just being me: December 2011

March 11, 2011. Magnitude 8.8 earthquake hits Japan followed by a humungous tidal wave that left the Anime capital of the world shaken by the damage literally. I was keeping myself updated on the news via web (yes while working)feeling for the people of Japan at the same time grateful that it haven’t been us – Philippines.

Besides, no news can lessen my excitement for our out of town trip the next day.

Not until someone had raised the issue of the Tsunami reaching the Philippine seas. At first I was like “okay so, what?” surely, what harm it could do? But then texts came pouring in, all warning – some insisting that I cancel my trip because “we’re heading right where the tsunami will be”. I ignored all of it thinking that they’re just trying to spoil my day. Keeping my fingers crossed, I Google the list of the “tsunami hot spot” and there it was “NORTHERNMOST AREA OF ILOCOS NORTE”.

Of all the day, Why now? Mother earth could have chosen a better date to unleash her wrath among the mortals.

Still I ignored it. There’s no way were cancelling the last minute. Tsunami be damned!

Now, all we have to do is think of ways to pacify our nearly and obviously freaking out parents. Here’s our uniformed explanation to our worried parents:

- That the tsunami alert is only for the night, and since we’ll be travelling by land we have more than 10 hrs to let it pass

- That we’re not be stupid enough to go to pagudpud should we learn that there still the threat. We’ll just stay in vigan and just find ourselves a pool in exchange of beach.

Together with my friends : Maricel with her husband Homer, Manet, Ate Itet, Jelay , Sir Deng and Gerard (whom we never expected to be interested in this trip) and armed with our “research material” (travel blogs and possible itinerary schedules complete with pictures) junk foods, chocolates and “soda”(with more or less 40% alcohol content), hours later we were already on the road.

We knew that the trip would be a long one so we leave home at 1 am and expecting to arrive at pagudpud at around 3pm but thanks to Kuya Buddy the supposed to be 15 – 17 hrs of travel time was cut in to 13 hrs drive.

Technically, we only have 2 days so our rules were very simple – see as much tourist destination as we can!

Early "Pasalubong" shopping at Vigan (Photo by Gerd Austria)

March 12. Arival at Vigan.

We arrive at Vigan at 9am, ate our supposed to be Breakfast and head out to sight see. There’s nothing really much to see since the beauty of Vigan is best during night time so we had kuya Buds drive us around and visit the souvenir shops for our early shopping ( just in case we can’t stop over vigan on our way back). Then we decided to visit Cape Bojeador Lighthouse, Baluarte Zoo, Bangui Windmills and finally head straight to Pagudpud.

Baluarte Open Zoo (Photo by Gerard Austria)

Cape Bojeador Lighthouse (Photo by Gerard Austria)

Bangui Windmills

While everyone gets much sleep as they can while on the road. I, on the other hand enjoyed myself with all the lush sceneries. I was probably the most excited on this trip - so that explains the "energy" despite of not having any sleep in the duration of our road trip.

So when we finally pass the "Welcome Pagudpud" arc i was like "Yes! Konti na lang.."

According to my "research" the best beach would be in Saud. We were very lucky to have Kuya Buddy with us who knows exactly where to go as well as where to get the best place to stay. We're not really looking for something "posh" to stay - more like somewhere where we could just sleep comfortably and hang out at the beach at night (so that we could drink our "soda").

So we decided to go for one of the transient houses there. We got a room for 1,000.00 pesos/ day with free cottage by the beach front. Which gives us extra money to spend on food (they didn't have any sign so if any one is interested just look for a small tree house and ask for Chynthia).

The moment we got settled in I already went to check out the beach. It was more that what i have imagined it to be. The long hours of drive was more than worth it!

True enough there warent any restaurants around so we decided to go to the talipapa to buy our food and do our own cooking (our hostess provided us with cooking tools but if one doesn't feel like cooking they could always ask them to cook the food for you, you'll just have to pay a little extra for the service).

March 13. 5:30am. Cant wait to hit the beach already.

Everyone was still sleeping from being drunk last night by the beach. I was making all sorts of noises so that they would wake up already. They minute they did I was practically hurrying up everyone to change so that we could enjoy the beach.

Saud Beach (Photo by Gerard Austria)

Early morning swimming (thank goodness for tripods!!! :))

Where to eat?!

We we're driving by looking for a place to eat when we passed by this German Restaurant "BergBlick" http://bergblick-pagudpud.com.Food was also okay esp. their version of Bagnet. One thing i like about the place is the way they set the place up, kind of have a homey feel plus the owner

( Detlev and Marites Cotte ) will personally assist you.

Kabigan Falls.

Going to Kabigan falls is very tiring because of the more or less 30mins. trek but the view and experience is worth all the sweat. (entrance / guide fee starts at Php. 10.00 but you could always give more if you're feeling generous)