The beach
Road to Cassandra's
Hotel/Restaurant. June 2016
Lemonade from Lemons?
I was in Dumaguete as part of my trip through the Philippines on that huge 2016 summer holiday from Saudi Arabia. I agreed to meet JRC in San Carlos, the city on the opposite side of Negros from his hometown, Bacolod. I found a great little hotel north of San Carlos on a beach. The price was right, so why not? I rode a very local bus north from Dumaguete over a scenic highway giving occasional views across to the mountains of Cebu and the sea. The bus seat was awful and it was a good six hour ride. Finally, I made it to San Carlos and JRC was at the bus station waiting for me. We hopped in a long-distance tricycle which made me miss the bad bus seat and got off thirty minutes later at the appropriate kilometer marker. In front of us extended a concrete lane down through sugar cane fields toward the sea. We both hoped we were in the right place!
With the help of maps and GPS we walked down toward a small village along the sea. The concrete access road became a muddy path. We turned right and kept walking until we found the signboard pictured above. Well, the place sure had a remote, interesting location!
We walked in the compound and basically found a small family run hotel and restaurant which owned about 50 meters of beachfront. There was a very small beach, a pavilion, and a boat dock with a killer view of Cebu in the distance. Our room was very simple with a fan, but it was adequate. I was more worried about mosquitoes than anything else. We got settled - we were the only guests. I wondered how such a place survived, but JRC explained that people probably came up from San Carlos to the restaurant in groups and no doubt weekends would be busier. At least we had the run of the place and the proprietors were very helpful and friendly.
The "village" had literally no services which meant either we had to bring what we needed, make the long tricycle ride back to San Carlos and go shopping, or purchase items from the limited selection of supplies at the hotel. We were a very captive audience. I was dubious at first, but then I realized we were stuck with the place for a couple of days, so we might as well make the best of it. That we did - we took our meals there in the evenings and they were tasty. One day we explored the village and its myriad of rural scenes which alternated between fishing village and sugar cane/paddy fields. This was the real Philippines. We also took public transport back to San Carlos for a day to explore and have a meal.
Cassandra's was nothing I expected it would be, but it turned out to be a good experience nonetheless. The pace was VERY simple and forced me to slow down and enjoy the simpler side of life. I think there might not even have been WiFi. The little beachfront was lovely and there was a small pavilion in which to relax and enjoy the lovely views across the water. Being the only tourist spot in a seaside village ensured that I was seeing the real rural Philippines, unadulterated by visitors. Cassandra's Resort's neighbors were very poor, but did not live in grinding poverty. The people could have used better infrastructure, but the land and sea did seem to provide most of the residents' needs.
The other notable event from the stay was passing by a huge solar array (the biggest on Negros at the time) which was an attempt to make the island less dependent on fossil fuel. I loved it! But wait, I immediately saw a downside - the acres of solar panels (it was massive) were built over former agricultural land. How could that be a good trade-off? The Philippines has extremely fertile volcanic soil. Taking any of that out of the system could not be a good thing, right? I was so used to seeing solar panels in desert areas, I never thought of the implications in places like the Philippines (or Indonesia?). Flat open land was needed for a solar array and the only land meeting that description was farmland in some countries. The trade-off was huge.
We left Cassandra's and caught a bus in San Carlos for Bacolod. Our beach stay wasn't what either of us expected and I am not sure I would want to repeat it, but it was worth it to see a way of life in the Philippines I might overwise have missed.
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