Nato Beach walk

November 27, 2010 - It was cold and there was scattered rain all over CamSur. We planned to have a nature trip this day after the Animahenasyon week. After taking our breakfast at the hotel, we went to SM Naga to buy some food. A block away from the mall is the bus station. We travelled east to Tigaon hoping for more sunshine. Unfortunately, after a few hours of travel we reached to our destination still with a bad weather. We stopped at a place called "Bolo" where my Wella's other relatives lived. She stayed there last semester when she was preparing to transfer at Ateneo de Naga University. Her cousin, Kuya Ruel, welcomed us to thier home and was also kind to be with us during that day.

Supposedly, we will go nature tripping at Mt. Isarog where there is a beautiful falls where we can go swimming. Sadly, because of the rain, it is dangerous to go walking in the mountains and it might take us longer to go there. Another trip in our list is the island hopping at Caramoan with its luscious white sand beaches. However, we should be there as early as possible because it will take us 3 hours to go there. With all these unfortunate events, we resorted to the next best thing, beaches. Just a few minutes of bus ride, we went to a small town to have our lunch. Afterwards, via tricycle ride we went to a place where there is a lineup of resorts in a place called Nato. Kuya Ruel led us to a resort called Pier 39. Just infront of the resort is a vast rice field with Mt. Isarog as the background. There were white birds flying over the almost sunken fields and some kids happily playing in the cluster of palm trees somewhere there.

We ready to enter the resort but we learned about their rates. They are actually requiring us to rent a small cottage for 500 pesos. We don't want to spare our time and money in that resort so we decided to sneak in an open resort and went to the beach. Upon reaching the coast, we can see a huge stretch of gray-sanded beach and a vast sea. The beach resembles a huge curve where we can see mountain ranges at the sides. The beach is at the east which made me realize that we were actually looking at the Pacific Ocean! Kuya Ruel confirmed that it was the Pacific Ocean indeed. It's our first time to see the ocean so it was worth going there. Again with our cameras, we spent our time taking photos at the beach. It was kind of surreal looking at the vast ocean with a foggy horizon and grey clouds. There were some kids swimming in a small portion of the sea. We can hear the sound of the crashing waves as we feel the cold breeze in our faces.

L-R: My first encounter with the Pacific Ocean, I was blown away!

In a distance, we can see a pier/seaport where are some people just standing at the edges. I can't understand why they were just standing there in the middle of the cold. Anyways were walking to that direction when we encountered a delta where a river and the sea meet. The flow of the river is fast so we stopped for a while and rested in a small open cottage. We had some snacks and photo sessions as usual. I told them that i want to try to cross the delta and they told me not to do it. Then, out of nowhere a man crossed the delta without any difficulty. And so we moved on and tried to cross the delta. The water was above our knees so our shorts became wet. We walked more until we reached the pier.

Clockwise: Walking the beach, A bangka with a roof, the freakin Delta

We approached the silent guys at the edge of the pier. They were actually fishing. We saw little fishes down at the sea swimming in groups. Anyways, we don't have anything to do so we just joked around and had more photos. With our wet shorts and tired feet we went back to the small town. We rode a bus and went back to the city. The view of the landscapes was not very clear due to the bad weather. It was a nice time to sleep. We woke up as we stopped to the bus station and headed back to the hotel. Well, it was not the kind of trip we were looking forward to but we still had a nice time with the Pacific ocean.

At the pier


With my Ate and Wella's cousin, Kuya Ruel

More photos here!