More Island Exploration

We arrived in Surigao City, Surigao del Norte on Mindanao the jumping off point to the island of Siargao (pronounced Sure-gow). Surigao was your typical provincial capital with lots of traffic, etc. One thing did set it apart from the others - the plaza. Now every municipality in the Philippines has a plaza. Many are run down and mostly empty unless there is a government function or local talent show on the stage. But, the plaza in Surigao City was completely different - it was large with nicely manicured landscaping. And there were people everywhere! Benches were full of students chatting and the lawns were crawling with young children. There was nice music from the stereo, guards were actually keeping the peace and there were even photographers who were paid by locals to take pictures of their kids in the grass. It was a wonderfully homey seen and I could have stayed for hours just people watching and eating my delicious tropical fruit.

The next day we arrived in Siargao. Some background info on the island: about a decade or so ago, some surfers were passing through when they noticed that one spot far off shore in a small barangay in the rural municipality of General Luna (GL) had amazing waves and thus Cloud 9 was born turning the tired little community into a surfer haven. We just missed (thankfully) the Quicksilver 11th Annual International Surfing Competition that is held every year on the far flung island. There is also a national competition each year, which apparently has the place crawling with tourists. We had originally thought we would try our 2nd hand at surfing, having both only done it once before, but the cloud was a little crowded and we were a little shy in front of what looked to us almost professionals so instead we were content watching others ride the waves (which weren't very good anyway because of the winds - so we were told).

That afternoon we explored the downtown area. Along the way, we passed by a building called the Pirates Pub with children peeping in through the windows. We decided to investigate to discover what all the fuss was about. As we approached the building, a loud voice resounded from within, requesting us to come inside. Now, we had been expecting the pub to be what it claimed to be - a pub but, once inside we quickly realized that it was no longer a public pub but a one man bar slash family room. The pirate, as is turns out, is a drunken Aussie who has been living on the island for some 17 years. He has a truckload of children who were watching TV on the bar. We suspect that the pub at one time was a functional bar complete with pool table and dartboard but it seems the owner decided he would rather entertain himself then a bunch of drunken tourists and let the whole thing got to pot. It was a pretty surreal experience needless to say, and not at all what one expects to find in a quite little town.

Day 2
The next day, we hired a motor complete with driver for P600 pesos for 6 hours. We wanted to tour the island and usually we rely on public transport but jeepneys seemed to be in very short supply on the island. For example, GL (where we were staying) only had transport 1/2 hour before a boat left to Surigao City (and those only leave 3 times a day). So, we woke up bright and early to hit the first stop, Mapupungko at low tide - the only time one can visit Mapupungko. Having no idea what Mapupungko was or why we had to be there at low tide we set off. It appears that Mapupungko is a "famous" tourist spot, but since there are hardly any tourists who venture off of Cloud 9 it is very secluded, not even our driver new exactly what we were looking for! Luckily, KC was able to sniff out the deep crystal clear blue green pool which appears only during low tide. On the gloomy gray morning the pool shone like an emerald.

After a quick (and cold!) dip in the pool we were off again! This time to the waterfalls. Along the way we drove through municipalities such as Pilar. In all my time in the Philippines I don't think I've ever seen down towns look so rural. Instead of the main part of town, it looked like a remote barangay, there were no real stores, none of the streets were paved and all of the houses were made of wood or bamboo. Here we stopped along the river to watch the people and take in the scenery. The waterfalls were a far ride off and turned out to be nothing special, as most waterfalls are (for exceptions see entry on Libertad). We soon learned that aside from Cloud 9, Mapupungko and the waterfall, there really isn't any other "tourist attractions" on the island...or that is to say that none have been exploited yet. So we puttered around the rest of the island stopping at viewpoints to snap a few pictures and give our sore bums a rest. Unexpectedly, our driver took us to a local weekend getaway. In this ingenious place the owners have created 3-4 large cement ponds which they have filled with fish and crabs caught from the ocean. The fish are fattened up much like in other fish ponds, but they must feed them expensive steroids because they are huge and cost an astonishing P300/kilo! The locals come to the ponds to relax in the cabanas and buy expensive fish which is harpooned on the spot and grilled up nice and fresh. We were lucky enough to watch a boy spear fish in the shallowest pool for a nice fat surgeon fish, which was surprisingly difficult for him to catch.

Off to Socorro
KC had read about this amazing cave called Sohoton Cave on a nearby island. During low tide, one can enter the tunnel on a little paddle boat to be met on the other side by a gorgeous white sand cove. We decided this was were we wanted to go on our third day and searched for a reasonably priced ride there. However, it seems that only rich surfing tourists in packs of ten want to go to the cave and such we were unable to find a decently priced boat. Also the winds were not in our favor as the 2nd typhoon in a row was passing through the Philippines and the waves were very unfriendly. The caves are on the island of Bucas Grande, which is an island about half the size of Siargao. With two decent sized islands, we thought that there must be public transportation between the two and from Bucas Grande we could hire a boat for much cheaper and then we would be on the choppy water for much less time. Our grand scheme seemed a great idea to us and we began to search for a public boat, which we found. Even though we had already promised to stay at our overpriced mozzie ridden resort for the night we decided to suck up the costs and hitch a ride to Bucas Grande to put our plan into action.

On the boat ride over we discussed our plans with many of the local passengers. All of them seemed a little wary of us boating around in the rough seas, but they were all more than happy to help us plan what they thought would be our demise. One woman name May May (pronounced My My) was extremely helpful and even offered us a free place to sleep as long as we paid for the short motor ride. She told us we could come down to the main village of Socorro early in the morning when there are loads of fisherman and their boats to arrange for the trip. So, we set of to Atojay (pronounced Ato-hi) in the hills. The journey was at dusk and the scenery was peaceful...and long...we kept passing through small barangays where I was sure we were going to stop but we just kept on truckin' through the massively deforested hills. I started envisioning this sweet woman taking us in the middle of no where to the home of a strange cult that would drug or kidnap us and thus I was starting to get mildly nervous.

Finally when we couldn't go any further, we stopped at a couple of large wooden buildings swarming with children. The strange cult wasn't a cult at all, but a farming cooperative. The coop was established in the 1970s when the government allowed the residensts of the island to begin cultivating the highlands after the forests were destroyed by illegal slash and burn farming. The lands on the denuded hills belong to the cooperative and members are allowed to farm as much of the land as they wish. Most of the members live in the lowlands and so they built a large dormitory for them to sleep in during the harvesting seasons. They also recently completed an elementary school to encourage the farmers to live closer to the land to which they tend. We were welcomed by members of the coop whose turn it was to take care of the dormitory. They were passing out rice to the farmer's children through a new government program (hence the multitude of staring eyes). They were extremely welcoming people and quickly set out a modest dinner of instant noodles, rice and canned fish, made up a room and sat down to ask us a million questions (we also had a million questions for them).

I was beginning to think this was perfect, exactly the vacation I wanted - away from the annoying backpacking tourists who are only interested in talking to each other - really getting to the heart and soul of the places we were visiting. I was greatly enjoying my time and then...dun, dun DUN... the inevitable happened... The grape vine had trickled down enough for the head honcho of the cooperative to get wind that we were in the neighborhood. Quickly we were whisked away from our hosts in the cozy wooden dormitory and smacked into the bright white new concrete guest house that the coop was finishing so there would be more rooms for them to stay in. Not only were we forced to stay in the sterile, echo-y rooms but we met with El Presidente himself who first had to show us pictures of him with all the ex-presidents, congressmen and mayors who have visited the farming community. While before everyone in the dorm seemed on even keel, in our new group of ten people, it was clear who the boss and everyone bowed down to his demands while he paraded us around. Then a grand banquet of food was set before us. I couldn't make heads or tails of the situation. In the wooden house the cooperative had seemed like the ideal group of small time farmers helping one another out. But in the guest house, it was clear that things weren't as perfect. The president clearly was not a subsistence farmer (he was the former mayor of a town on Siargao Island) and was so obviously wealthy I couldn't figure out why he needed to be a part of the coop. My visions of a grand collective group working together were shattered. I guess nothing is what it seems.

One of the worst parts about visiting the co-op president was that he convinced May May that we shouldn't attempt our trip to Sotohon Cave (our only reason for coming to the island). Because he said it was windy, she got really worried and finally convinced us that we shouldn't even attempt the trip. We were about to get on the early boat back to Siargao when I thought that we might as well check out the island we were on instead of just hanging out in our bungalow in GL. May May had accompanied us to the pier and when we told her we would stay until the last boat ride out she practically jumped for joy. OK, that may be an exaggeration, but without batting an eye she stood up and told us that she would show us Socorro and we immediately set off to someone's house where they fed us an elaborate (for them) breakfast of fresh fish. May May had taken us to their house because it was bigger and made of concrete then her house which was a falling down wooden shack high on a hill. During our time at this house (whose, we didn't quite know), a large group of adults and their children had gathered. They swiftly decided that we should go swimming in the municipal pool, I assume because this was the biggest attraction there was in town. However, when we reached the pool, we found it was empty, so we headed to the beach to swim only to find out it was low tide. Instead we munched on snacks on the beach where we mentioned that there was no young coconut in America. This astonished May May who immediately decided that we needed to head to her farmer friend's house who could supply us with young coconut and other fruits to our stomach's content. Once we were finished we were whisked back down to the house of May May's relatives because we had already been invited for more food for lunch. At the house we were fed a large mud crab and more fish and then headed off to the pier to travel back into touristville.

I was really touched by May May. It was clear that she and her family were genuinely hospitable people and truly wanted show us the wonderful place where they lived. It was also apparent that none of the people we met on the trip were very wealthy, but it didn't stop them from providing us with free food and a place to stay even though we were "Amerikanos" and by definition very wealthy. They could have easily tried to get some cash for acting as our tour guides, but that was the farthest thing on their minds.

After returning to Siargao, we realized how tired our trip to Socorro had made us. It can be difficult being the center of attention for so long - answering so many personal questions and having everyone try their hardest to make sure you're happy. We're both not used to this since we've kept to ourselves for most of our travels. However, the trip to Socorro strengthened our conviction that we did not want to spend the entire SEA Asia Adventure along the tourist trail and that we want to spend time getting to know the REAL people and customs of the places we'll be visiting.