Cagsawa Ruins

Cagsawa Ruins was only 15 minutes away from the Lignon Hill. I imagined it to be in a remote area yun pala it’s very near the town.

We crossed a river where lava flowed when Mayon erupted. Tourists rent ATV to follow this river, not a good idea if you would ask me.

We now approached the Patio de Cagsawa

I was surprised that the grounds were full of vendors, souvenir stalls, carinderia. My imagination was that since it’s a sacred ground, they would keep it free from structures.
According to the tour guide, there’s a plan to move the stores outside the compound. That’s good.

This guys were busy decorating the red carpet for the civil wedding that would be held that afternoon.

Nuns were also visiting the ruins and they seemed to be having fun taking group and selfie photos.

Lighting candles

Same wishes. The 4th candle offering is a special intention for my son’s welfare.

It started to rain. We took cover from the row of souvenir stalls. This one sells orchids.

Na sales talk ako. I bought one blue orchid P50 and one 7 colored orchids (daw) P100. DAW pa lang kasi wala pa namang bulaklak. She just showed me a coffee table book with the flowers. She didn’t want to stop convincing me to buy some more. Even if I have already told her mahirap magbitbit kasi magbabyahe lang kami, she kept on telling me to buy some more.

Oyen bought this abaca bunny. P75, we didn’t even try to ask for discount, that’s cheap na and I told Oyen, tulong na lang din natin sa kanila.

I wanted this palayok also pero mahirap iuwi, they would just break.

We stopped here for a drink. I had the most delicious guyabano shake, Oyen had buko shake, and we ordered mango shake for the tour guide.

We haven’t had lunch kaya gutom na kami. Parang ang sarap nitong galunggong at adobong liempo.

There was an old man walking a little wobbly who bought his meal and sat at the table behind me. I was observing him. He had a plate of rice and a small platito of ginisang upo. When he left, I asked the tindera how much yung order na ganun. She said P20.
Imagine, the guyabano shake was P50 and so were the buko and mango. Tapos etong pagkain nung matanda P20 lang. Naawa ako sa kanya, I was thinking maybe he wanted to eat the meat or fish but they cost more.

Colorful curtains reminded me of the cabaret in Binangonan. Bakit ko alam? Eh I worked there as cashier before (joke).

Fruit shakes, halo-halo, and sili ice cream are popular here.

I bought an abaca hat from this store

I paid P100 yata.

We were about to get on the Innova when Oyen spotted the Galeria de Cagsawa outside the compound. We asked the tour guide that we would just take a quick look.

We paid P20 entrance ticket for each person