COME AGAIN IN CAMIGUIN

May 2015 summer has been so good to me. If you follow me in my social media accounts, I bet you knew what I have been up to in the past few weeks. Yes, I hang out most of the summer together with my family. I am so grateful that I was able to do that despite the fact that summer was also typical working days for me, unlike to all joyous people from academe who truly felt the heat of the sunny season.

In the last days of May however, I grasped an opportunity to travel to Camiguin Island. No, no, no, it is not what you are thinking. It is not actually a typical get-away, but for a 2-day work. Yeahhh, work in Camiguin Island on summer. Other people (like who those do not know me, really) say how unfortunate I am to work in Camiguin Island, yes, on summer, yes. But hey, this is my forte. Perhaps, it is sad that I did not go there for a usual enjoyment, but I can obviously do that sometime soon, midst the busy schedules. The “plus” points there are: I reached and came to breathe the air of Camiguin, I saw and enjoyed some of its famous offers, I interact with Camiguinon, and more importantly, I visited all of its five municipalities. In fact, our wheels touched its 64-kilometer circumferential road!

I guess I have to brief you with few things about the business I went there for. Actually, I went there for the KALAHI-CIDSS Info Caravan. KALAHI-CIDSS or (Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Community Integrated Development and Social Services) is a program of national government, in the lead of Department of Social Welfare and Development, that promotes development through community-driven projects. It aim to empower residents of a certain community to get involved in planning, decision-making, and a lot more.

Thus, I give credits to DSWD because aside from the fact that they brought me there to cover their events, I gained a lot of learning that I could share to you in this blog. To tell you the truth, I did my best to concentrate in doing my job in there and stay away from awesome distractions, and good thing I was able to put myself together and I am convinced that I made it. However, as a natural blogger mind as I am, I cannot control myself to observe the place and upon thinking, I thought of this blog and decided to share that experience of me with you. Forgive me, however, that I would not share everything about the job I went there because that one deserves to be a content of one serious and formal post (I already written an article of it already) because of its level of importance. As for the moment, let me just babble here about what I saw exciting in Camiguin. This post of a 2-day tour might not give the right amount of justice of Camiguin’s beauty and richness, but please, read on.

Thank you for continuing to read. LOL.

Before I narrate a summary about my travel, let me give you (especially to my foreign readers) few basic facts about Camiguin which I personally heard from Mambajao Vice Mayor and Camiguin Guv.

• Camiguin is tagged as Island of Pure Imagination and The Island Born out of Fire.
• Camiguin only has 64-kilometre circumferencial road.
• It has 13 volcanoes (That it’s why it is the Island Born out of Fire).
• Camiguin – Famous for lines Come Again / Come As You Are.
• It is a pear-shaped when photographed with aerial view.
• Its culture is mixed of Boholano and Cebuano cultures.
• It has five municipalities: Mambajao (Capital), Mahinog, Guinsiliban, Sagay and Catarman.
• Lanzones fruit is abundant in the area.
• They hold annual celebration of Lanzones Festival.
• Recently ranked top 5 tourist spot in the Philippines.

We left Cagayan de Oro City by quarter to 1:00pm. The ride from CDO to Balingoan was very very very long. In my estimations, it took four hours. Then we rode the barge that took us to Camiguin Island and the travel last for more or less an hour.

The first thing we did there is check-in for Ardent-Hibok-hibok Spring Resort. The resort actually has classic rooms that house tourists in Camiguin. This resort is also famous for its hot spring which is verrrry relaxing.

After checking in, we started working, which means attending a very important gathering together with the hosts.

The welcoming dinner and program lasted for a couple of hours. We then went to the nearby Pasalubong Center and bought some usual stuff to bring home.

Then we made our walk towards the room. The sad thing is that all of us are so tired to swim.

But after some rest, my body was up and I forced my colleague, Ate Candy, to come with me, and dip in the spring. Oh, successful!

We chose the middle pool which is extreme cold to energize our bodies. We then went to the warm part which is considered my colleague’s favorite at that time. She said the warm will release all the excess cells of her skin (which I believe as well). However, I must say I found myself laughing at her because of silliness. She is repeating all of her explanations a lot of times. LOL.

I swam and swam and swam for how many hours until quarter to midnight. Wow, Irene. Great.

(I am sorry. I cannot post decent photos because my night photos turned out so bad.)

The next day, I woke up to the sound of my alarm. It was 4:00am when I took a bath again, and prepared myself for the second day of the tour. It is actually the last day, as well. Too short, too sad but well-

Our departure for municipality visits is 7:00am, so hours before that, we took the opportunity to re-tour around the place and took photos.

When it was time to make our tour, I jumped by the window of the van and stay there the whole time, so that I can see the places outside. Camiguin is awesome, and the people too. The tour took more than six hours only but it feels like we’re doing it in a week. We have gone to so many places! The lots below show the side photos (with a few of work photos) of the tour. Enjoy!

How would you exactly feel when you see awesome Camiguin people waving welcoming flags at you every kilometre of the road? Well, not exactly just for us, but most especially for DSWD execs there.

Camiguin is such a blissful paradise. As I always saying in my other travel posts, I wish that sometime in the future I could come back to this place, not to work, but to give myself the job of exploring its corners, to feel its cool breeze, and to walk in its vicinities. I wish that sometime, I would be out of the traffic, out of the stress of work, out of the pressure of assignments, and just enjoy the magnificent view that tells us the real beauty of God’s power and the immeasurable extent of His love.

I am promising myself to fulfil these wishes soonest. I will come again in Camiguin.