Memories of Agoo: Home of Dinengdeng Festival

I have yet to attend Agoo's Dinengdeng Festival. Dinengdeng is a vegetable dish that is cooked in banga or clay pot during the early times. This festival replaced the Tobacco Festival. Because tobacco festival is very common in this region, the municipality decided to come up with another festival. Thus, the birth of Dinengdeng Festival. Source

What I want to share with you instead are those times that I have been there.

Agoo is a first class municipality in the province of La Union. This is about 230+ kilometers from Manila, the capital of Philippines. Source

This is an hour away from Baguio City.

My bestfriend's roots are from La Union. When he was still studying here in Baguio, we would pay a visit to his relatives down in Agoo. The first time I visited that place was when he brought me along. I remembered their grandfather who was bedridden that time was being attended to by my bestfriend's mom.

I also remember we attended a wedding of one of his cousins. We helped in decorating the church. Another time was going to the housewarming of the house of one of his aunts that he designed and built.

I have shared that photo before in one of my articles here.

That time, it was my first time to visit the beach of Agoo. We went to one of the fishing villages there. There was one resort but the beach was not good and it looked like the resort was neglected so we went to where the fishing boats were.

There were only huts then.

We arrived there around 1 p.m. and it was really hot so we rested for a bit. Good thing the clouds gathered to block off the heat from the sun. I remembered it was my first time to see a seahorse there. It was really tiny not bigger than my pinkie. It was a lone seahorse and it was swimming with us. I was so fascinated by it. I haven't seen another seahorse since then in any of the beaches that I have been to.

I was trying to find the other photos that I took that day. I have one particular photo of the sunset then but I just couldn't find it.

For additional reading, click here.

The photo above is the Basilica Minore of Our Lady of Charity. This is located in the center of the town. This church was finished in 1978.

You can read more about this church here in this blog. That was the other blogging site that I joined.

The influence of Spanish ear is evident wherever you go here in the country. Churches like this can be seen almost everywhere. They conquered the country and introduced their culture and religion which we have adopted.

Churches are one of the things that I like to see whenever I travel to a place. The Ilocos region is full of them.

We visited the church one time when we have had enough of the rain that inundated us here in the mountains. We don't feel like going to the beach just yet but we just want to feel the heat. This was before pandemic times of course when we were free to travel.

We haven't explored Agoo that much so we decided to visit their church.

This is the way going to some of the relatives of my bestfriend. The road is still not paved.

Unfortunately, the last time I visited Agoo was not a happy one.

My bestfriend is working abroad. Whenever he had a chance, he would visit his relatives there and us here in the city. I think it was a couple of years or more since the last time we saw each other before this one.

I brought with me my sister and my mom. My sister and my bestfriend's sister are batchmates. My mom and my bestfriend's mom haven't seen each other in a long time. It was sort of a reunion when we went there but sadly, it was not a happy meeting for the purpose of our visit was to pay respects to my bestfriend's uncle (his mom's brother) who passed away. The other siblings of his uncle locally and abroad were able to visit as well and I got to meet them all.

Me, my mom and my sister waited for my bestfriend at the bus stop and then headed to his uncle's house.

My friend told me that this is the house that we slept when we helped one of his cousins on his wedding. How can I forget that? I don't know but I honestly did and until know I can't recall ever going there. I know we went to a house somewhere that time and slept but I can't recall the place.

While there we visited his aunt's house, the one he designed and built and had refreshments and snacks there.

After that, we had to say our goodbyes and headed home.

More about that here.

I took a break from noise and read yesterday. I really wasn't feeling it. It's not that there are no ideas to write but it's just one of those days that you just don't want to do anything else but rest. So that's what I did.

If you noticed, I don't reply to your comments right away. Again, it's not that I'm ignoring you but this is how it works for me. I read all your comments but it takes time.

I'm not sure why but my visits in Agoo had been playing in my mind the whole day like a last song syndrome so I decided to write about it.