Philippine Travel Notes

After Sto. Nino, my friend’s group of engineers and officials (w/ me the kibitzer, of course) moved on to survey the island-town of Almagro. You may want to see this map of this whole island hop . Going there however, our boat had to skirt a bit of the island of Sto. Nino to reach a village named Barangay Baras as there were 2 ladies in our group that needed to visit for some official service. I realized this is how they do it in remote islands – it doesn’t matter to them if it’s a Sunday. What matters most is if there is a way to reach these places. And our boat was ‘occasion’ enough! Hey, I overheard most of the folks in the boat were appreciative of this barangay. They were saying that many houses here are relatively bigger and made of concrete compared to the town center where we just came from. The reason? They say there are many girls here who are married to foreigners! And they even joked that many mothers in this barangay sternly watch how their lasses learn the English languag...

With no pervious idea as to what might be worth my while on this island-town, I fished my phone and tried to google Sto. Nino. Nothing much to make me run all over the place in search of this and that hehe. The one thing that did titillate me was a speck of information on the web identifying something as “Moro Fort”. But awr, 3 folks I asked did not know, and an elderly I asked as she tended to her sari-sari store told me that it was just some kind of a lighthouse and lookout but ruined long ago with nothing much left for anyone to see. She added that it is now amidst thickets of trees and shrubs that might be snake-infested or scattered with human excretions. How encouraging hehe. So, thanking the Lola for that piece of “dirty” information, and after buying a pack of Marlboro Lights Gold from her (yes, she has!), I dropped the idea of trying to find that “Moro Fort”, especially that it was a Sunday, where the municipal hall was surely closed, making it impossible for me to get a learn...

“Oh wow” was all I could murmur as we approached to dock at this island-town named after the little baby Jesus. Yep, the Holy Child as they say in English. This island is not after all “little” and I had to correct my wrong impression judging from google maps earlier as we cruised. And this town is not really just one but two islands! Plus, a scattering of little islets. But we went just to the town’s main center on the big island. It’s a charming little seaside “pueblo” of fairy tale material as you approach it on a clear sunny morning. Quiet, not so bustling, not so many humanistic nor vehicular movements… just a few folks going about their daily lives… and the sporadic shrieks of children at play nearby. Here I go again with my insatiable desire for the laidback rural life…! Funny how people on this boat could talk to folks on-land with just their normal voices – even as we were still probably 20 meters away from the dock. This, I witnessed, soon as our boat’s engine was shut and th...

Here’s another proof of my being a true-blue “kaladkarin”! That only means being a “real travel junkie” for those who don’t know the word hehe. While I have heard about these many island-towns in the Visayas, I have never yet gotten to fitting my itineraries with Sto. Nino and Almagro, Samar. By my rough estimate, I should be looking at these little paradises sometime in the year 2015 or 2016 still. But when opportunity knocks, I seldom let the door untended! So I went to see them, unplanned! How did this happen? Over dinner at Café Elsa (Ciriaco Hotel, Calbayog City) with two good friends and their kids, wife mentioned in passing that husband was going out to the islands in the morning to do a whole day of oculars for an upcoming project. Boom! Itchy feet contacted brain to do a quick review of tomorrow’s intended itinerary for a possibility of some tweaks; heart readily picked the message so pulse-rate went fast; adrenalin rapidly pumped to the whole of my royal highness that instan...

This topic started with this article Yes this is the baby Jesus and that name is actually spelled as Niño w/ the “ñ” but I opted to write this with the normal letter “n” as some web browsers on earth are still crudely configured not to recognize such a letter. Just remember, it is pronounced as “nin-yo” and not “ni-no”. Ah there are also 3 towns in this country that sport that name. And what a cute co-incidence, these towns are located one in each of the main island groups – meaning Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Cute eh? Two are officially identified as using the completely spelled “Santo” while one officially uses the abbreviated “Sto.” First off, we have the town of Santo Nino in the midst of the province of Cagayan (Region 2). This is a farming community and actually still holds its previous name of Faire, still used by quite a lot of local people to refer to it. Then there is the town of Sto. Nino in the province of Samar (yes, Western Samar, Region 8). This town is comosed of two l...