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Published: January 31st 2010
At the bus terminal in Davao, touts told me just tell the security checkpoint you came from the airport and they won't check your backpack thoroughly and so I went past without a hitch and looked for the Bachelors bus line, the a/c bus does not stop in Bunawan, I have to take the slow deluxe bus which stops at every town, took us 5 hours to get to Bunawan, along the way 2 checkpoints one of which the men have to step down the bus while the bus is being searched, we went through almost every province in the area, Compostela, Bukidnon, Davao del Norte even Surigao del Sur, I was dropped off at the new bus terminal, I was told there that the tourism office is in town at the municipal hall so have to take a trike, it was 12:45pm and it was shut, I sat around waiting for the tourism officer who went out for lunch when a lady in the office told me to come with her to the Municipal office hall and she presented me to a few city officials and told them my purpose of coming, to see the marshland, I had a good
conversation with Robert Floyd Salise, the planning officer and later Otic Ramirez, head of the Tourism office in Bunawan, and while there I explained to them the predicament of being a budget traveller, a backpacker who wanted to see the sights of their province but can't afford the price, our only option to save money is to join a travel package which is very difficult to set up as not a lot of backpackers come here in the 1st place, so for now this is off the beaten path for us, they did acknowledge that there are plans to make travel package easier to set up in big cities like Davao, Cagayan or Butuan but will take time as they try to set up infrastructures to cater to the expected people who will flock this region in the future.
Otic introduced me to Ryan a young looking kid though he's 20, he will be my boat driver for my excursion to the marsh, he dropped me off at A and N lodging near the public market, it's a dilapidated looking building but the 3rd floor has basic rooms and they are for 300 pesos, Toto the caretaker is very
friendly and he took me near the market to an eatery place where I had cheap lunch, a good filling lunch typically would cost you $2.5 on average, very cheap indeed. After my late lunch I went for a walk in the market to see what they sell, bought a pair of shorts and then found lanzones, a delicious fruit not in season but i had the craving for it. One kilo is 40 pesos and I struggled to finish it, too much for one person.
It rained just as i bought it and i sat to wait it out in the shed and chatted with the stall owners, very friendly couple and invited me to come back later to try the "kwek-kwek" a boiled egg fried in a batter with flavorings, tamer than balut I guess. Toto and his friend Diory help me pass the time by ,by playing songs on the out of tune guitar, entertaining nevertheless and of course they played mostly love songs, Air Supply, Extreme, Savage Garden tunes, Pinoys are a sucker for sad sad love songs, meanwhile a videoke bar is in full gear outside playing the same shit. I treated Diory to dinner
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trikes for hire in the public marketof bachoy noodles and then we bought San Mig grandes and balut for "pulutan". Quite a fun night hanging out with the locals and their singing made the skies angry and poured down rained most of the night until the wee hours of the morning.
5am Toto knocked on my room and told me he has not seen Ryan, my boat driver yet, supposed to meet me up at 4am! but it was pouring down rain anyway no point in rushing. Ryan came up at 6amish and he said it should stop pissing by 9am like yesterday and we can go to the marsh. i went back to sleep, then 7am a knock on the door, rain has stopped and the sky is slowly clearing up, we got ready quickly, we went to the market and bought food to cook in the DENR accomodation in the marsh, rice and veggies then we buy fish there from the locals, all set we set off. My driver looks like a young kid and even younger looking is his assistant who i did not know exactly his purpose of coming with us until we set off and water started pouring in from
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view from the lodging house beneath us, he is the water bailer among other things! We stopped at a small village called San Marcos to fetch the people who mans the DENR shack in the marsh, took awhile they were having some sort of argument in their local dialect Bisaya, it seems one dude is not happy about me just showing up, the main office in town perhaps did not coordinate properly with them, anyway things got sorted out eventually and we are off, we picked up 4 people, 3 will be by guide for the day! i don't really need that much but..The sun is finally out and am happy the sky is clearing up only to suddenly get covered in dark clouds again, the scenery on the way is nice, brown muddy river, green vegetation, reminds me somehow of the Orinoco river in Venezuela, settlements on the river banks, ok the Amazon is the same but it is wider even it's tributaries.
On the way to the floating center we have to fight with the strong river current and water hyacinths and banana trunks to keep it from clogging the rotor blades of the boat, once we have to stop and unclog
it, took awhile as the currents were strong. Arriving in the rain at the DENR floating center , Evelyn , one of the guides hurriedly started cleaning up, sweeping the floor, i believe the last time they were here was over 2 weeks ago when they had their last guest, my friend Ed from Manila whom i couch surfed, that's how rare visitors are here, anyway, I saw his photos on FB and wanted to go here myself. From their brochure it says"the Agusan Marsh is considered as on of the ecologically significant ecosystems in the Philippines,it harbours unique and pristine habitats to rare and endangered soft shelled freshwater crocodile, oriental darter, purple heron and other species. It is also home to diverse flora that include 112 species of trees, vines, lianas and epiphytes, grasses, ground ferns and herbaceous plants. It's faunal diversity includes 132 species of birds, 14 species of freshwater fish, 21 species of amphibians, 39 species of reptiles including the feared Philippine crocs, 14 species of mammals, and 65 species of butterflies."
Agusan Marsh is one of the most ecologically significant wetlands in the Philippines. Found in the heart of Mindanao's Agusan Basin, this vast expanse
of marsh covers an area roughly the size of Metro Manila. It contains nearly 15 % of the nation's fresh water resources in the form of swamp forests.
During the rainy season, when the water rises to create large lakes, vast number of ducks come to Agusan Marsh to nest. In the dry months, thousands of birds come from as faraway as Japan, China and Russia to escape the chilly winter winds of Northern Asia. Over 200 individual species have been known to spend at least part of the year in the marsh, making it one of Asia's most important transit points for wild birds.
In the very heart of the marsh is a semi-permanent lake where many square kilometres of lily pads, hyacinths and other hydrophytic plants spread out like an enormous green quilt. In the dark tea-colored waters live untold numbers of catfish, carp, soft-shell fresh water turtles, and crocodiles.
Agusan Marsh is also host to "Wonderland", where you can see natural "bonsai" trees crafted by nature. It can be reached from Barangay Caimpogan or from Barangay New Visayas in the municipality of San Francisco.
The tiny community of mostly ethnic Manobos have made
Agusan marshland sanctuary
boat that the croc attacked, tip shows bite marks!! their permanent homes deep within the marsh, living on floating homes. The small houses made of bamboo and nipa lashed to hard wood logs, freely rise or fall with the level of the marsh itself. The marsh provides virtually everything the Manobos need.
The crew started cooking up lunch at 11am and meanwhile I busied myself having a look around, there are floating houses on bamboo pontoons around us maybe 6 houses but only here, past the lake boundary is prohibited, there are several lakes in this area but since it is high water level it is not well defined so am not gonna bother mentioning it they are all the same as of now only in the dry season are they distinguished. I was shown the boat where a young girl of 11, 7 months ago was attacked by a huge crocodile and got killed biting off a portion of her head, I don't want to spook my reader but this is a rare occasion here, this is probably the 1st casualty here from the crocs in a long long long time so don't be discouraged coming here, a rare occurence, I was shown the bite marks on
the tip of the boat where the young girl sat and got grabbed by this croc. One other person in the boat with her survived unharmed. From the stories of my guides, the 2 girls were boating back from school to home and they were a bit noisy, singing, splashing the water etc, and they think the croc got startled or annoyed when they got close to it among the water hyacinths and it attacked. It's past now so they got over it, for a time though tourism was suspended and the lake where these crocs usually stay is off limits to tourists even now, gringos I was told would come here to see particularly these crocs since they heard about the story and wanted to get closer, but the guides are scared they said there are plenty of them in the water.
After a hefty lunch of fish, veggies and lots and lots of rice we set off to see the marsh. We have to use these dugout canoes that are quite long but is only inches above water, its so low it's scary especially there are crocs here! 3 people came with me 2 guys one in
front one in back paddling, another in the middle with me bailing out water! Before we head off it pissed down heavily but now the sun is out again, but the air is still, quite stiffling, we can hear the birds and a few fly about like herons, and lots of white birds, and a number of wild ducks, but since its midday we did not see lots as i was hoping for, its enough to have an idea of the diversity of the area but not overwhelming bird presence, oh we saw a Philippine hawk eagle my 1st in the wild and it caught a fish from the lake, I saw it happened, awesome! Though my fotos were a bit blurry as i was so excited i could not hold still! Rain is on and off and resorted to wearing my poncho, poor guides they got wet in the rain. We got to a point when one guide said if the wind gets strong we have to shelter amongst the half submerged trees and even climb up it for protection, our canoe cannot withstand the waves as it is already close to the water level, luckily it did not
happen. We passed the mouth of the river tributary that leads to the lake where the majority of the crocs live, the guides were a bit scared to go in so I did not mind us skipping it, I did not feel like dinner for them so we headed back slowly to the floating center, along the way ducks fly about around us. Rain started again and they are soaking wet when we got back.
The bill got tallied up and i was not happy about it and complained but i cant do anything about it, it's standard price, I will explain to you the breakdown of the bill. First up I already paid 1,520 pesos for 40 litres of petrol for the boat which i have to shoulder alone fair enough I have no other person with me. What bothers me is the 1,000 pesos tourist guide fee which is a flat rate regardless of the number of people, if you are alone you pay the whole thing if you are in groups you share the cost( up to 30 people i think). Like i said before they don't really cater for lone travellers or small groups, the
pricing is not fair for the tourist and to the locals who acts as a guide as well, if there are large groups they pay a standard 1,000 pesos for the whole of them and they can stay here for as many days as they want without additional fee! meanwhile the guides don't earn any more than that even if they stay here with the groups for days, ridiculous. And they have no set guide-tourist ratio. I believe it's always 3 people for however many tourists there are( I could be wrong on this). The chairman of the community told me they are addressing this imbalances and am hoping by the time the DOT starts their marketing campaign for a set travel packages, they will have revisions of their policies and cater for backpackers as well, like they said if you build it, they will come...they haven't tap into the backpacker market yet, sad. Even if only one person a day comes they can make a decent living off it rather than tourists coming in spurts and most times they have none.
On the way back the crew saw a young croc! They were yelling in Bisaya so I
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my favorite eatery in town, cheap as chips did not pay attention I was busy taking photos of the vegetation then they told me later about it, too late! But they said it was there on our way in and stayed in the area they expect tomorrow it will be in Lake Mihaba. The boat ran out of gas 5 minutes from the wharf in town and we ended up docking at a bank near a small village and walking the rest of the way, Ryan could not understand why we ran out of gas when the last time with my friend Ed he had the same amount and they made it back, well he picked up 4 other passengers in San Marcos town is why, we are heavier and the boat have to work harder, duhhh! The walk through the village was nice though, green ricefields, cute houses, kids coming out from school walking with us. Getting back to the hotel, I gave Ryan a small tip for him to share with Albert his assistant, he asks if I could give him 200 pesos more for gas to get the boat back to the wharf, I just stared at him and said no, go ask your boss
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public market in the municipal hall to give you gas money, I paid already what you need to get me there and back, you should have charged those free wheelers! On my last night had a few drinks with Diory and Toto again, nice dudes, made my stay here enjoyable despite the rains.
BREAKDOWN OF COSTS:AGUSAN MARSH TRIP
**1,000 pesos- flat rate fee for a mandatory tourist guide(fee for whole group no matter the number, if alone you shoulder the whole amount!)
**100 pesos -fee for use of floating center, fee is group rate no matter the number of people, if alone you pay the same amount, this is one time fee, extended days does not incur additional fee
**100 pesos/hr- boat ride fee when you go out on the lake to bird watch
**50 pesos/night- fee if you chose to stay the night in the DENR floating center accom on the 2nd floor, flat rate again, group rate, if alone you pay the same amount
**1,500 plus pesos- gasoline for the boat round trip from Bunawan town to the marsh
It is sad these information were not thoroughly explained to me when I
met up with the officials in city hall in town, though Mr Salise did mention 2,500 pesos flat rate for groups he did not explain the breakdown of fees, they are promoting big group package but not small groups or individuals, I hope they realize the potential of small groups but frequent visitors, rather than the seasonal big groups.
*****For eco-tours of the sanctuary, please contact municipal tourism officer Otic Ramirez +639109840285 or fisher association chairman Rey Calderon +639083712443.
N.B.
When arriving by bus to town, at the terminal take a trike and ask to be dropped off at the Tourism office in the municipal hall, you check in with them and they should be able to give you all the info you need for the Agusan marshland trip, they will help you make your plans, you can either stay in town(A and N lodging recommended) or at the floating center in the marsh, pretty basic accomodation, has toilet though, bring sleep mats, and sleeping bag and torch, it wont be quiet there you will hear a concert of birds and other animals at night, awesome sounds to fall asleep with, then early morning do your
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kids having a bath canoe trip within the marshland sanctuary, if you are dead scared of crocs, the canoe might freak you out as it is very low and only inches above water level but the guides are experts no need to fear they know where the safe places to go.
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Ameli
non-member comment
Thank you for sharing all that information. Your writing style is really simple and interesting...loved reading your post... I'll be traveling to China very soon. Can you tell me anything about China Travel Package ? Please share your experience if you have traveled to China...