Part One
Story & photos by Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez
The long road stretched for hours as the soft rays of the afternoon sun slowly seeped through the windows of our service bus as we approached La Union. Outside, the ocean lapped fervently against the gray sand along the coast of Agoo.
The air was hot and dry when we arrived but, otherwise, felt too familiar—like the indescribable warmth that you get from countless summers spent on the seaside with family you now barely see.
Northern Luzon, for the most part of my life, has always been home. It’s the one place I grew up in, one that I go to feel less alone and one where time moves ever so slowly, at least for a little while. This year, I was lucky enough to be part of Lakbay Norte, a tourism initiative organized by the North Philippines Visitors Bureau that aims to introduce destinations that were under the tourism radar over the past few years. (Who knew work can be a vacation, too?)
For its ninth iteration, the annual tour took print and digital travel writers to the beach towns of La Union and Pangasinan.
Although the economy in the Ilocos region mainly anchors in agro-industrial and agricultural sectors, tourism activity maintains a healthy traffic in its provinces with a focus on religious and historical tourism, as well as ecotourism, wherein the Department of Tourism-Region 1 recorded more than 15.7 million arrivals in 2018.
Likewise, La Union and Pangasinan had increased its visitors to more than half a million (over 20 percent) in the same year. If there’s any indicator to why such is the case, it’s the growing number of new alternative experiences the local community now offers to tourists.
Agritourism takes root
Taking cue from their neighbors in the uplands of the Cordillera, grape farmers in the town of Bauang, La Union, have reintroduced a concept of purchasing produce to tourists: letting them harvest the fruit on their own.
Uvas Cafe, ideally located just along the MacArthur Highway, has a sprawling vineyard where one can taste artfully plated charcuterie spreads while sipping red and white wines made from Lomboy Farm’s cardinal grape harvests, as well as tropical fruit wines, like guapple (a hybrid fruit of large guava and apple), duhat (java plum), pitaya (dragon fruit) and wild blackberry.
“Unknown to many, grapes prefer long dry seasons. Fortunately for the Philippines, we have six months of sunlight,” said Gracia Lomboy, daughter of then-provincial agriculturalist Avelino Lomboy and owner of Lomboy Farms.
Grapes ripen faster and accumulate more sugars in warmer climates, which result in higher-alcohol levels during fermentation. In retrospect, it loses its herbal notes, also known as pyrazines, and takes on ripe fruit with voluptuous softer tannins. But this doesn’t mean it doesn’t have room at the table and soon, Gracia added, the business started to pick up pace and other farmers in Urayong and nearby barangays also ventured into grape production.
Just a shy half an hour drive from Bauang is the Lotus Farm at Dasay in San Juan owned by retired military officer Ramon Tamayo.
Tamayo acquired the property over a decade ago, which was then a piece of land with sloped terraces and a relatively void ecosystem that is a result of chemical farming. Today, it is a sustainable ecotourism farm and wellness sanctuary.
Giant dignified bamboo trees (including the Hunan-native black bamboo or Phyllostachys nigra) grow abundantly throughout the property, while clean spring water runs from the hills to the lush rain forest that is home to a variety of heirloom rice and tropical plants. For foodies, there’s an impressive selection of plant-based meals from its inhouse farm-to-table restaurant.
The farm also offers tours, acupuncture treatments by Ramon’s wife, Marissa—who runs a clinic—and tai chi and qi gong classes led by Ramon, who has been a practitioner of both for 28 years.
Surfing and sustainability in San Juan
Despite the bustling busyness along the beach of Urbiztondo, a sea turtle was sighted laying its eggs for the first time in a long while. With San Juan’s no-exception rule toward sustainability, this doesn’t come off as a surprise.
Coastal cleanups are a regular occurrence in the area, largely through the efforts of the La Union Surf Club and SIFCare-Curma, or Coastal Underwater Resource Management Actions, a project which organizes volunteers to help patrol the beach in San Juan to secure turtle nests and, eventually, help to safely release the hatchlings back into the ocean.
“Only 1 percent of the hatchlings will survive to be an adult, and that is in nature,” explains Curma. “Most of the mortality rate happens from the nest until the shallow water, so what we’re doing here is we transfer the nest from the hatchery for proper incubation.”
Poaching has been rampant in San Juan until 2010, and even in other parts of the country until today. We learned that the organization now trains former poachers of sea turtles to become beach patrols.
Spanish-era churches
The Basilica Minore of Our Lady of Charity, as fondly described by Municipal Tourism and Information Office-Agoo’s Iwa Serrano, is a survivor of sorts.
The parish was founded in 1578 by Franciscan friars, Fray John Baptist Lucarelli of Pesaro, Italy; and Fray Sebastián de San Francisco of Baesa, Spain.
A massive earthquake destroyed the church in 1982, paving the way for reconstruction of the shrine of Nuestra Señora de Caridad in 1893. It was later demolished and replaced with the present church in 1975 that was again later hit by a catastrophic 7.7-magnitude Luzon earthquake.
“This basilica was destroyed twice,” Iwa recalled. “But here in Agoo we see that as a reflection of our resilience. The broken parts are just part of its charm.”
Today its unconventional architecture demonstrated by its two nonidentical bell towers is a tourism magnet. To the left of the façade is a four-level hexagonal tower, while the right bell tower is a bell gable in its form. The confessional and the ceiling have a similar architecture. One is in front of the stained glass window of the Crucifixion of Jesus with the two thieves.
More historic churches can be found in the other towns of La Union.
To be continued
Image credits: Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez