by Cress Vasquez
On a sunny September day, I find myself flying to Siargao Island on invitation of a friend who, two days earlier, meets me in Cebu city to persuade me to visit the surfing capital of the Philippines before returning to Toronto. I’m reluctant of course being halfway through my plan of resort-hopping around Cebu.
But my friend is not your average dude; he doesn’t take no for an answer. He uses strong arm tactics.
He kidnaps me early evening from Cebu’s Ayala Center and takes me to a torture chamber at Casa Verde steakhouse. Then, unmindful of my physical condition, he drags me to his vehicle with his driver-bouncer for the drive to nearby Mactan Island where I anticipate another round of indignities.
In a half state of consciousness, I overhear voices that tell me we are at Mactan’s Shangri La Hotel. I step into a golf cart that delivers me to a veranda by the sea where shadows dance to burning bamboo torches. Flashbacks of King Kong hungrily approaching his meal in torch light flood my mind, and I tremble in my shoes.
Back in Shangri La, a voice interrupts my thoughts about Siargao. (To go or not to go, that is the question.) A damsel, young enough to be my daughter but eye-catching if I must say, asks: “What would you like to drink, sir?”
Before I can answer, my friend (or torturer) blurts out: “Day, Hennessy XO lang.” (Sweetie, Hennessy XO only.)
My resistance to his Siargao invitation melts at this instance. It’s uncanny he understands my affliction without being told. I’m allergic to poison, but I can tolerate Hennessy XO, which is a form of antihistamine to a delicate throat.
Fast forward, from my plane window I see below a blue sea studded with islands in various shades of green. A seatmate points out Bohol, Camiquin, Leyte, Samar, and, as the plane lowers its nose, Dinagat Island ahead. I can’t see mainland Mindanao because it is on starboard side and I’m on port side. Soon, emerging from cumulus clouds, Siargao beckons.
Surfing in Siargao, Surigao Del Norte, the surfing capital of the Philippines.
My friend went back to Siargao a day ahead to prepare for my accommodations and meet me at the airport in Sayak, Siargao. I’m planning to stay for three days to see if I like to stay longer next time when I visit the Philippines again.
The Cebu Pacific Air flight captain comes on the intercom and announces: “We’re arriving 10 minutes early because of tail winds.” Well, it’s better than nothing after a one-hour delay at the Mactan International airport where passengers steam in their underwear.
I step down from the aircraft as sunshine splashes on my face. It’s not as hot as Cebu but enough to obliterate memories of harsh Toronto winters.
My friend meets me at the baggage claim area with the chief of airport security in tow. The man asks for my baggage claim ticket, picks up my stuff, and then loads it on an SUV. Large welcome signboards caught my eyes. They advertise individuals whose surname is exactly the same as that of my friend’. Curious, I ask him about it, and he shrugs: “They just happen to use the same surname.”
At this point my tummy whispers “lunchtime.”
Ten minutes later we arrive in the town of Dapa, the capital of Siargao, and enter a gated compound where my friend lives. I see coconut, jackfruit, guava, banana, breadfruit, citrus, carambola, soursop, pomelo, and other fruit trees. The flowering shrub and lush vegetation offer a riot of colors I can only savour. The spread of land, an area of about four hectares, extends to the edge of the sea.
We eat lunch on the balcony which opens on three sides of a one storey, white concrete structure that is divided into 9 equal suites to accommodate nine siblings when they hold reunions at Christmas and anniversaries. Their parents who built them had passed on a long time ago. Only my friend lives in the house now attended by a live-out house help when he isn’t in Canada. The other siblings live somewhere else.
Our lunch is barbecue pork and chicken, fish-cabbage soup, grilled “Gangis” (an Omega-3 laden fish), pickled papaya, fried sweet banana, fried banana, ripe mango, and pineapple. I go for fish and fruits as a friendly gesture to my arteries.
After lunch, my friend drives me to where his elder sister owns a 7-hectare resort and convention facility that is accessible from the main road and by a path that winds down to its hidden seaside retreat. The complex consists of one large, airy assembly hall complete with restaurant, bar and satellite TV, and service and lodging houses, that include a row of three cottages of bamboo and wood construction standing on stilts in the water. A bamboo bridge connects the cottages to land.
I’m staying in a cottage that service staff calls the “honeymoon” cottage as it stands farthest out in the sea. It is complete with TV, air conditioning (which I don’t use), Wi-Fi, and in-suite bathroom. Because of its isolation, only fish can hear joyous exclamations or moans of extreme fatigue. But I disappoint them, I’m alone.
As we drive around Dapa, I find that it’s much cleaner, smaller and slower than Cebu city. But it’s suitable for retired folks, expats and Filipinos alike who prefer a slow but active lifestyle and an affordable one to boot. It’s a place where the extra expense and stress that come with winter is unknown, and where household help and care-givers, organic veggies, hormone and antibiotic-free meats, and fresh fish are easy to get. So, who needs an aphrodisiac?
If one wrinkles over typhoons, it’s easy to live on high ground like my friend, who is constructing his residence on top of a hill on a 16-hectare organic farm 15 minutes from the sea.
My friend and host, by the way, is Ben Matugas of Brampton and Siargao Island who is now talking to me again about another visit to his island retreat. I might go back next year if we can make a stopover at the newly-opened Siargao Blu Resort in General Luna, Siargao, owned by his sister, Elizabeth Matugas Abejo. I’d like to have a dip in the ocean nearby and swim two laps in the Olympic swimming pool before lunch.
The view from the air of several small islands in the vicinity of Siargao fuels my imagination. I wonder if nature lovers, who eschew clothes and pamper their bodies with nakedness, live on one of the islands.
I’m not keen when it comes to Biblical stories, but I’ll come back another day to recount another tale, if you can… smile.