During our last week in the Philippines we visited Camiguin Island. Due to ongoing conflicts we decided to skip Mindanao, which lies in the South of the country. So Camiguin was the southernmost we were willing to visit in the Philippines. To be honest, at first we had some serious doubs about visiting the island. Mindanao is only 10 km away and after checking Google Maps it looked so terribly close. The locals didn’t have a solid opinion about our trip, too. While some were claiming that it is totally safe, others were warning us to always remember what’s in front of it and were telling scary stories about Mindanao. However, as the Internet pictures of the island looked so nice, we couldn’t resist and just say ‘no’ to Camiguin. And we glad we didn’t. After all we now can say it felt really safe. The only thing is, there were more military than usual and the signs with terrorists’ pictures wanted dead or alive reminded us about the proximity of Mindanao.
We reached Camiguin by ferry. Dozens (impossible to count them really; there were more than 50 for sure) of dolphins chasing our boat was the best part of this four hours’ trip. We were so amazed by seeing dolphins enjoying their freedom! Even tried to figure out why they have this tendency of chasing boats. Apparently, it’s because dolphins just love to have fun and show off so they use tides made by boats similarly as surfers use waves. Just for the sake of a good ride 🙂
Camiguin has seven volcanos and massive eruptions shaped the island. The locals commonly refer to the island as “The Island Born Of Fire”. There are many sites reminding of the power of these seven giants. One of the best of them is the Sunken Cemetery. It sunk underneath the water after the eruption of Mt. Vulcan Daan and now there’s only a big cross that still remains above the water. This giant cross compels you to stop and have a moment of silence.
Our initial plan was to stay for only two days in the island. Just quickly run around it and do some diving. But this is what usually happens with our plans. We make plans – then life happens. So we stayed there for almost a week since our ferry was cancelled due to an upcoming typhoon. To be honest, we didn’t grumble much about these changes, since we were quite happy to enjoy the island life for a little bit longer. And since the typhoon headed more towards the North, we only had short heavy rains.
So we were spending our days chatting with locals, watching cockfights (or as Filipinos call – Sabong), eating lots of papayas, driving around the island and just enjoying the scenery around us. We discovered a pleasure of lying in the hot spring during the rain. Thus, every time it started to drizzle, we were headed towards them 😀 We also visited the Giant Clam Sanctuary where there no guides only children who were telling stories about giant clams. Just imagine colorful clams the size of a standard table that can easily cut your finger while closing. So there we kept our hands in pockets 🙂 Not to forget that Camiguin also has some world-class diving sites that we couldn’t skip. We’ve never seen so many turtles before compared to our dives here. It’s just insane. We could literally almost touch some of them.
Since we already had tickets to Taiwan and locals started to talk about a second typhoon approaching, we left Camiguin and headed towards our next adventure. It’s the second time we are leaving the Philippines and we have the same feeling as previously: one day we’ll definitely come back.
TIPS:
- Best spots for diving: White Island and Mantique Island.
- Popular spots for snorkeling: Sunken Cemetery, Giant Clams Sanctuary
- There is a small airport in the island. So you can also reach Camiguin by plane from Cebu.