So excited to have a glimpse of this “Little Boracay of the CARAGA”, I was flabbergasted by its own distinct attributes which poles apart from that of the famous 4 km white beach of Boracay Island. I proved the travelers and travel bloggers wrong tagging Cagwait White Beach as the “Little Boracay of the CARAGA” where in factual statement, the grains of its own white sand is exactly not the same with that of the sugar-liked fine sand of Boracay. As a result, it made me a little cheerless.

Since it is our first time to step foot on this sand bar, we let ourselves experienced the life of a traveler at the beach of Cagwait- finding solace and blissful getaway. So far, the best thing about this place is the isolation from commercialized areas which gave us the chance to enjoy tranquility that we can never get in the city directly. I could imagine how great this spot is during night time as I can visualize the night sky with multitude numbers of stars all over its bed space. It must be startling and peaceful, I thought! Sooner than not, I exclaimed, this will be a next tourist destination for beach lovers.

Cagwait White Beach Resort, Cagwait, Surigao del Sur

Early morning at 5 sitting down in a quiet corner of the room after waking up from the alarm clock that set me up, reminded me of going to Cagwait White Beach Resort located in Cagwait town of Surigao del Sur province. It has been in the fourth day in Tandag City and the plan must push through before I bid goodbye Tandag City in the sixth day.

Tandag which was declared recently as one component city of Surigao del Sur was lucky enough to become a city which hounded some questionable eligibility from Supreme Court decisions. Until last February the decision was final with other new cities of Caraga Region, Bayugan City and Cabadbaran City.

I have to take the advantage because Tandag is much closer to Cagwait White Beach which will take half hour of travel compare to my origin place Butuan City which has almost three hours.

I have been dreaming Cagwait White Beach known as Boracay of Caraga. In my first post I was just a passerby witnessing a billboard for Kaliguan Festival for a quick moment of time then gone, then go back to my birthplace Butuan City, the center of Caraga Region.

The windy morning greeted me as I move out from the door looking some chair at the center of the cafeteria I live. The morning was just quiet and no one else in sight making a move, not anything from the lighted streets leveled before my eyes.

Looking passed the street constructed in a mountain top while I am sitting at the rooftop of a three-story building. A unique parallel position between me and the street is enough like a closer world in the outside.

Sitting the chair in a quiet and still atmosphere, giving me some cool reminiscent after doing my job yesterday from those professional head teachers who want to learn more of computer programs. Some of them find it hard to communicate since they are getting old and hate the technical word of computer language. They spar the mouse in their hand like holding tight causing tired muscles clicking left and pressing hard. And maybe hearing the word mouse is not a joke because they believe it is a pest running in the corner of the house or ruining the crops in the backyards.

The cold wind started drifting my skin layer as I opened the glass in a table top to get a sachet of coffee. If someone witness something strange going at the top then it might kill me since a thief mission started before dawn. But they believe visitor started pulling up everything for his own mission.

Zipping a cup of coffee to fight against the cold wind is just a moment to get energize early morning before moving to bus terminal en route to Cagwait White Beach.

Bus Terminal to Cagwait White Beach

Leaving the building I find my way of hundred stairs in climbing up to the street of Tandag. Walking through a terminal bus in a near distance never mind the dawn started to emerge in a cool and quiet morning. Meeting few structures along the streets with few people moving till up myself in terminal. Seems Tandag was just a baby hungry for development as the state of city hood begin for years.

Sitting in a rural bus was just typical setting where few passengers coming from different locations in going to some rural areas of the province. I notice young man carrying 30 brand new laptops sealed in package to be distributed in remote areas the farthest from Tandag with no fear of apprehension from would-be robbers along the way when sky still dark. When asked where to deliver he answered to Tagbina.

Deal business in a far-flung town that is surpassing seven more towns I guess before reaching Tagbina. Business is part of struggle from day to day when strangers coming in and out in the bus. He talks anyone he meet in the bus and telling them could be the cheapest laptops you can acquire if you have me but keeping an eye to his valuable assets.

This young man is set to become an entrepreneur for life if anything goes alright in his travel for the rest of his life.

Technology has gone so far that started in the Western World, and now the demands of thirty laptops went through in no time in the remote rural town of the province. Peoples seems addicted to the technology and they can acquire easily through cash on delivery or installment process.

The price of laptops nowadays goes in a downward trend since oversupply and competitive market becomes apparent, added measure was the invasion of mobile computing world like the rise of smartphones and tablets.

This young man promised everyone of having the advantage, and business became his recipe in life. I almost forgot where I have to go then someone shouting for Cagwait, till that moment I consumed 30 minutes or more, when I move out from the bus I am already in the center town of Cagwait.

Embracing Boracay Of Caraga

Along the highway, there was an adjacent road in going to Cagwait White Beach Resort and you have to wait for single motor called ‘habal habal’ in local community to carry you to the beach. Since still 6 in the morning, wrap up myself alone do the walking for hundreds of meters till I drop in a distance and my forehead badly sweating.

I think I have a bad estimate when someone told me you can reach Cagwait White Beach Resort by walking. I guess it was just kilometers away.

Single motor or ‘habal-habal’ at last came to the rescue and drop me at the entrance of Cagwait White Beach. Of course, seeing a vast land of white sands was an exciting tone and lifting the spirit for those first timers wants to make historic visit in the ‘Unseen Paradise’. The white line curving in a distance paints a warm impression. Sunrise began spreading its rays that merge in the ocean and sands putting glowing effects in Mother Nature.

Skies were clear and the weather was perfect for just visitor and incoming visitors of the day. Exploring the scene of natures it is captivating to say what others telling when witness a horseshoe shape paradise resort facing the Pacific Ocean with clear blue water mixed of blinking crystal when rays started to elope with water that bounces the large waves in the shorelines.

High tide started to diminish as large waves contains the white sand beach like sometimes an angry mob in a friendly gestures. The sounds of the bouncing waves sometimes like a bomb, but if someone asked me how it did to my ears they are sweet like a gong of music spreading healthy tone inside the auditory nerve. They played like magic as the bluish clear water mixed in fine white sand leveled each other fighting in the shoreline.

I walked a straight line tried to investigate how Cagwait White Beach became famous in the minds of the local. I have not seen anyone in the beachline except on the base of the curve in the far where three peoples never end their revelry embracing the white sand beach for life. In this moment I owned the beach alone drifting in a quiet pristine paradise.

This place became Boracay of Caraga but in an opposite rivalry since Boracay already a populous shorelines bumping each other shoulders either foreign or local tourists along the way. But here in Cagwait White Beach is like walking in a no man’s land, at least I met two fishermen along the way busy untangling the net with their few catches.

It seems walking alone with my bare feet as I used to be, touching in the wilderness the cotton like sands which formed my feet across for miles. I have never felt exhausted and drained. Energy is continuing and soul is alive when heart engaging the distance of the sands. When looking back of what I accomplished I can’t believe of what I have done. Those falling sweats in the skin started influencing the healthy lifestyle in the sea.

At the end portion of the beach find my way of small rocks littered the sea. Sitting in one of the rocks find a resting place while looking back the baseline of the horseshoe shape paradise which becoming far away in the naked eyes. The white lines draw back the coastlines witnessing one end to the other end.

From:http://caraganon.com/2011/10/cagwait-white-beach-resort-cagwait-surigao-del-sur/

Brief History

Cagwait is a coastal town located in the central part of the province of Surigao del Sur. It straddles along the coast of Pacific Ocean and Mount Diwata. It has a total land area of 21,410 hectares and a population of 19,899 (NSO, 2007) scattered among its eleven (11) barangays.

Historical Origin of Cagwait

Young sailors from Leyte, who escaped from enslaving hands of Spaniards, sailed southward in 1840 in a boat called “veloz” and noticed they were passing  into a bay resembling a human mouth, which in vernacular, it is called “mao rag wait.” The bay looked like an open mouth and the peninsula resembling the esophagus. The settlers later on called the place “Cagwait.”

Thus in July 1840, when Father Juan Engrova first baptized the people in the new settlement, wrote the name Cagwait in his record entitled, “Libros de Bautismos,” 1845-1860.

The diversity of the marine and forest ecosystem facing the bay and the land along it are fertile. It favors for growing crops that attracted more and more settlers from other and nearby places.

The Founding of Cagwait

The town was founded on January 20, 1953 by which then Hon. Rafael Consuegra as the first appointed Municipal Mayor.

MUNICIPAL MAYORS AND OICs

Present-Day Cagwait

Cagwait was once a barrio of Tandag, the capital town of the province of Surigao del Sur in 1869. Cagwait was proposed as an independent Municipality in 1903 through the influence of an American who argued the distance of Cagwait from the mother town.

In 1918, Tago, another barrio of Tandag, was created as separate Municipality due to its rapid growth and progress. Cagwait became a barrio of Tago.

As a barrio of Tago, Cagwait had greatly contributed to the economic development of the town.

After 35 years, on January 20, 1953, Cagwait became a new Municipality separating itself to the Municipality of Tago. It was created by virtue of Executive Order No. 559 signed by then President Elpidio Quirino, making Hon. Rafael Consuegra as the first appointed Municipal Mayor. The inauguration was held on April 18, 1953. Consuegra served from the said date to year 1955 until Hon. Egidio C. Lozada became the first elected Mayor who served for three (3) terms from 1956-1959, 1960-1963, and 1964-1967.

Originally, five (5) barangays comprised the town, namely: Poblacion, Aras-asan, Bacolod, Bayabas and Bitaugan.

Barely eight (8) years passed after its establishment, Bayabas chose to split from Cagwait and became a separate town in 1961. The town has since increased to its present eleven (11) barangays. Added barangays are Lactudan, La Purisima, Mat-e, Tawagan, Tubo-tubo, Unidad and with the division of Barangay Bitaugan into two: Bitaugan East and Bitaugan West.

Present-day Cagwait comprises about 21,410 hectares, about 23.3% or two fifths which are flat areas of coastal plain and 76.7% or three fifths rolling, hilly and mountainous. The eleven (11) barangays are distributed into eight (8) homogenous ecological units as follows:

1. Urban barangays: Aras-asan, La Purisima, Poblacion, Tubo-tubo, Unidad
2. Rural barangays: Bacolod, Bitaugan East, Bitaugan West, Lactudan, Mat-e, Tawagan
3. Coastal barangays: Aras-asan, Bacolod, Bitaugan East, Bitaugan West, Lactudan, La Purisima, Poblacion, Tawagan, Unidad
4. Upland barangays: Mat-e, Tubo-tubo
5. Riverine barangays: Bacolod, Mat-e, Tubo-tubo
6. Estuarine barangays: Aras-asan, BItaugan East, Bitaugan West, Lactudan, La Purisima, Poblacion, Tawagan, Unidad
7. Agricultural plain: Aras-asan, Bitaugan East, Lactudan, Poblacion, Tawagan, Unidad
8. Mountain barangays: Bacolod, Bitaugan West, La Purisima, Mat-e, Tubo-tubo
9. from:http://cagwait.gov.ph/about-us/history/