Foot and Fire

I love my hometown. Small-bodied she may be, but the Mangkasanons (A native of La Carlota named after folk hero Mangkas or Mantas) live in her crown a million varied lives from OFWs to public servants to tillers of the land to sugarcane mill laborers to fruit-and-vegetable peddlers and more. From valleys to mountains, their last names may vary but their faces are almost always familiar regardless which part they come from: “Mangkasanon indi bugalon” (A Mangkasanon is not a snob). I love that her small body is landlocked (probably the reason why she has the Bureau of Plant Industry in her bosom) so unlike all other cities of Negros Occidental that stretch beside the seas. I love that her arteries are sugarcane fields plus the fields that produce the staples from rice to cassava to corn and sweet potatoes. For her seafoods – fish, oyster and seaweed – she has the nearby towns of Hinigaran and Valladolid. For her vegetables – cucumber, carrot, and cabbage – she ha...

As part of our tour with Harold's Mansion, we went to Casaroro Falls located at Valencia town of Dumaguete, Negros Oriental. The hand-sketched map of our driver-guide says we have to descend 335 steps down the falls and have to hike for 35 minutes before we can see the falls. It is kind of manageable except, he did not say, we have to trail a moderately sloping way towards the entrance of the falls. We paid P10/pax for entrance. The boy did not warn us of the difficulty ahead; I just told him that three ladies, small-medium-and-large will be following us and I will already pay for their entrance fee. Then starts the 335 steps made of steel and some man-made steps which are quite manageable as there are handrails for safety. Upon our descent, the falls is nowhere to be seen yet. We changed into our bathing suits and continued to march on, clinging, jumping, skipping rocks of all imaginable sizes. We finished one stretch and made a turn to the left but we see no fal...

We took a jeep tour at Harold's Mansion to visit the placid twin lakes of Dumaguete called Balinsasayao and Danao. This is located in Sibulan town of Dumaguete. On our way from the signage below, we had an exciting roller coaster ride. The driver is such an expert and we had a four-wheel ride passing by the cliff and some almost one car at a time dirt road; most of the road we passed by is paved as a consolation. Some used habal habal or multi passenger motorcycle. Nevertheless, the experience is both breathtaking in positive sense that we have to watch coconut trees patterned in the mountains below us while the clouds dance in the skies of blue. Buth then, it was also a breathtaking experience in the sense that we were holding our breath as the jeep comes up and down in the sloping terrain. "The lakes are two small but deep crater freshwater lakes rising 1000 feet above sea level and separated by a narrow  mountain  ridge, situated in a hollow between fo...

While planning for our Siquijor trip, I was looking forward to an array of gayuma and other amulets in bottles, small pillow charms, necklace and other pieces for pasalubang but I wrongly anticipated the charm of this island dubbed as the Island of Fire. They do not sell them indiscriminately and one has to purposely go to the mountains and see the faith healers if one really wants to "design" or "cook" a love potion or gayuma, killer portion or hiwit and other more medicines, protection and charms of sort. I am no expert on this, so forgive the amateurish introduction. What I got: It is the smiles of the folks, a thread that sew the common blanket of Filipino trait of warmth and welcoming. Here are some photos of interesting bits I photographed as we roam around Siquijor. POSTCARD FROM SAN JUAN, SIQUIJOR: By the waterway where spring water flow,  residents bathe and do their laundry in this common area. POSTCARD FROM SIQUIJOR: The woman is all smiles...