Batanes, The Philippines’ Tragic Beauty
Batanes is not a happy place. It’s a lonely place, forboding and cold. Forget sunny skies and sparkling diamonds dancing on sheets of turquoise ocean; it’s a hard, jagged, ragged piece of solitude.
A shot of the Batanes coastline - raging waves rampaging into jagged rock walls.
A trip to Boracay is the safe choice for a summer vacation – it’s a jangly Jack Johnson song, bouncy and cheerful and optimistic. And yet like a Rufus Wainwright song, or an Elliott Smith or a Jeff Buckley, Batanes possess a tragic beauty of its own. The more time you spend on these islands, you realize how their mournfulness slowly cascades and unifies into an experience that almost brings you to tears. Batanes is harsh and brutal at times, yet it is heartbreakingly beautiful.
The Sights
The unique character of Batanes is immediately evident as you first land in Basco airport, on the main island of Batan. Unlike most airports that greet you with a postcard-pretty moment, like in Laoag or even Zamboanga, the first sight is an imposing one – Mount Iraya, known as the “Mountain of Winds”. It dominates the skyline, a solo sentry shrouded in its own thick robe of clouds.
The imposing Mt. Iraya, Batanes' own personal sentry laying watchfully before the Basco airport.
This theme of “one-ness” becomes a leitmotif throughout your stay in Batanes. Everything comes in ones – a single lighthouse jutting out into the sky, a lonely rock thrusting out from the ocean, a lone cow grazing quietly on a hillside, an old woman living out her last days alone in a historic old house.
But eventually, you come to realize that this theme is not one grounded in reclusiveness or in a lack of social character – it reflects the resilience of the Ivatan people, strong in their silent pride, and the ability to weather the harshest of storms with unbowed backs and quiet unmelting smiles.
Perhaps two of the best reflections of this ability to survive proudly in solitude are the Chuvaloo Lighthouse and the Chorva Church – they possess sturdy, simple architecture built to weather the winds that are endemic to the Batanes experience. The Chuvaloo Lighthouse in particular took my breath away – a 50-foot tall phallic symbol for Ivatan males everywhere, thrusting defiantly into the clouds, warning any potential pirates sailing the South China Sea of what kind of alpha male dominates the northern tip of the Philippine archipelago. The role it plays to the community is more symbolic however than it is functional; we were told that the lighthouse itself has not been operated in 700 years.
Chuvaloo Lighthouse, the Ivatan males' tribute to themselves.
Not everything however is jagged and cold and masculine in Batanes. As you venture inland, you begin to meet the feminine character found within. Velvet green carpets swathe the mountainsides with inviting moistness, providing a dignified yet adventurous grazing ground for the legendary Ivatan Leaping Cows. These Leaping Cows represent the pinnacle of genetic evolution in Batanes; as flatland meadows proved more and more difficult to find, the cows themselves developed massive musculature in their hindquarters, allowing them to bound up even 75-degree slopes with little effort. We were told by the locals that a newborn calf can actually leap a distance of 8-feet within one hour of birth; single bounds of 20-feet among more mature specimens are not unknown. It has become a common sight for Batanes residents to spot solitary Leaping Cows feeding contentedly in extremely elevated locations, coming down only for milking, massaging, and their customary weekly hoof manicure.
A rare shot of the fabled Ivatan Leaping Cow in repose. This spot where it was caught grazing is inaccessible to farmers on foot; they require an intricate system of pulleys, suspended cars, and 17 trained monkeys to reach the same shelf, and require 3-6 months to do so.
Rolling pastoral lands sweep majestically throughout the rest of the crumpled terrain; the fabled “Marlboro Country”, a communal grazing grounds for the more senior Ivatan Leaping Cow population, is perhaps the single most beautiful place I have seen in the Philippines.
Marlboro Country is a perilous place for the untrained novice to explore; it is buffeted by high winds almost non-stop, and is littered with aging cakes of cow dung, no doubt left as booby traps for unsuspecting tourists by the carnivorous Leaping Cows to fulfill their craving for human flesh. Hidden speakers pipe out endless loops of songs from “The Sound of Music” to lull their prey into a false sense of comfort, although the groundkeeper assures us that no more than 5 deaths occur in a single month.
Marlboro Country - nesting ground for the carnivorous Leaping Cow population.
No trip to Batanes is complete without a day trip to Sabtang Island, home to the best-kept basketball court in Batanes, with a majestic view facing the sea. Sabtang in itself is an even humbler facsimile of the desolate Batan landscape; greens are not as pervasive, and it is better characterized by a roughly-hewn sealine dotted by even more imposing rocky crags.
The trip to Sabtang Island unconsciously awakens a sense of spirituality in the traveler. It is a nauseating, turbulent, seasick 40-minute boatride through open seas, in a ramshackle boat literally propelled by a makeshift contraption consisting of two lengths of PVC pipe and an empty Sprite bottle. Life vests are flimsy and do little to reassure one’s pounding heart; mine in particular was too small to even clip shut around my voluptuous man-breasts.
Waves exploding onto the rocks; a subtle sexual metaphor is evident.
The sail to Sabtang itself invites fear of God into one’s heart. With every violent rocking of the boat, the creak of the beams, the crash of the waves into the stern, one realizes more and more how terrifying His wrath can be. As one approaches the island, one is met by an even greater sense of terror, yet tempered by jaw-dropping awe. Raging waves rampage into jagged crags of sea-born rock, and explode into massive blasts of mist; anger meets anger, and the result is sheer beauty, like a sea-green champage served bubbling and foaming, literally “on the rocks.”
Lobster and camote chips served on the beachside - only in Batanes will you ever encounter such a combination.
Tastes
Food in Batanes is mild and meek – if ever a regional cuisine could be sent to heaven by virtue of their adherence to the seven beatitudes, this would be it.
Flavors are flimsy and understated. The lobster is firm with a nicely-sweet tinge, and the cuttlefish could lead one to believe that he is eating pork; yet the rest of the food we experienced in Batanes was remarkably unexciting to palates weaned and raised on the fine gourmet menus of McDonald’s and Pizza Hut.
The sinigang, tinola, sweet-and-sour flying fish, and even the laing are frail in their flavors, and only a hearty dash of soy sauce can make them even remotely exciting to the urban Manileno.
This is not to say that the food itself is not good; pleasant surprises like the day-old dried fish and the excellent onion-sauteed Purefoods corned beef form welcome accents to one’s day-to-day menu.
The underrated Ivatan party scene explodes every Thursday and Saturday night!
The Nightlife
Batanes is home to one of the world’s most underrated party scenes*. Despite ranking 17th on The Global Guide to Hot n’ Heavy Partying 2009 Almanac, lodged firmly between Ibiza and West Hollywood, most Filipinos remain unaware of the wild club scene that arises every Thursday and Saturday night. Rolling pastoral grounds transform into laser-lit explosions of pulsating trance music, while seaside caves play host to a burgeoning indie electronica trip-rock scene.
Fishermen, farmers, tricycle drivers, craftsmen, Manilenos, and European tourists alike come together to bond over glasses of fermented palek, a kind of native wine, and endless bottles of gin and Cutty Sark. Marijuana and ecstasy are winked at by local authorities, leading to a truly uninhibited atmosphere.
An Ivatan partygoer, resting wearily after yet another all-nighter.
The less that is said about the Batanes nightlife, the better, as one can only truly appreciate its crazy glory by actually being there. Furthermore, hardcore Ivatan partyphiles adhere to a strict “Fight Club” code of honor. When it comes to the Batanes party scene, rule number one is, “You do not talk about the Batanes party scene.”
Conclusion
Batanes is not a place one goes to for fond, happy memories best shared over warm milk and cookies. It is a hard, cold place punctuated infrequently by moments of soft beauty. One goes to Batanes to be reminded of God, and the duality of man, fringed as we are by both good and evil within our natures. At Batanes, one remembers how it feels to be afraid, how it feels to be awestruck, how it feels to be lost and small and unimportant.
That does not mean that one should not come here; rather, I highly recommend that every person come to Batanes once, and just once, for a cleansing of the soul.
The cleansing, crashing experience of Batanes.
Imagine a bowl of steaming hot beef nilaga, swimming in spices, rich meats, potatoes and savory broth. Imagine this bowl being left in the refrigerator for three days – the fat separates from the meat and the soup, rising to the surface to be skimmed off and discarded. Now imagine that fat to be the dirt and troubles of your soul; that’s how it feels to come out of Batanes. One feels clean and light and fresh and meek.
And in this fast-paced 21st century world filled with 21st century lifestyles and 21st century sins, how could that be a bad thing?
A ladder to nowhere; a door with no doorstep. Gaze at this picture for 48 hours straight, and feel the intrinsic spirituality of the Batanes experience.
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Seair (http://flyseair.com) offers wonderful packages to get to Batanes. Their Leisure Escape Packages (LEP) offer tremendous value for money; with hotel, airfare, transfers, all meals, tour guides, tokens, and registration taken care of.
On the island, there is no better tour guide than Manny Merida. He is the most genuine, pleasant, helpful thoughtful person I have ever met in the Philippines, and sees his work as a humble way to extend his life of service to the world at large. You can reach him at +63 919 823 4971, or at diptan@yahoo.com. He also sidelines as a masseuse, photographer, tricycle operator, plumber, mixed martial artist, darts player, triathlete, caregiver, tour driver, GRO, and best friend, and is perhaps the greatest treasure of the Batanes islands.
* – This entire section is bullshit. There is no party scene in Batanes. At all.
