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Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Camiguin Revisited
By Danilo V. Adorador III
IF A tourist is defined as someone who travels for pleasure, then consider that denotation an understatement when I hit the boat for the Island Born of Fire.
It has been quite a while since I last set foot in that picturesque island of Camiguin. Arriving here seven months ago from my hometown Davao, I have been gallivanting this part of Mindanao but the urge to revisit the island had been spewed out by tight schedules and long hours in bed.
So when I was invited by the Cagayan de Oro Travel and Tours Association (COTTA) for a familiarization tour in Camiguin, I gladly hopped-in. Being in the company of tour operators, I felt more of a "real" tourist than my previous sally-wally where pleasure was always mixed with youthful delinquencies in a gang of few dysfunctional friends.
Camiguin used to be accessible from Cagayan de Oro via small but faster boats. Now, one has to travel from the city to Balingoan--a coastal, sleepy Misamis Oriental town, to catch any of the hourly scheduled ferry across the channels of Mindanao Sea.
Few minutes after the ferry took off, the island's lush forest and emerald waters beckons from the distance. Its pear shape topography slowly vanishes as the boat nears the comfy Benoni port.
It's interesting to know that with all its wonders, Camiguin comprises only two percent of Region 10's land area. I wonder how its seven volcanoes, the largest concentration in an island of such underground gods in all of Southeast Asia, could fit into its slim sphere.
We immediately lurched ourselves to the waiting hotel coaster, already exhausted as the sun retreated west to give way for the solemn darkness.
Women on their chores, men attending to their farm animals, children playing hide and seek beneath the Lanzones trees--things that remind me of my rural childhood passed before my eyes as the car headed its way to the elevated Camiguin Highlands.
The hotel itself, aptly named Highlands, rises above the terrains of Mambajao, the premier municipality where the bulk of commerce is concentrated. The rooms are spacious, elegant and definitely not the type you'd think you'll see in any small island.
In the morning, the blue seascapes spread out throughout the horizon. Bohol, which is two hours away by boat from the island, is visible from the top floor of the hotel.
First, we visited the Old Ruins of San Roque Church, Convent and Belfry in Catarman municipality. It's amazing how this formidable edifice, towering once a beautiful Hispanic village, is entomb by just one rambling of the Old Vulcan Daan (though the name is a little bit confusing). The volcanic eruption in 1871 buried the whole town, with the survivors sprinting for dear life in the nearby Misamis Oriental towns.
The dead did not escape Vulcan's wrath, as it submerged the cemetery in the waters. Now, only the large White Cross remains as testament to the tragedy where the annual fluvial procession is done to honor and to give thanks to the dead.
The tombs are already buried in the rich corals, the guide said.
Camiguin is the spiritual center of the Holy Week feast in the Mindanao christendom, I could safely say. People flock here for the annual Panaad where the Via Cruzes at the Old Volcano provides devotees a sanctuary to pray and congregate.
With the 14 Stations of the Cross that dot the trail leading to the peak, somebody whispered to me that the rigor of finishing the Panaad would be enough to cleanse a first class heretic.
Of course, there are the ancestral houses that should not be missed but time constraints forced us to cut short to the Ardent Hot Spring. The dormant Hibok-Hibok volcano gives off hot spring where visitors and locals alike soak themselves for either the enjoyment or therapeutic effects they can get.
There are still many things to discover in Camiguin, which makes a maiden visit not enough. The cold springs, falls, shoals and diving sites and the hospitality of the local residents are sure to lure visitors like me to go back--in time for the Lanzones festival in October.
(September 27, 2005 issue)
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