Of Old Filipino Houses and Ruins From Moalboal to Santander

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mom | photography | art | journal | travel

1 year ago

In community: Just Write(e5e5)

Topics: RoadTrip, Cebu, Philippines, Coastal view, Trip, ...

This is the last episode of our two-day road trip to Oslob taking the south-western part of Cebu province. I know it took a while for me to finish this but finally, I am at the tail end.

I am going to share with you the things that we saw while on the road. By the way, I am writing this at 8 AM, my baby is still sleeping but he is at the edge of the bed. I am thinking if I should pick him up and put him in a safer place but I also thought he might wake up and I still have to finish writing this. So I just let him stay that way, anyway, his papa is just next to him and I can clearly see if he moves then I'll get up to pick him up quickly.

As mentioned in my previous articles, after having Breakfast at Moalboal and We Can't Get to Basdacu Beach so We Meet an Old Friend Instead, we hit the road and passed by the town hall of Moalboal. This is an intersection here so I made a quick snap. I have never been to this area and I wished we could stop and take a photo of that I <3 Moalboal signs but we can't afford to pull over in this area.

So we went on and we reached Badian. Taking this route is really nice because there were no other cars before or behind us, there were a few coming from the opposite side, we felt like we were really in the province!

But we kept seeing a lot of tarpaulins of those who were running for a seat in the government. The National Elections will happen soon and so the candidates are just doing everything they can for exposure. I have seen familiar faces but there were also many unfamiliar ones.

My husband and I are registered voters in Oslob and since I am not from there, I will only be depending on my husband on whom to vote. But of course, I have a say for the national candidates and we are voting for different presidentiables. We are okay though regardless if our candidates are not the same. We don't even talk about them.

And then we reached the coastal area and this was taken in Alegria or perhaps Malabuyoc. The roads here have been ruined by the recent Typhoon Odette. There was even an area where the bridge had collapsed.

There were several constructions going on and there were signs of areas in the coastal parts where locals are not allowed to inhabit anymore. When we reached Oslob, we talked about those roads and the in-laws told us about those houses which have been washed during the typhoon because of the collapse of those bridges and roads.

The DPWH regional office in Central Visayas (DPWH-7) is still working hard to get the road construction finished but it was already passable and we got to the end of the road safe and sound.

We passed by the main town of Malabuyoc and everything seemed to be normal here. I am glad that the people are all smiles now. As you can see above in that image, there's again another huge tarpaulin of a candidate.

I can't quite figure out which town was this but perhaps it's Ginatilan. I missed taking notes and when I try to search as well on Google if there's such a place in the other towns, I can't get a result so let's just assume it's in Ginatilan.

Ruins like these are very common in the coastal areas of the Philippines because of the many instances of invasion during the Spanish era. There are also ruins in Oslob.

One of the things that the recent typhoon had done was extend rivers. As you can see below, this river seemed to have expanded and had reached the houses nearby. I hope there were no casualties though. In my husband's town, their river had also expanded and even wiping out those houses which are sitting next to the river.

And as we move forward, we had to stop by an area because my husband had to take a call. It was such a great timing because we stopped by this area where there's an ancestral house.

I believe the town here was celebrating a fiesta because of the presence of banderitas. But look at this ancestral home. I adore the huge boulders of rock used as the base of the house. The walls are made of planks of wood and the roof seemed to have been slightly damaged but it still had survived even after Odette.

The capiz lights are just mesmerizing too. I bet this looks pretty at night! And those widely opened windows remind me of our old house. Growing up, I always enjoy opening the windows every morning. We have a wide window so that air can flow nicely.

The husband finishes the call and we reached Samboan. The photo above was cut as we were moving and I couldn't get a wider shot anymore. I like how they placed the town's name sign on top of this marbled rock!

There are many waterfalls in Samboan, unfortunately, I have never been to one. But there was a time a few years ago when chasing waterfalls was very "in" and a lot of locals in Cebu province had been going from one waterfall to another, thus chasing waterfalls become a trend.

But sadly, I didn't get to visit any of them in Samboan.

After more than two hours of road travel, we reached Santander and after this was Oslob. I have been to Santander a lot of times, we went here before so we could reach Negros as there's a port here taking passengers from Cebu to Negros in just a few minutes.

Aside from that, my mother-in-law's favorite masseuse lives in this town so we often visit her whenever we are in Oslob.

In the town is a viewing point as well with a huge parking area. We stopped for a while so we could take photos.

Oslob is next but we still have to travel for around 20 minutes as my husband's barangay is located at the tail end of the town. From Santander, we passed by the whale shark area in Tan-awan, then we passed by the main town, then finally reached the in-law's house.

It was a long trip but we enjoyed the view. The question now is if we are willing to take this route again in the future. Well, it was a great experience but perhaps we won't take that route going to Oslob anymore. We will use the usual Cebu City to South right away.

Thanks a lot for reading this far! Do check my previous articles here:

xoxo,

momentswithmatti