Beach Resort

The best place for me when I was a child was our family beach resort in Paracale, Camarines Norte.

Paracale is “gold country” in Camarines Norte. Since the Pre-Spanish period, local residents have worked the mines and goldsmiths have turned the metal into finely crafted pieces. The town is a center of the jewelry-making industry and although the art has declined in importance, the town is still regarded as a good place to get fine gold jewelry. Antique styles, like the agimon (also known as the alakdan ) or the flat necklace chain of the 19th century, continue to be made in Paracale.

Our sun kissed beach resort was very much known in that part of our province until now because of its claylike soil and red sand. My great grandparents (father's side- Cribe Family) named our paradise “Pulang Daga” meaning red soil in our vernacular. Everything was natural and untouched. Visitors went to Pulang Daga every summer to enjoy the virginal, undepleted and unpolluted island. The crystal clear sea sparkled in shades of turquoise, sea blue and emerald green. The shallow waters surrounding the island were perfect for snorkeling, scuba diving, and swimming. The waters were shallow enough for visitors to walk from one reef to another.

My family would stay there for a week or so every month, and I would lazily daydream in a comfortable hammock stretched between two palms when I wasn’t swimming. I loved having my head in the clouds when I was a little girl. I guess my family knew about it because they would allow me to play near the shore when the tide was low. How I loved the corals! I never had to use goggles to see the colorful fishes that swam there. The sea cucumber, starfish, brittle star, and sea snails just crawled on the corals. They were exposed with the low tide every noontime and dusk. I felt like I was a mermaid!

I wasn’t a good swimmer but I felt like I was connected to the waters because of my childhood experiences in this place.

I had forgotten about my childhood fantasies of being a mermaid when I started fantasizing about boys. But whenever we went to different beaches across the country, I know that Pulang Daga is beyond compare to those commercialized beaches. I transferred to the city to pursue college. I seldom go there now but I still hear stories about how beautiful it is today.

PICTURES COURTESY OF: Jerome Servranck from Belgium & Tonette Cribe-Generillo

WOW PHILIPPINES: Pulang Daga Beach = "It can be reached in two hours by bus from Daet and Paracale; frequented by picknickers and swimmers; made a setting for a film; clean white sands and swimming-safe cove; with cottages for rent. "

NSCB5 REGIONAL DIVISION: Pulang Daga Beach = "A one-hour ride by bus northwest of Daet. Frequented by picnickers and swimmers. Clean white sands. It commands a panoramic view of the wide Pacific Ocean."

Beach Resort Owner (Poem)

Age shall not weary as the years go by,
Or the going down of the setting sun,
Days of our youth when remembered,
They mingled with our songs and laughter of yesteryears.
To sit no more at the familiar places of home,
Where our desire and our hope profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of the land we have known.
The glimmering moonbeams through the shadows,
The stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving-in gracefully upon heavenly plains,
Above the lonely, lovely Sera Sol HIll.
A single touch of hand of long ago,
Kindled the spark of love aflame
And so it keeps the ember of love burning - - forever - -,
Forever in my heart it still remains.

AUTHOR: Soledad Cribe, my paternal grandmother, now in her 70's. You will surely see her walking down the sand when you go and visit my "paradise", our family beach resort, in Pulang Daga, Paracale, Camarines Norte.