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WHAT was
it they said about the best-laid plans? You start off
with optimism and a full-blown itinerary that would
knock out an insomniac by nightfall, then some cosmic
force decides to remind you who’s the boss. For my
fellow travelers and I, it was certainly one cold and
wet reminder. We left for Daet, eager to explore the
capital town of Camarines Norte and some of the nearby
islands, just before Typhoon Frank unleashed his fury.
Our smooth departure in SeaAir’s 19-seater plane from
Manila quickly turned into a 50-minute bronco ride at
9,500 feet in the air. No one puked. Thankfully.
‘Piña’ mania
FRANK
may have drastically revised our travel plans, but it
would take more than foul weather to dampen our spirits
and the locals’ enthusiasm for Daet’s 16-year-old
tradition, the Pinyasan Festival. It was a colorful
10-day fete devoted to the “sweetest pineapple,” the
pint-sized Queen or Formosa, which Mayor Tito Sarion
proudly claims to be uniquely grown in Daet. From a
pineapple cookfest to a parade of floats and a
street-dance competition with costumes inspired by the
star of the moment, the whole town was caught in the
piña mania. And they’re cranking up the heat next year,
when an army of bakers will whip up the world’s largest
pineapple cake. If you’re not a huge fan of this
tropical fruit, the Queen could still make a convert out
of you. Superior in taste to its Hawaiian cousin—trust
me—it drizzles a mildly tart ambrosia that leaves none
of that itchy tongue aftertaste.
As with
all places that prides itself on its indigenous product,
the town has found a hundred and one ways to use the
celebrated fruit, from jams, tarts and empanada, to
crisp wine and one of the best atchara I’ve ever
tasted—Ate Fina’s mouthwatering pickled papaya, onion
and carrots, all the vitamin C and saccharine boost you
need in a jar.
But what
still remains to be the most innovative use of this
prickly produce is not eaten but worn. The piña cloth,
typically fashioned into barong Tagalog, is woven from
the fibers of the leaves. At the Labo Progressive
Multipurpose Cooperative, the women worked the looms,
while a man showed us the simple, but backbreaking,
procedure for extracting the fibers using a bench, a
dining utensil and a lot of muscle. With one foot to
steady the leaf on the bench, he vigorously scraped the
leaf with the edge of an old porcelain saucer until
strands of fiber surfaced, ready to be stripped free.
They will pass through many hands before they’re
transformed into shirts, lacy fans, shawls and table
cloth, some of them dyed with the natural pigments of
talisay leaves or mahogany bark. Souvenirs, anyone? The
cooperative also sells dehydrated pineapple, chunky
chewy morsels that no self-respecting piña lover could
ever pass up.
Hang
ten, hang tough
AND what
no watersport aficionado should ever miss out is the
long sandy stretch of Bagasbas Beach, a low-key surfing
destination favored by locals and foreigners. This isn’t
Boracay, where paradise is marred by the greasy hands of
excessive commercialism. You’ll hardly see any resort
along the 2- to 3-kilometer coastline, just minutes from
the town center. The shore gently slopes to a soft,
smooth bottom, making it an ideal spot for learning the
basics of surfing; while far out into the sea, the waves
can swell up to 15 feet from August to November. Midway
through, the beach will be crawling with serious
contenders for the annual surf and dodgeball competition
held in October.
Australian Mike Gambrill fell in love with the beach
that he plans to turn it into a kiteboarding (kitesurfing)
hub. When the Northeast monsoon heralds the start of the
amihan season from November to March, thrill-seekers
will be flying high over the open waters of the
Philippine Sea, if, he said, the government gives him
the green light. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.
Unfortunately for us, our surfing lesson ended even
before it began, courtesy of Frank. The beach that day,
though, was crawling with professional martial arts
warming up in the rain hours before the first nationwide
search for the best standup fighter. “Mano Manoh would
pit disciples of various combative arts—wushu, muay thai,
boxing and mixed martial arts—against one another, one
of them a three-time Asian wushu champion. How could
anyone who grew up on a healthy staple of prime-time
blood and mayhem resist that?
Little
did I know that between bone-cracking bouts that night,
this spectator would end up in the ring, gloved and
pummeling away at some guy. Shocking behavior for a
lady! Truth is, I was a pushover. A little persuasion
from event organizer Ed Dames, and I was up and ready to
outdo another woman by punching a live dummy more times
than she. I say live dummy because the man wasn’t
allowed to fight back, but boy was he quick on his feet.
When it
was my turn, I had—in a comical scene that should only
happen in movies—absolutely missed hearing the bell.
Unbelievable. Alas, I could never return to Daet with my
head held high. Although I knew I had served up fewer
knuckle sandwiches than my opponent, in the spirit of
diplomacy, the judges announced it a tie.
Gold
fever
PINEAPPLE may soon be providing Daet a golden
opportunity—negotiations are underway to set up the
first and only cannery that will process 30,000 tons a
day for the US market—but it wasn’t long ago when
something more valuable had seized the interest and
imagination of residents and outsiders. Our
inexhaustible tour guide Santi Mella, a walking
repository of all facts and rumors about Daet, shared
some of the intriguing stories that swirled around
buried Japanese gold. This is the much-underrated side
of traveling. You stumble into nuggets of trivia that,
to the eyes of an outsider, suddenly turn a town or a
city into more than just a cluster of tourist spots.
There’s history here. There are stories and beliefs that
shape the lives of its people. And there are riches to
be made. Now where did I place that rusty metal
detector?
Ferdinand Marcos, on the other hand, discovered hidden
treasure with the aid of an old marker, an unusual nail
protruding from the belfry of the Saint John the Baptist
Church that pointed to a corner of the churchyard, where
a shrine now stands According to Santi, it took two
helicopters to airlift the bullions in 1983, a hefty
loot that could probably rival the alleged cache beneath
the altar of the church itself.
The
story goes that an old Japanese soldier returned to the
site in the ’90s, hoping to claim what is believed to be
eight ammo cases of gold ingots the size of small
matchboxes. All he did achieve was to draw treasure
hunters out of the woodwork and virtually mark the spot
with a gigantic X. Gold fever spread, emboldening some
to navigate the dark tunnels below the church. Sometimes
the banging underground would disrupt the Mass,
prompting the priest to stomp the floor in retaliation.
A watch committee was eventually tasked to guard the
church from pillagers. Is the treasure still there? No
one can really be certain.
But
another treasure used to hide in plain view, unnoticed
by churchgoers. Many are convinced Fernando Amorsolo’s
painting once adorned the ceiling—his artwork was
executed by mural artists—before it was duly recognized
and preserved. If all goes accordingly, the mayor will
soon see a museum honoring the master of light and
color, who spent most of his wonder years in Daet.
If you
want my two cents’ though, the town’s most valuable
treasure is not lost to posterity or stashed in some
secret location. It’s the people, from its favorite son,
scriptwriter Ricky Lee, to all Daeteños who bowled us
over with their warmth, creativity and hometown pride.
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