Philippine Travel Notes

Still in Mambajao, Camiguin, and this hotel became my overnight home. Wonderful find! I mean, I did not expect to find such well crafted accommodation, in the middle of a laid back provincial island town, near a public market, in an unassuming building with a bakery at ground level! As I said in a previous story, I saw the name of this hotel at some of the fliers over at the airport's tourism desk. Also saw signage of this hotel along the highway from Benoni port to Mambajao. And, this was also suggested by the GV Hotel front desk guy when I told him I would not stay in his hotel this time. It's also a high climb like GV Hotel, since front desk is at 3rd level. But the stairway is not that steep. And the look and feel is many cuts above the rest in Camiguin, even CDO and elsewhere! The front desk and lobby More of just like a cozy living room of a house, right?! The stairs across the orange balloon is for going down. That spiral staircase at the back is one way of goi...

Here’s a hint, if I spent just 11 minutes on that white island, I spent exactly 34 minutes at the volcano observatory . Overstayed? More than! Such that… I got a first bite of my “morning snack” 11:01AM! Duh?! But that was a blessing to the pocket hehe. Because of this late snack, it made lunch quite unnecessary for the next few hours. Note though that I did have a heavy breakfast when I usually don’t! And shh, yes I had beer before noon! Of course that is rare to me, but it went well with my Bacon and Egg Sandwich (that also had lettuce and tomatoes) – that I wanted to re-name with BLTE! Yep, bacon lettuce and tomatoes plus egg! And it was such a nice breath lazing around this cool breezy place. Note this is located in still a high elevation than the rest of Mambajao. Am sure I will drop this way again soon! 11:33AM we were out of Villa Paraiso going back to center of town. Two minutes more and I was already grabbing my backpack to check-out of Rooftop Hotel! Let’s go...

I knew about this place but did not plan on seeing this time, since I thought it was far (located in the mountains). But I learned it is not really that distant from town center! I casually asked Ray (my habal-habal driver) where else could I go before noon since I was scheduled to leave for the port still after lunch. He suggested this place. I asked if it wasn’t far, how many minutes and so on… Sum it all, here we were – even after passing other interesting places ( previous stories ) in and around Mambajao! Good I agreed to come up here. I learned many things from the very helpful officer of the station. He is a good conversationalist and when he talked to me about many things volcano, he would expound on many words for my lowly mind to fathom. Interesting story! Like 50 years before the deadly eruptions of 1948~1953, there was no recorded sign of violent activity. So people were not that ‘warned’ or were not that ‘scared’, especially that there was no government unit (yet) co...