My last night in Gigmoto passed pleasantly enough. Domingo and his cousin ate their meal beside me on the dining room table and we all watched TV afterward. They were both quite amused by the Filipino sitcom playing. I guess it would be unfair to criticize a sitcom, but it was extremely corny and over-acted. I also noted that nearly every single member of the large ensemble cast was very heavyset if not plain fat – quite different in their features from most of the people I’d seen on my trip around Catanduanes. Certainly, the people on Catanduanes did, given the chance, get a bit chunky, but these sitcom actors were considerably fatter than the average person. The show was set in a large household with many household servants. I was amused to see that the family – the rich employers – lounged about in ill-fitting T-shirts and shorts while the domestic workers were quite crisp and well dressed in their uniforms. Anyone glancing at these people would be forgiven for thinking that the servants were the owners of the house and the actual owners were laborers and gardeners. How else to explain the stark difference in their manner of dress?

I only managed a few minutes of the sitcom before I retreated to my room. My intention was to lie there and read, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. A day of relaxing by waterfalls will certainly take it out of you. I soon put away my Kindle and took out my iPod. I listened to a few old episodes of the 99% Invisible podcast and the turned out the light to go to sleep. The electricity stayed on all night and I had the luxury of the fan to keep me cool. I slept well, and was wide awake and bushy-tailed at 5 the next morning. I felt ten times better than I did when I woke up on my first morning in Gigmoto. My legs had recovered and no longer pinned me to the bed like heavy lead weights.

I spent a leisurely couple of hours getting out of bed and taking a bucket bath and then enjoying some coffee. I packed up my bicycle and after shaking hands with Domingo and posing for a picture with him and his cousin, I was back on the road and waving to all and sundry and returning all the happy “Hey, Joe”s.

As is always the case when leaving a village or town, I was immediately faced with a long and difficult climb. The road was cemented, however, and I stayed in the saddle right to the very top of the next mountain. I arrived covered in sweat and breathing hard but still pedaling.

My goal for the day was – drum roll, please – the beach resort of Puraram. At long last. I calculated the distance at about 25 kilometers and anticipated a pleasant and relaxing ride through the mountains. It didn’t matter how difficult the roads were because I had high hopes for a very comfortable home for the night – and an early arrival.

The very next barangay after Gigmoto was a revelation. It was called Dororian (which I kept hearing as Delorean) and was charming in every way that Gigmoto was somewhat charmless. As I rode through the waterfront area of Dororian I wondered what the difference was between the two barangays. I looked with no success for even a single place in Gigmoto where I could sit and relax. Dororian was overflowing with them. Every second shop had a nice little shaded balcony with benches or chairs. There were little shade huts all along the water’s edge and there were beautiful flowers everywhere. People were relaxing in these shady areas, packing up fish to be taken to Virac and doing other things. The difference might be that Gigmoto had a large cement seawall cutting off the barangay from the sea. Dororian had no such seawall but was graced with a wide and beautiful stone beach on all sides stretching around the beautiful harbor. Perhaps Gigmoto was more open to the sea and Dororian was protected by the harbor. Perhaps Dororian just had a more relaxed type of person in charge – some civic leader who promoted a beautification program. I don’t know the reason, but the differences between the two towns were profound.

I stopped at one shade hut to watch – along with lots of other people – as fish were put on ice inside a large wooden crate for the trip to the markets in Virac. I arrived at the farthest end of the beach just in time to witness the arrival of a fishing boat that had been out all night. Ten or twelve men were on the boat and they waded ashore carrying face masks and interesting homemade flippers that could be strapped to their feet with strips of rubber.

I didn’t see any large fish being removed from this boat. The catch appeared to be several large buckets of very tiny silver fish – similar to but smaller than the fish I had seen caught by the net in Bagmananoc. One of the men from the boat – presumably the captain and owner – went over to a little table and conferred with some women there about the catch and papers were signed. Perhaps money changed hands, but I didn’t see it. I was busy watching the distribution of the fish. A woman sat on the road with the three large buckets of fish around her and she used an empty tin can and a plastic ladle to portion out the fish to a large group of women that crowded around. I tried to find out how much the fish cost “per can”, but we never could agree on what a can was. The woman debated for a long time what the price was, but I was no wiser at the end of it. The woman handing out the fish was quite generous with her portions and made sure that the can and ladle were filled to the top and then rounded off. I didn’t see any money changing hands here either. It appears the distribution of the fish had been prearranged in some way. There was little discussion as the woman filled up all the containers and the plastic bags of the women around her. I used my Olympus to snap some pictures of the fish, the woman’s hands, and some of the customers. It was a wonderful little interlude and left me with an even more positive feeling about the little barangay of Dororian.

My next barangay was not nearly as pleasant, but it also offered some interesting experiences. For one, the barangay seemed to be campaign central. Five or six different political campaigns had congregated in the narrow streets. Each campaign was represented by a large sound truck blasting out the candidates’ different jingles and had many supporters in matching T-shirts. There was team yellow and team red and team blue. They looked to be outsiders to the barangay. They were better dressed and better groomed and had clearly come to this barangay in the large number of SUVs I saw parked around. My arrival was nearly as big an event as that of the sound trucks. All the political volunteers called out to me as I rode past, and, unlike in any other town on Catanduanes, I gathered up quite a crowd of children. They raced after me as I went through the main street to the waterfront. By the time I reached the seawall, I had perhaps forty of them standing around me in a loose group. They were not bad kids in any way. They simply stood there and looked at me with wondering eyes. When they crowded in a bit too close and wandering hands began to reach out for the bicycle and its many alluring pockets and zippers, an adult male nearby gave a grunt of warning, and the children backed off instantly. This is something I really came to appreciate on Catanduanes – the respectful attitude toward property and privacy. In Ethiopia, the children would have had free rein to tear me and my bicycle to pieces. No adult would have been able to control them. Indeed, no adult would have tried. On Catanduanes, I’ve been able to leave my bicycle surrounded by children and been quite confident that they would not damage it or even touch it. At one stop, a young child reached out to feel my tent and sleeping pad on the rear rack and a child just a couple of years older quickly admonished him and the child pulled his hand back. I was, frankly, astonished, but also very pleased.

A few tough climbs followed. When the road was cemented, I was able to keep cycling all the way. When it was rough and rocky, I didn’t even try but hopped off the bike and contentendly pushed it to the top. With the draw of Puraran, I was in no hurry at all.

Just before where I imagined Pururan to be located (I think I spotted the beach from quite a distance), I cycled down to the waterfront to look around. I saw a man on a motorcycle in the shade of a palm tree. He clearly wanted to talk to me, and after a minute or two he got up the courage to fire up his motorcycle and drive out to where I was standing. The problem, I soon found out, was not that he was shy and needed the courage to approach me. The problem was that I – being an insane foreigner – was inexplicably standing out there in the full blaze of the sun, and he – a sensible Filipino – was loathe to give up his position in the shade. When he did come out to talk to me, this was his first question. He wanted to know what was it about foreigners that made us walk around in the full heat of the midday sun when Filipinos, who grew up there, avoided the sun at all costs. He talked about Pururan and mentioned the women he’d seen there – deliberately lying out on the sand and baking in direct sunlight while wearing almost nothing at all. This was very strange to him. He attributed it to the fact that we all came from cold countries and so the hot sun was a relief to us. In fact, he answered all his own questions and all I had to do was stand there and listen while he talked to himself. He was a young man – an engineer on the road cementing effort in fact – so there was no “old man” argument to account for why he was capable of only speaking and not listening. It’s just the way many people are on Catanduanes. The obvious conclusion is that it comes from a language problem, but I would argue against that. Their English is very good and capable of handling any kind of conversation save for any that require technical language.

This train of thought gets me thinking about a couple that I met in Gigmoto on my last night while I was searching for dinner. I went into a larger-than-average store and the Filipina running the place called out to her fiancé – a young man from Australia named Neal. I was very surprised. In all my time in Gigmoto and in all the conversations I’d had, no one had mentioned that there was another foreigner in town. You’d think that would be the first thing they’d mention, but no one did. It was something of a relief to chat with Neal. Instead of talking about him or talking about me, we talked about other things. We talked about Australia and Catanduanes. We talked about a whole range of subjects and never once asked each other for biographical information. I don’t know if Neal was as deliberate about it, but I definitely made an effort to avoid any such questions. We simply had a conversation about things that interested us. His fiancé – the woman I’d met in the store – was a very different type. She interrogated me as everyone did, and then she simply ignored anything I had to say. She told me things about Catanduanes that were completely untrue in my experience. I told her that I disagreed with her completely and that she was wrong, but she never heard anything I said. She simply kept talking as if I had agreed with her. She ignored me completely and kept talking and telling me things. I tried one time to get her to hear me when I disagreed with her. She told me, for example, that the road from Gigmoto to Viga used to be very bad but it was now cemented and very good. I had just cycled that road and knew exactly and in exquisite detail just how NON-cemented it was. And I told her so. She simply nodded and went on talking about the great improvement in the road. I told her again that there was no improvement in the road. It was rough and rocky and terrible. She nodded and kept on talking, oblivious to anything that came out of my mouth. This “conversational” style does not encourage me to open my mouth and talk, so I end up a silent witness to most of these encounters beyond giving the barest of details about myself. To actually talk about something – about anything – would be a great relief. I got a taste of that with Neal, but it was only a taste.

One thing I mentioned to Neal and something that we talked about was how my perception of places on Catanduanes had changed over time. I told him that when I first saw Virac from the front of the ferry, I had the feeling of arriving at the end of the world. Then after a few days of travel around the island and spending time in places like San Vicente, Baldoc, and Gigmoto, my perceptions changed completely. By comparison with Gigmoto, Virac now seemed a center of civilization and technology and culture. Virac is Paris in the 20’s in my mind now. It is Manhattan. It is Silicon Valley. For the kids in the small barangays in the mountains of Catanduanes, the Internet cafes and video games and Jollibee of Virac would amount to another world. I had tried to express this idea to other people on Catanduanes, but they, understandly, hadn’t been able to pick up on what I was getting at. Neal got it instantly.

I thought about our conversation afterwards, and I pondered some more this idea of perception. You have to be careful about perceptions and not confuse them with reality. I hadn’t found Gigmoto to be a particularly nice place, but that is from the point of view of a stranger simply arriving out of nowhere and expecting to be comfortable. I was annoyed when I walked around the streets and could not find any place to sit or, indeed, any food to eat. But there is no reason for such things to exist. People have their homes to go to if they want to sit. And there was lots of food around. There were fish in the markets and mounds of vegetables in the shops. You simply had to buy this and bring it home and cook it. So my complaint that there was no food was only valid from the point of view of someone without a home and without a way to cook. That I had neither of these things was not a reflection on Gigmoto. It was a reflection on me. And I also found Gigmoto somewhat lacking in the way of entertainment. I was at my wits end after one night and a day. My mind kind of reeled with horror when I thought of Neal living there for months at a time. How was that possible? But again that is coming from my perspective – that of a temporary visitor. Were I to stay long-term, I’m sure my perspective would change. Gigmoto would reveal more and more of its nature and its depth. There must clearly be many things going on in Gigmoto. It was a community. It’s just that this community was for people that lived there, not for people who dropped in out of nowhere on a bicycle.

Finally, I arrived at the gates of Pururan. I had been told to look out for the gates by the man who came out from the shade to talk to me. It’s possible to stay at Pururan overnight but also to pay ten pesos just to use the beach. That is a very reasonable fee once you see the beach – one of the world’s great bargains, assuming that you can get to the place first. This man, by the way, told me that he earned 20,000 pesos ($500) a month as an engineer. He apologized for this low amount, saying that he lived in a third world country. My perceptions have been changing, though, and I thought of 20,000 pesos as quite a lot of money. Certainly, it isn’t nearly as much as an engineer in Canada would make, but it is also much more expensive to live there. One could live extremely well in Catanduanes on 20,000 pesos a month it seems to me. If I wished to live with Domingo in Gigmoto, I’m sure he would rent me a room for 2,000 pesos a month. Food on top of that would not amount to much. A bit of clothing. Save up some money for a motorcycle, and I’d be all set. It wouldn’t be a bad life. I’m sure my engineering friend did not live on his own. He probably lives with this parents and pays little or no rent. All that salary would be his to keep. He said that he also gets a daily allowance on top of that.

Well, there were the gates to Pururan. I stopped at the very top at a local sari-sari store to get a cold drink and then I went through the gates and down the very steep access road to see what there was to see.

At the bottom, I was presented with a wide beach and a couple of very nice places to stay. One could rent a beachside cottage for 600 pesos a night (probably less with bargaining powers) or a room for probably less. I stopped asking about possibilities after I’d learned that a particular cottage right on the beach was available. It cost 600 pesos per night and I took it. I don’t know if it would be cheaper for a local, but it hardly matters. Such a location at almost any price would still feel cheap. You don’t get a view and a setting like that every day of the year, and it was a great feeling after my many days in the mountains to arrive here. There was a very nice little restaurant/café and I had a lunch of rice and chicken asado and a cup of coffee.

By the time I arrived in Pururan, my little journey around Catanduanes had much longer than I anticipated. I’d almost lost count of the days. I thought about it and realilzed that it was the ninth day of my journey with six days being cycling days. I will have ridden for seven days to make the full circuit of the island, though it could be done in far fewer if you wished.

I was quite happy to arrive at this resort, but my happiness didn’t really last. I hate to be a typical tourist and complain of touristy things, but I will anyway. The problem is the lack of service at the restaurant and the lack of any kind organization. There is no menu on display and they give you no menu to look at. The idea is that you simply order various things until you stumble on one that they can actually make. That is all well and good, but it doesn’t help that you have no idea what is available or what any of the things you do order actually cost. It’s also one of those places where people just kind of hang out and it is difficult to tell who is an employee and who is a customer. As a true customer – me – I end up just standing there with no idea who to talk to. I hate situations like that.

I spoke to them when I arrived about getting some drinking water. Was there a pump where I could get some? They answered no, and left it at that. I kept pressing. Where did they get their drinking water? I couldn’t be expected to stay there for two or three days and not drink any water. They said that they got their water from a mountain spring. Then they ignored me again. So I had to ask them about this water spring. Where was it? How can I get to it? After all, I had to get water. They said that it was far away and difficult to get there and on and on. Then they ignored me again. I had to interrupt their conversation and press them again for details about this water pump. Finally, someone said that they had a water supply there and I could have some of that. Well, finally! Why didn’t they say that at the beginning? I got my water bag, and they brought out one of those big blue containers that the water refilling places use.

Later on, I tried to order dinner. The woman just sort of stared at me. I just didn’t know what to order because I didn’t know what they had. The situation was bizarre. I asked her for a menu of some kind and she rummaged around in big piles of papers and other objects until she found something and handed it to me. By then, I was thoroughly annoyed, and I just left. Luckily, there was another “resort” on this beach. The one I stayed at was called the Pururan Surf Resort or something like that. The other one was called Majestic. This second place was much more to my liking. It was big and rambling and had a serious backpacker vibe. There were lots of friendly people hanging about and they approached me to see what I wanted. They had a menu written down on a big white board with prices. It was just kind of normal. I can’t say much for the food they actually served after I ordered it, but at least there was the possibility of ordering it.

My bungalow at the other place was very nice in its way. The bed was big and soft and comfortable. It was easy for me to set up my mosquito net. The bathroom was basic but functional with lots of water pressure in a convenient showerhead. It had a table and chair and a fan. It had a main light, a light in the bathroom and a light on the balcony. The problem was that this resort catered to Filipino families, and there were lots of children and old people who sort of claimed the area in front of my bungalow – and even my front steps – as their own. The last thing I wanted to hear was a bunch of screaming and shouting children. I should have stayed at the Majestic. Much more friendly and more my style. Live and learn.

Pururan beach is a surfing beach. It faces the open Pacific and gets the ocean swells, and it had that magic combination of depth and coral and whatever else it takes to create a somewhat consistent surfable wave. It wasn’t the surfing season, but the local surfing dudes were out on the water quite a bit. I was only there for one day and I didn’t try any surfing. I’m pretty sure that your first day on a surfboard involves a lot of falling down, and this beach didn’t seem to be the place to do that.

The wave is called the “Majestic”. I think that it is common to name waves like that. The wave on Siargao, for example, is called Cloud 9. I did, however, try to do some swimming or snorkeling. I went out early in the morning and found that the water barely went up to my knee. There were lots of sharp rocks and seaweed and sea creatures, too, and I had to be careful as I stepped along. Waves were crashing perhaps 150 or 200 meters offshore, and I slowly (and very painfully) made my way out towards what I thought would be deeper water where I could actually do some swimming. I got about halfway when I heard someone shouting at me. I turned and saw a Filipino man walking (gingerly and slowly also) out through the water toward me. Rather than just wait for him, I turned and went back and met him halfway. He told me that it was far too dangerous to go out to where I was headed. There were dangerous currents including a strong undertow.

I kind of grimaced at him. I’m always told things that aren’t true, especially when it comes to things that are “too far,” “too hot,” “too difficult,” and “too dangerous.” It especially bugged me this time because I was on a beautiful beach. If I can’t go swimming because it is too dangerous, then why I am there? The man explained that I would have to wait for high tide and then I can sort of paddle around close to shore in waist-deep water. That didn’t appeal to me at all. It was what I’d had to do at Twin Rock Beach Resort, too. And when the water is that shallow, you end up floating in seaweed in water that has been heated by the sun to bathtub temperatures.

I gave this guy the same treatment that the woman at the hotel gave me long ago when I told her about my plans to cycle around the island. “Are you sure?” I asked. He was completely sure and he said that eight people had drowned at Pururan. The last was just three weeks ago and this man had drowned at exactly the spot where I was heading. I doubted all these stories very much and I pressed him for details. He did manage to come up with some details, which made his story more credible. He said the man was a 63-year-old American. He was out in the surf at exactly the point where I was going to go. And he got caught there and was pulled under. He came to the surface and started shouting “Help! Help me!” This same Filipino heard the shouts and tried to save him, but he had to make his way through this area of sharp rocks and shallow water to get out there and he was too late. The man drowned.

Several things bothered me about the story. For one thing, he said that this man weighed 200 kilograms. Sure, Americans run to the plus sizes these days, but a 200-kilogram man is a big, big man. I don’t see anyone that size making it to Pururan beach. It also bothered me that I hadn’t heard anything about this story. Sure, I had missed the bombing in Boston, but this drowning had happened right here on Catanduanes and supposedly three weeks ago. People would surely be talking about it still – especially since every second person was telling me that I should go to Pururan. You’d think that at least one of them would think to mention the giant American who had just drowned there. People joyed in pouring dire warnings into my ear. Why not warn me of the danger of drowning at Pururan if the risk is so high? Finally, if it is so dangerous at this surfing beach and at that one spot in particular, doesn’t it seem logical that this information would be given to visitors such as myself? Wouldn’t there be a map or at least a notice somewhere telling visitors of the safe places to swim and the places to avoid?

This last gets my brain going. I’ve already commented on how unsatisfactory I found the beach resort in terms of customer service. This lack of information about the places on the beach where you could actually DROWN is the most extreme of the things lacking. I find it particularly puzzling because personally I would find it great fun to organize a place like that. There is endless scope to make the place better and make staying there a better experience for your guests. I can’t understand why you wouldn’t do it. I would get so much enjoyment out of it. While I was staying there, I was itching to take over the place and take it in hand. And when I rode away on my bicycle, I couldn’t help but go over in my mind all kinds of things I would do to make the place better.

I’m not taking about physical improvements in the infrastructure, food, and accommodation. I’m just talking about little touches. I’ve already mentioned that there should be a menu posted. There could be a list of all the items that are available all the time along with their prices. As a customer, I find I am ten times more likely to purchase something when I know when it is going to cost. I hate the bother of having to ask each and every time. And rather than ask after the price, I simply won’t bother buying anything.

There could also be a simple board on which could be written the specials and meals that are available that day – whether they have fish or chicken or pork or whatever and how they can prepare it. I learned that that changed every day. So again as a customer I had to ask them what they had in order to make an actual meal. And that drove me crazy.

I would also order in all kinds of things that tourists might be interested in purchasing – everything from maps of Catanduanes and other places in the Philippines to kites and volleyballs and badminton rackets and air mattresses and beach balls and mosquito repellant and sunscreen. I would print up a little welcome brochure that would be handed to each guest upon arrival. This brochure would tell them all about the beach resort – the prices of the various bungalows and rooms. It would also give a map of the area and show which areas are dangerous. It would also list all the services available and what they would cost, services like surfboard rental, surfing lessons, and motorcycle rental. I would also provide information about transportation to and from the resort to Virac and Baras and San Andres and what it would cost. This brochure would create such goodwill for the resort. And chances are the guests would take it away with them and end up giving it to other people and these people would come and become guests at the resort.

As for services, I would have a thermos of hot water and coffee delivered to every hut every morning. I remember they did this at the places I stayed on in Boracay twenty years ago, and I remember it to this day as such a pleasant and wonderful thing. They also did that on Palawan when I was there. It’s a small thing, but it made a huge difference in my experience and how I felt about the place. I could go on and on. These things are all so obvious to me. I don’t understand a mind that could work at a place like that resort and not take steps to make simple improvements like that.

Tags: barangay, Catanduanes Bike Trip, Gigmoto, Perhaps Gigmoto, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, Pururan, Pururan Surf Resort