Note: featured photo from Butuan City Today

By some unforeseen circumstances, this blogger will find himself spending the holy week in the historic City of Butuan, the capital of Agusan Del Norte. It shouldn’t be a surprise since I’m from there though I happen to work here in Manila.
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I say unforeseen because this was totally unexpected. I have accepted the fact that I will be working through the holy week (yep, including black saturday) since I’m supporting some European country and we’re about to migrate some of their work here. This european country however is strictly catholic (think in terms of Padre Damaso and Fray Butod and you’d know which country I’m talking about) and they decided not to come to the office, which means I’ve got some time in my hands. It also helped a lot that the significant other made arrangements for me to fly tomorrow which is really awesome.

So barring any force of nature, I should be in Butuan by noon tomorrow. Now if by some stroke of luck you find yourself in Butuan City, what do you do, where do you go, and where do you sleep. Despite being a city and all, Butuan is still a very small place with very limited options. No offense meant, I’m talking relative to Manila here. Anyway, there are still very nice places to go to within the city if you have time to spare.

If you’re an internet addict like myself and you’ve got your own wifi enabled laptop, you can always go to Margies at the Pan De Pugon along forgive-me-i-forgot-the-name-of-the-street, lol. But the place is very popular so you shouldn’t have any problem asking the tricycle driver to take you there. In a way this is where the ‘sosyal’ set hangout (that’s what I heard anyway). They have free wifi and their cakes are awesome. Ask for a whole chocolate cake and you’d be set back by around P800. In fairness, Margies does not skimp on the ingredients so it’s sinfully delicious. I have yet to taste a chocolate cake that’s as rich as the one that Margies has. Yep even here in Manila. Conti’s? Puhlease.

If you’re looking for a meal on the gourmet side, you can always go to True Brew where they serve those mouthwatering pork ribs and those hungarian sausages that are bigger than the sausages you see in porno movies. Sorry, bad joke. But really, the food they serve there is first rate. Trust me on this one, everytime I’m in Butuan, I always manage to gain a couple of pounds from visiting True Brew so much.

Butuan also has its share of little cancer centers in the form of BBQ stalls near the public elementary school. Again the name of the street escapes me. But these stalls are only open from late afternoon onwards. If you’ve got the grilled meat munchies, this is the place to go to. I often go there with my and eat our hearts out, the big gluttons that we are.

If you’re after seafood and chicken (the ubiquitous chicken inasal) there’s always Weegols and Aling Cora. I prefer the latter though. The kinilaw there (sort of like sashimi but bathed in vinegar with lots of chili if you like) is absolutely fantastic, pair that one with grilled Ketong (nope not the disease dummy, it’s a kind of fish) and you’re in for an absolute treat.

After all these pig-outs, you may want to get a little pampering and head on over to Body and Sole. You can get a facial or a full body massage at ridiculous prices. You’ll easily find yourself snoring after all the pampering you get.

Now the good thing about all of these is that this is Butuan, and as I said a very small city, which means that all of these things will cost you very, very little.

In terms of shopping, there’s really only one destination– Gaisano Mall. And while you’re at it, you may want to visit Bambi’s. It’s a can’t miss store and if you have the hots for anything Barbie or Hello Kitty and all those cute little characters that’s the place to go. They might even give you a discount if you mention that you know of Bambi’s through this blog. The beautiful Bambi better be prepared to compensate me for this plug. Lol.
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Feeling adventurous, I looked for other routes. To my relief there was one: take the roundabout trip from Nasipit-Bohol then to Cebu. Now there are two steps to that journey that made it very memorable.

The pier in Bohol was in Jagna. In my naïve collegiate mind, I assumed that the boat going to Cebu would originate from that place. Big mistake. The pier (actually just a little version of a pier) where the voyage to Cebu will start is in Tubigon, and the ‘boat’ was only slightly bigger than a banca. Think of those ferries plying the Batangas – Puerto Galera route. But in this case, the ‘boat’ will be treading open sea.

I felt my gonads in my throat as I thought about the prospect of sailing on that motorized banca. I can already imagine cathedral like waves smashing our boat to smithereens and sharks running off with portions of my torso and perhaps a limb or two.

But before that I had to take a bus from Jagna to Tubigon. I was almost positive that I would never get to Tubigon alive. The driver had us close all the windows. And the windows in this case were made of wood. Think of the side-windows of your car and replace that with wood. Yes, you can’t see anything. On top of that we were riding at the darkest time of the dawn along very narrow winding roads. The bus from the get-go shot out of the bus terminal like a bat out of hell. I swear to God I couldn’t feel the bus’ tires touching the pavement. We were in a bus and the feeling was that we were flying! Pretty traumatic bus experience that one.

Still, we arrived at the Tubigon Pier in one piece and the earlier horror of figuring in a bus collision was now replaced with my earlier reservation about the boat taking me to Cebu. One horror replaced with another more horrible prospect. It was still very early in the morning and I was already having a bad day.

All my morbid thoughts jumped off the window when I saw the water of the Tubigon. It was emerald clear and the more I stared at it the more I wanted to jump in. I think all those fisherman’s tales of mermaids singing out to them so they jump out to sea and drown were rubbish. There were no mermaids, only the heartbreakingly marvelous jade sea.

We head out for Cebu in that crystal clear water. Because the boat was relatively small (an understatement) I can actually put my hand on the side and dip my hand in the water– n act that had the boat’s crew reprimanding me in many occasions. I’m usually a sensible kid but I couldn’t help myself then.

I knew that we were in very deep waters when the sea turned dark blue. Actually it was more black than blue. I couldn’t help but think that sooner or later the boat was going to get unhinged and all of us would just be part of the debris; another reminder of man’s foolishness to tempt fate.

But we made it. I got of the boat shaking, smelling of the sea but fit enough to go to my midterms and pass it with flying colors.
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