Doloriel, the current Miss Scuba International and former Miss Cagayan de Oro, simply amaze.

Daniel Marsh

Another talented vlogger, Daniel Marsh, with beautifully edited YouTube videos that actually tell a story, also captured my interest.  Daniel, the son of a Scottish father and Filipina mother, speaks the native languages and, like FinnSnow, is recognized by people all over the Philippines, even those living the the most remote areas with minimal WiFi.

FinnSnow, Daniel and three other well-known vloggers recently teamed up for a month-long journey into Muslim-controlled Mindanao, an area of the Philippines currently sporting Level 3 and Level 4 travel advisories from the U.S. State Department.  Marine biologist Mike Corey, BretMaverick and Kyle "Kulas" Kellerman also joined the group., calling themselves the Fighterboys 2.0, taking their Fighter Man truck across the terrain, then onto ferries for the next challenge.(Although, it was never expressly stated, I suspect the trip was sponsored and arranged by the Cebu City company that produces Fighter Wine.)

Once on Mindanao, they started with some day trips around Cagayan de Oro, where my fiancée

Ana lives, doing some whitewater rafting and bonding.  Here's a 9 minute Daniel Marsh compilation video featuring the trip downriver, but you get a taste of Daniel's exquisite storytelling: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THUV8LgCV38&list=PLI2fxdFyRS1ir4lXWCpMC9wGEfdFk7ce0


Traveling south, deeper into Mindanao, into an area under martial law, the Fighter Boys encountered the typically grim troops of the Philippine Army, but these young men are well known throughout the Philippines and so it became simply another photo shoot.(Ana explained to me that Cagayan de Oro was under martial law when I was there with her, but I didn't even realize it.)