"ISLAND OF FOUR VOLCANOES" Camiguin Island by SOLODANCER

Camiguin Island is the closest thing to near-paradise when true paradise in our highly intrusive modern world is a thing of the past. A tiny island, ringed with four dormant strato-volcanoes and dotted with springs, somnolent villages, an ancient sunken cemetery buried from a volcanic eruption to the bottom of the sea which one can dive to explore, a golden sandbar - a truly magnificent one - in the middle of the sea, such simple living evocative of that errant description of a place that is truly off-the-beaten path. Here is a place that is clearly and evidently far removed from the trappings of many aspects of modern society: empty of luxury, high gloss modern facilities, no modern vacation resorts, no real discotheques and trendy bars/cafes, no department stores; all in all, Camiguin Island is fantastically unconcerned and in no great hurry....and, above all, has cultivated nothing for the hedonistic ego.

The ancient word-of-mouth legend as described in my Misamis Oriental page, the island was born supposedly from tribal conflicts which involved a beautiful ruler-princess who refused to bow down and submit to a coercive demand to be ruled under one Rajah or chieftain, resulting in her fleeing away in a catamaran - while her female subjects were abducted and then raped - to the middle of the ocean where the gods took pity on the princess and proceeded to transform her into this strangely beautiful undulating solitary land mass in the form of a supplicant in repose.

Camiguin is the tiniest island of the Philippines encompassing only a mere 102 square miles all round which the visitor can circumnavigate end to end easily in a good hour. Its miniature size however did not deter this island to be jettisoned by a favorable wind of fate into the annals of history from that great age of discoveries: Ferdinand Magellan, the world's first circumnavigator of the globe in his quest to find spice-islands and new territories for the kingdom of Spain had sailed this way in 1521 and made anchor at Camiguin to rest up, convert and baptized natives and replenish supplies which shortly thereafter in the push upward north became clear to his fleet of ships that he had discovered a great chain of islands in the East which he named Islas Filipinas (The Philippines) in honor of King Philip II of Spain ( Rei Felipe II). The year was March 16, 1521.

Camiguin is situated on the southern reaches of the country, sandwiched strategically between the islands of the Visayas and the big island of Mindanao. Nowadays, the island continues to flourish as a self-contained province with copra as its main export product and a slow approach to tourism with a trickling of foreign visitors looking for undiluted adventure.

____________________________________________________________

O, happiness... elusive but miraculous.

Soaking up the best antidote at Camiguin's breathtaking White Island, a sickle-shape sandbar in the middle of the sea with the whitiest ultra fine sand to be found nowhere else. Behind me is Vulcan Hibok-Hibok, the largest of four dormant volcanoes which last erupted in 1953. With dire global climactic changes, this sandbar will very likely disappear from our eyes in the not-too-distant future.

Coral-like flower native to the island

As paradise-like setting goes, Camiguin Island due to her volcanic composition abounds in great natural beauty and rare vegetation. Just recently, scientists have discovered a rare tiny parrot called Colasisi or a hanging parrot (Loriculus Camiguinensis) and a forest mouse (Apomys Camiguinensis) with very large ears and eyes which looks like a tiny lemur and with a long tail and dark rusty brown fur. The native Philippine fruit Lanzones, an ovoid very succulent fruit, grows abundant on the island and is reputed to be the sweetest from here. And probably the smallest mango - only the size of one's thumb - also can be found and enjoyed from this serene place.

• Pros:All the simple beauty & goodness you thought lost.
• Cons:A bit far and arduous to get to.
• In a nutshell:It feels as tho a place only in dreams.