Saturday, January 28, 2012

day1: camiguin countryside tour


Creative blog title, yes? Haha! As promised here's my pasalubong na kwento. Because that's all I can give you guys as pasalubong, my never ending stories. :D

As much as I would like to spare you from the not-so-good part of this trip, I won't. Can you guess what unfortunate event happened? Can you, huh? Clue: Something to do with our flight. Hahaha! You guessed that right, we missed our flight! Pakshet!  We're five in this trip but only Dwin and I booked together, meaning only Dwin and I missed our flights. Booo! Our departure was 7:10am, I came in the airport at 6:40, Dwin came at 7:00. The plane boarded at 6:25. To make the long story short, we had to rebook our flights and that cost us more than two thousand pesos EACH. So much for waiting for seat sales, huh? 

Anyway, we learned our lesson the hard way. I just wish you learn from us na lang. Okay? Be in the airport at least an hour before your flight, that's the safest I guess. Thank you though to Cebu Pac for the lesson. Isang apir naman jan. :P

So moving on, we took the flight departing at 8:10am. We were in Cagayan de Oro at around  9:30. Sheena, Jelai and EA were already waiting for us. Kuya Gammy took us to Balingoan Port via a Toyata Grandia. We had lunch on our way, big thanks to Jollibee. It was a 2-hour comfortable ride to the port.  We were there at around 1:00pm.

finally landed in the city of golden friendship
my most expensive flight to date :P

Balingoan Port
 
From Balingoan Port, we took the ferry bound to Benoni Port. It was an hour away from Balingoan and the ride was worth P173. I swear the ferry was super slow, baka dahil hindi siya super ferry. Nyee. Haha! We were in Benoni Port at around 3:00pm.

Benoni Port

From Benoni Port, we were picked up by Kuya Teddy. Yes, the famous teddybird2005 of PEX. They suggested not to check-in first because it's late already. So, we started immediately with the Countryside Tour. After all, our first stop was Sto.Nino Cold Spring.

our ride for the country side tour

Our first stop was nothing but perfect since by then we were already feeling greasy. Instant ligo! And as its name implies, it was really freezing cold. I'm lost for words now just trying to emphasize how cold it was. Hahaha! I had a hard time dipping in the water because aside from being cold, it was deep too. Five feet I guess, 4'9 lang po ako. Add to that the fact that I can't tread in the water. Looooser! 

just before our freakin' cold swim

felt rather close to nature

Our next stop was Gui-Ob Old Church Ruins. According to Kuya Teddy, the church was damaged due to the eruption of Mt. Vulcan. All the while, Jelai was blaming Mt. Hibok-Hibok for everything Mt. Vulcan did. Barking up at the wrong tree, miss. :P Back to the church ruins, we saw an old chapel, a century old tree, ruins of the convent and ruins of the bell tower. How many times did I say old and ruins? Haha! 

old.old.ruins.ruins. :P

Third stop was the Sunken Cemetery. It was kind of creepy actually. If I remember it right, the sinking of this cemetery was Mt. Vulcan's fault once again. Namimihasa. :) And probably due to the fact that there's not so much you can do here, the guides have loads of picture tricks. Too bad we're a bunch of KJ people because only Dwin gamely posed for them. I'm not sharing his pics though, spotlight should still be mine. Bwahaha! :))

just imagine, party party ang tombstones sa ilalim. iscaaaryy

Last stop was the Walkway to Old Volcano and Stations of the Cross. Quick photo-ops only as we were starving at this point. Patay gutom in other words. 

Finally, we had dinner at Terrasse International Ristorante. Please do not get fooled with the name as its nothing fancy. They served our food a little long but nonetheless they're worth the wait. We had seafood pizza, bulalo, cordon bleu, sweet and sour fish and lechon kawali. Indeed, international.

haggardo versoza na ko at this point

After dinner, they asked us if we still want to visit Ardent Hot Spring but we declined. We were all too tired and obviously haggard. You know it's a mortal sin to get caught by the camera looking not-so-fresh. Right, girls?  ;) 

Aside from the hot spring, other spots we weren't able to visit are the Katibawasan Falls and Soda Pool. So in case you guys are planning a trip to Camiguin, you better be there EARLY. Take it from us, especially me. Haha!

That's it for the first part of this series. Hope I did not bore you as there's more to come. And please please click the pictures to embiggen {oopsie, too much internet slang}. My blog template won't allow me to post pictures larger than how I posted them. Ick. Is it time for template change? :S

**credits to Sheena, Dwin and Jelai for the pics
***total expenses and itinerary to follow

12 comments:

Jodie-Ann Muckler said...

Wow, sucks that you missed your flight. :/
But it looks like you had fun!

Kristeta  (kalokang Pinay) said...

Awww, too bad you missed your flight. Ako basta flight OA ako, ang aga ko palagi, hehe. Pero I think this applies to other mode of transport as well. I remember nalate kami sa train papuntang Paris, yup we had to rebook & pay again. grrr, like yourself, charged that to experience.

Wow, your 1st day was full on! Sayang you missed two other spots but the places you've been to are amazing. Sana makapunta rin kami dyan in the future.
Looking forward to the next installment =)

anney said...

Ako namn 2 hours early lagi pag may flight minsan nga 3 hours early pa. hehehe! Wow gusto ko din mag camiguin! How much ang countryside tour nyo? You can adjust the width of your entire blog sa blogger template designer para makapaglagay ka ng mas malaking pictures. Ganun kasi ang ginawa ko sakin. At kung napakaraming pictures pwede ka mag scroll bar.

jelai said...

hehehe..kami nga rin eh.. 2 hours before the flight..sayang yung 2000++ pasalubong na sana namin yun!

ang lapit lang ng camiguinsa amin but i haven't gone to it pa.. :(

Kim, USA said...

I hope to visit this place when I get to visit Philippines this summer. The photos are awesome and I heard Camiguin is beautiful!

Kim, USA

Sey said...

Yes, the pasalubong that I was waiting for. It's delicious. Tinakam mo nananman ako sa gala. Hahaha.

I definitely learned a lesson from yours, I'll be 5 hours early then sa aking mga anticipated gala, OA sa aga no? hahaha.

Too bad you didn't have much time for the other spots. But I'm sure you had more fun. Next! excited much.

Unknown said...

Like krissy, I'm also OA sa flights schedule, I don't want to pay more. hehe.. kuripot much. Anyway, I always want to go there. Jed and I are thinking if we should spend our honey moon there if we can't afford out of the country honeymoon (which is more likely to happen). I really want to see that floating cemetery.

Lovely pictures and lovely post..Thanks sa super funny stories. I laugh a lot while reading this. :)

Apple Borbon said...

@jodie-ann. yup! we really had a blast.

@kristeta. definitely charging that to experience. bawal na maulit. i'll post itinerary and expenses soon. hope that will help for your future trip.

@anney. 1880 yung whole camiguin package. countryside tour and white island. btw, i tried to adjust the width kaso hindi sya allowed for my template. :(

@jelai. nako, visit camiguin. it's all worth it.

Apple Borbon said...

@kim. thanks for visiting my site. i'll post more details of the trip. hope that would help. ;)

@sey. hahaha! OA nga ang five hours. posted na ang second installment ko.

@mayen. thanks mayen. i actually realized ang dami kong corny jokes. haha!

Anonymous said...

hi apple,

Do you have a contact number of teddy pabualan in camiguin? how much his package in bbc?

many thanks sis.

Apple Borbon said...

hi. :) please check out his comment on this post for his contact details. http://atasteofapple.blogspot.com/2012/02/day2-camiguin-white-island-tour-and.html

expenses on this post, 1880 yung package.
http://atasteofapple.blogspot.com/2012/02/day2-camiguin-white-island-tour-and.html

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