Northern Mindanao

"A Window to Wonderment"

Feb 19-22, 2011. Our trip to Northern Mindanao - invading CDO and Camiguin! We had a not so good flight schedule. We arrived in CDO at exactly 5:35pm. I personally wrote down our own itinerary with Plan A and Plan B. Like everyone else, we are aiming to hit our Plan A, yet we fell in Plan B. Yey!

The only diff is in Plan A - right after we landed in CDO terminal, we're gonna travel directly to Camiguin to stay for our 1st night and just in case (most probably) we can't catch the last trip of RoRo, we have our Plan B - no choice but to stay overnight in CDO and early in the morning fly to Camiguin.

And the Plan B Journey begun...

Day 1: Plaza Divisoria (CDO)

walk-in, lodge hunting in the middle of the foreign land. From CDO terminal we rode a jeep that went to another station to another, just to get near to Plaza Divisoria. (P17.00 and P7.00 fare respectively)

Settled in Nature's Pensionne Hotel. Overnight stay for only P1173.00 for 5pax (1 queen size bed & 1single bed, aircon, tv and cr w/ heater yey!) 

Since it's Saturday, Plaza Divisoria is alive with bands, bancheto alike and just our own Divi version in manila. super daming items around. 

Rice yan! i forgot their term. haha. P7.00 each

breakdancers sa divi :-) Nice!

Food Trip c/o Miles. Thanks sa libre :-)

Day 2: Travel to Camiguin. 

5am we rode a bus going to Balingoan Port (1.5hrs) Bachellor Bus P150.00 each. Then took a 5min walk going to port and rode a RoRo going to Benoni Port P135.00 (1hr)

8am - we rent a multicab for P1500.00 for whole day tour and sent us to our chosen hotel. 

We went to Enigmata to check if there's an available room for us.. sad to say it's fully booked :-(

Lesson learned! magpabook ahead of time. 

I personally recommend Enigmata Tree house - good ambiance, very unique, ethnic and culture, lots of dream catcher around the place, very presko ang dating. (P250/pax stay for a night)

2nd option: Pabua Cottages (P1250.00 5pax overnyt stay) aircon, tv, 2 double bed, 1single bed, cr no heater! The place is near Paras Beach Resort. Advantage: near the shore, 7mins boat ride to White Island.

Tips: you can also rent the pump boat owned by Kuya Poloy for P350-400. Best to go there early in the morning for hello sunshine moment. 

1 day Tour via muticab: Falls and Springs

Katibawasan Falls

Katibawasan Falls

Sto. Nino Cold Spring

Ardent Hot Spring

Trek in Old Volcano. Station of the Cross

Centennial Tree

Old Church

Sunken Cemetery

Dinner @ Luna Ristorante Italiano

The best pizza i'd ever taste! sarap baked in brick oven

Day 3: Beachin' and Rafting. 

First Half of the day - went to White Island Beach as early as 5am

(our plan is to have atleast 2-3hrs of beach experience and then go back to CDO for water rafting)

It was a successful blind date with mother nature. 

Miles and I, never missed to get in touched with the waves every time we have a beaching moment! Yey goodbye belly! 

Sea Urchin for P10.00 with suka and kalamansi. Sarap! parang kinilaw? haha

2nd Half - White Water Rafting in CDO

at around 12pm we rode RoRo back to CDO, we need to catch the schedule for rafting. Supposedly by 1pm  we must be ready, but due to unexpected transportation difficulties, we came so so so late in CDO proper.

our contact is the The Red Rafs team headed by Sir Rex #09178556983

P700.00 each (10 rapids) and additional P500.00 for photos and videos

For our last night in CDO, we had dinner at Sentro 1850, one of the best fine resto in cagayan that is located in the center of the city along Velez St.

Then the journey ends but the wonderment feelings remained.

Good bye Mindanao with peace and love!