Kawayan Culaba Caibiran Run

Until now, I shake my head knowing I missed roaming opportunities at this three towns. Blame it on the time of day (noon), some rain (on a hot summer day) and the darkening skies (that looked like evening was befalling too soon)! Oh well. Anyway...

Like it was from Naval to Almeria, just probably also five minutes after we left Talahid Beach we already reached the town of Kawayan and OMG what a quiet town we even joked it was a ghost town! There was literally no human being in sight. Literally! Well, it was just about 1PM and people were probably either in their homes to have lunch or still in their homes for a siesta after lunch. We tried circling some of the streets for a human being to ask, but we could not see any! My question was if there was any boat I could ride crossing to that smaller island which is the town of Maripipi.

We finally saw a manong at what looked like a boat landing or wharf and he told me that most folks with boats were either resting or already at Maripipi to attend something called 'pintakasi' (am not sure if I got that right). I did recognize he was telling me it was some kind of a major cockfight. Oh well. So we decided to leave this town and proceed eastwards to Culaba.

This was a longer stretch taking us probably 30 minutes. And OMG the skies darkened, and it rained along the way. Argh! Can't stop, we continued zooming through, and the next thing saw, gosh, we were already at the junction where the circumferential road meets the cross-country road on the eastern part of the island. Yep, my memory served me right. We were already in the vicinity of the town of Caibiran.

We had to stop at this junction for me to gather my thoughts and weigh options to either proceed via the circumferential road and miss the big Tinago Waterfalls, or proceed via the cross-country road and miss the town centers of Caibiran, Cabucgayan and Biliran. I pictured the island map in my head and I gathered we had been traveling a little over half of the island (the northern portions), so if we proceed via the circumferential road that would have been still too long and night time wold probably catch us along the way – which means "nothing more to see anyway"!

So, I decided to go via the cross-country road and see Tinago Falls but of course thinking ahead that I can check-out Biliran, Cabucgayan and Caibiran tomorrow via the regular transport (jeeps or vans) on my way back to Ormoc. Thus, cross country road it was!

What a sight! Just a few bends from that junction and we chanced upon this big truck that lay on it's side by a sharp and steep curve of the highway. Children were around probably gathering what they can be allowed to "drink" hehe! Those are hundreds of cases of Pepsi Cola in that truck, many of course spilled on the ground. Human error, am sure – either by the truck driver or the makers of this highway hehe! It is indeed a tricky sharp steep curve.