A trip to the north would not have been complete without a
visit to a beach. In Cagayan, the one being touted as comparable to Boracay is
the Nangaramoan Beach in Sta. Ana, Cagayan. I made it a must then to see for myself this beach, besides the fact
of being in Sta. Ana which is the
northeasternmost town of the Philippines or at least of mainland Luzon. It was
already dark when we arrived in the town of Sta. Ana as we had a long trip that
day coming from Tuguegarao passing by several towns along the way. We made prior
reservations at the Jotay Beach Resort (cel 0906-4781270) in the town of Sta. Ana. There are plenty of resorts in the town itself.
However the beach in the town is not exceptional. The color is clayish brown. Hence
we just had to content ourselves with the swimming pool of the resort. The white
sand beach is still about 10 kilometers away from the town. It rained the whole
night while we were there. It was still raining in the morning. But we decided
after taking breakfast that we will still go and see for ourselves Nangaramoan
beach. As it happens all the time, the
rains stopped when we reached Nangaramoan Beach. We noticed that from the town itself of Sta.
Ana until we reached Nangaramoan Beach, the road was cemented. I had read that the beach is only good for
swimming during high tides since water would come near the shore. I already
took note that that day the high tide was at early dawn. We were dismayed to
see when we reached the beach that it was already low tide. The beach had white sand alright but since it
was low tide there were just a few pools of knee-deep water to bathe in. I
asked around at what time of the day would the tide rise. I got disheartened to
hear when we were told that perhaps by the middle of the month of November the
tides would already be high enough for the place to be ideal for swimming.
Until then the place would always have very shallow waters. It was then I
remembered that I haven't seen any pictures of the place with waters reaching the
shore. So its not just any high tide but high tides on months when the tide is
really high that the place can be good for swimming.
Anyway, we could not be dissuaded from taking a dip of the
sea. So we ventured further away from the shore to where the strong waves were crushing on rocky grounds. We had
to be very careful as the rocks were quite sharp. We did not stay for long for fear that we will hit the sharp rocks once we were covered by the waves.
But at least we had the taste of the sea in the northeasternmost beach of the
country.
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| Found a knee-deep pool to wade in. |
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| As we were leaving some Aeta children came asking for alms. |
