I have witnessed Ilocos’ iconic windmills spinning during the golden hour before twilight. I have seen it twirl its white blades during a storm. And now, due to another day of postponed boat trip to Babuyan Islands and a miscalculation in time planning, I’ve now witnessed these giants spin their propellers against the evening stars. I was speechless, it was simply magical.

A bronze sculpture of a saddled Spanish conquistador brandishing a pointed spear stared at us as we alighted from our bus. We’ve just evaded the usual 10-hour land trip from Manila to Ilocos Norte, thanks to SEAIR’s newest flight route to Laoag City. But still, the weather outside was a real scorcher and we wanted a roof over our head. According to the books, Fort Ilocandia is the only five-star accommodation this side of the Philippines and I’m more than glad to accept their offered hospitality.

My worn trek shoes slid through the shifting sand as I navigated a hill. The sun looked like a golden disc, silently and poetically hovering above the hardy trees of Paoay’s arid sand dunes. I kept my pace, battling the loose dunes for that spot on its hilltop where I can try and frame the desert sunset.

I have been to this place before. More than a year ago, while circling the island of Luzon, we decided to drop by and have a peek at Paoay’s odd sand dunes. Deserts aren’t really part of the usual Philippine landscapes and everyone’s curiosity was piqued by this unnatural scenery this part of Ilocos.

Recently SEAIR (South East Asian Airlines) announced that they would be opening a new route to the north of the Philippines. The said route would ply the Manila to Laoag airways and would finally open up the Ilocos Region to an alternative travel schedule.

Together with a couple of travelers, I was invited by the airline to participate in the inaugural flight to Laoag City. I was still reeling from a hectic three-day trip to Japan the previous day, but I just couldn’t say no to this. Jetlagged, I repacked my backpack and headed towards Terminal 4 of NAIA where the SEAIR terminal is.

I really didn’t plan to go off and cross the three main islands of the Philippines. It just so happened that I got an invite for a Mindanao festival and my other travel plans for the month of June 2012 just seamlessly volted in together. In the end, I ventured from one of the northernmost province of Luzon, visited the heart of Visayas and landed on the upper lands of Mindanao. Everything-everything in sixteen awesome days without boarding a single airplane.
 

We woke up to the loud patter of rain, Vigan City was drowning. And before everything swam to the ocean, we escaped the torrential rain enveloping the city. Trying to outrun dark clouds, we headed north again, this time to the coastal town of Currimao in Ilocos Norte.

The heavens still have tinge of blues as our van drove up to a lone hotel fronting the sea. The morning air was crisp with dew as we went further up the road, looking for a place to turn.

I recall a message years back from an old friend telling me about a place in Ilocos Norte that resembles something straight out of the Star Wars universe. She said it was like Tatooine, only everything’s frozen.

I’ve been to Ilocos countless times already but I can’t believe I still haven’t seen this George Lucas induced landscape yet.

On my latest trip north, Kapurpurawan Rock finally made it into the itinerary. The plan was to shoot the iconic landscape for the sunset. Only problem was, it had been raining on and off all day and it would be a miracle if the sun showed itself at all.

It seemed our luck was about to turn though. The sky showed hints of blue as we started to descend the stone steps that lead to the shore where the nature-sculpted rock of Kapurpurawan is located.

The rain fell again. More permanently this time.

The original plan of visiting Kabigan Falls and Saud Beach were scraped off our list and the only place we were able to check out at the northern end of Ilocos Norte was the Patapat Viaduct. A brief respite from the dour weather allowed us to alight from the van and shoot a few photos.

The drive took longer than our visit and we were soon on the road again, going back to Burgos for the Farola of Cape Bojeador.

I did a double take as we passed a sign en route to the Bangui Windmills. Kang Kang Café? Seriously? We had a few laughs and eventually forgot about it.

A few years later and I’m staring at another sign with the curiously named café on it but this time, the actual coffee shop is just a few steps away from where I was standing. KangKang Café is not a figment of a fast moving tricycle and my imagination, it is a real place after all.

It was the second time I beheld the swirling white behemoths of the north and the awe that goes along with it was the same as the first. The blades of the windmills of Ilocos Norte heavily cut the air above, swishing and swooshing their endless rotations.

The once blue sky we witnessed at Laoag City was being invaded by thick clouds as we ventured closer to the shores of Bangui.

For beach bums, Bangui is not the most ideal place. The sand is very course and on some parts composed of midsized pebbles. Then there’s the waves which angrily crashes through the shoreline every other second. Tourists visit the place for the windmills, which are the first in the Philippines and the largest in Southeast Asia.

The rain pattered through the cold bus window as we navigated the evening traffic through EDSA. We buzzer-beat the time and were soon loading our bags through the back of the rented van we’ll be calling home for a three-day jaunt in Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte.

With two beautiful models and four photographers aboard--two more waiting along the way--I made myself comfortable, plugged in my ultra-morose Ryan Adams playlist, covered my eyes with my Headware and tried to sleep off the ten-hour ride to the Ilocos Region.

I have been to Ilocos quite a number of times but this province up north has always captivated me. A chance to revisit it presented itself a few days ago and I can never say no. A grueling overnight trip later and we’re visiting old familiar sites and a few new ones. The old farola at Cape Bojeador had been one of the revisits, and although I have quite a few photos of this 19th century lighthouse from previous trips , it delighted me to find that I still have a few angles that I haven’t covered yet.

A tour of Ilocos Norte would not be complete without tasting its famous orange-colored empanadas.

While the empanadas most Manileños know are made of crusty bread, the ones being sold in the streets Ilocos are quite different. Instead of bread, the crust is made of rice flour and in place of the usual giniling, its filling is stuffed with egg, bean sprouts and garlic longanisas.
There are actually two versions of the famed Ilocos Empanada, those that are made in Vigan and the ones beng sold in Laoag and Batac. One can immediately see the difference between the two by just looking at them; Vigan’s has a more subtle color than the orangeier version of Batac.
Batac’s Empanada, which is commonly referred to as the Ilocos Empanada uses achuete to color its crust. It’s also much thicker than its Vigan counterpart; making it somewhat harder to eat when it gets cold.

But who would want to eat cold empanadas right? The best way to gobble these orange delights would be to head to Batac City and check the stalls some meters from the Marcoses ancestral house.
The place is an empanada haven, stalls upon stalls of glowing orange half-moons line its corridors and they’re all freshly made. One can order a regular serving which has a filling of grated green papaya for a lesser price or get a special order with bean sprouts and Ilocos longanisa for a few pesos more. But wait there’s more, one can have an even more special empanada by having its stuffing doubled! Customize your fillings with a single egg and double longanisa (single double), a double egg and a single longanisa (double single) or two eggs and longanisa (double double). Sinful, I know, but once those orange things get in your hands and you have your first crunchy bite, you’ll definitely forget how bad this stuff probably is for your health.

But we only live once, so indulge I say.
So how do you want your empanada? Single Double? Double Double? How about adding a bowl of piping hot Miki with it? And don’t forget to put in some of those spicy Ilocos Vinegar too! Yumm!

    Batac Empanada
    Batac City, Ilocos Norte
    GPS Coordinates: 18.053882,120.563917 | Click to view location on Google Maps

       LAKBAY NORTE IS AN ANNUAL MEDIA FAMILIARIZATION TOUR AROUND NORTH LUZON 
       ORGANIZED BY NORTH PHILIPPINES VISITORS BUREAU

I used to be a Fernando Poe Jr. fan when I was a kid. My favorite of course were the Panday series and I’ve always wondered where those epic fight scenes with his arch nemesis Lizardo were shot, in the Middle East perhaps, I thought to myself.

I never imagined that those scenes were filmed just ten hours away by bus from Manila. Encompassing 85 square kilometers of arid land, the Paoay Sand Dunes in Ilocos Norte is something out of the ordinary for a tropical country like the Philippines.
I have been dying to see this dry landscape ever since visiting the Ilocos Region years ago but it was always somehow never in the itinerary and when I got the chance to visit it by myself, I can’t find a cheap way to get there.

I was ecstatic then when the powers that be of Lakbay Norte 3 decided to drop by for a few minutes at the Paoay Sand Dunes for a few Temtation Island photo ops.

Kneel, push, stand and start surfing, or rather, paddling! Yup, we’re paddling over a surfboard in Paoay!

Stand Up Paddle Boarding is really not a new sport though. It’s an ancient form of surfing that originates from the surfing capital of the world, Hawaii. Called Hoe he'e nalu in Hawaiian, the sport emerged once more as surfing instructors started practicing it in order to better supervise their students.
The sport is much easier to learn than surfing as it really does not require one to ride a wave. Paddling Boarding can easily be done on placid waters, with a rider easily mastering the board in an hour or so. It is interesting to note that women have the advantage over this sport as they have a lower center of gravity than men.

There are the exotically named Great Cormorants, Pied Bushchats, Brahminy Kites and White Browed Crakes; and then there are the less extravagantly named Egrets, Wandering Whistling Ducks, Grey Herons and Common Sandpipers.

But names are just names, these fantastic birds all flock the same pool in Ilocos Norte; a huge pool that is the Paoay Lake. 470 hectares of water playground to be exact, the Paoay Lake is landlocked body of water that has been declared as a National Park in 1969. The lake is one of the northernmost in the country, making it a feeding point for birds going south.
The Lakbay Norte team arrived at the bird watching platform overlooking the lake at nine in the morning. There were hardly any clouds above and the hut was a welcome respite for the searing heat. We were greeted by Dr. Petrus “Pete” Calope of the Ilocos Norte Bird Watchers for our bird-watching activity.
Armed with a telescope, he guided our eyes towards some little specks of dots on the far distance; Philippine Ducks he says. We looked in, and there they were indeed. He pointed towards another patch on the sparkling lake; Egrets he says. I zoomed in with my telephoto; and there it was, gliding smoothly above the waters of Paoay Lake.
The day however was too late for more birds. We came in too late; our feathered friends according to our esteemed guide show up very early in the morning, disappear in the middle of the day and reappears only at sundown.

A board posted on the deck with exotic bird names showed us just how many species of birds we missed.
With the sun high up, we decided to change location for better luck. A few minutes of driving and we were back down the lake; this time at the Paoay Lake National Park Protected Landscape area.
The place is filled with eons old trees; great hiding place for the birds it seems as we spotted zero avis.

Farther on, the team settled on another viewing platform at the banks of the lake. A few Egrets were making their rounds across the vast lake, but that was about it; we were really too late for the great show.
But birds or no birds, I still enjoyed the visit to Paoay Lake. Local folks setting their beautiful fishing traps and carabaos dipping undisturbed, chewing their neverending chews were enough a spectacle for a city guy like me who’s only too familiar with the polluted esteros of the metro.

    Paoay Lake
    Barangay Suba, Paoay
    Ilocos Norte
    GPS Coordinates: 18.121096,120.537701 | Click to view location on Google Maps

How many times in your lifetime can you say that you’re gonna have breakfast at a Former President’s house? I know presidents have multiple mansions built all over the place, but this one’s different; the Lakbay Norte 3 crew’s gonna have its first meal of the day at the seat of the Philippine Government in the North.
The Malacañang of the North or Malacañang ti Amianan in Ilocano is one of the 29 summer residences built by Former Philippine President Fernando Marcos. A 60th birthday gift by his wife, Former First Lady Imelda Marcos, this is the place where the deposed president used to stay when visiting his hometown.

A tiring day running around Ilocos Norte deserves a good night’s rest; and for our third night around north Luzon, we were treated to a grand stay at the sprawling Ilocos Norte Hotel and Convention Center.

After hearing the hotel’s name, I thought we were gonna be lodged on some generic looking building on a busy street corner somewhere in the middle of the city. Boy was I wrong.
First off, the convention center was huge! It spans a whole street block, I think maybe more. It boasts of 4 suites, 96 standard rooms, 24 dormitory rooms, an auditorium that can accommodate a thousand people, a huge swimming pool, a non-sectarian chapel for wedding needs, a café and a restaurant.

Second, it is not located in the middle of the city but somewhere at the edge of town where it’s nice and quiet; in fact it sits right across the famous Paoay Sand Dunes!

Johnny Moon, the name somehow sounds both strange and familiar. I instinctively recognize that I know it, but like a word stuck on the tip of one’s tongue, the knowledge somehow escapes me.
Passing through an old camalig-turned-museum, the Lakbay Norte team converged on an open dome structure encompassing a courtyard filled with curious café’s and little boutiques. The night led us to Laoag and we’re gonna eat in Laoag! Our restaurant of choice, the enigmatic Johnny Moon Café.

The activity for the day was surfing at the Maira-Ira Beach in Pagudpud. Everyone already had their fill of Kapuluan Vista Resort’s tasty offering and it was time to ride the waves. Well, at least for those who want to. I’ve tried surfing in Baler some months before and it was really not for me. My legs were far too fat and unwieldy for surfing, I leave the wave riding to my Lakbay Norte mates.

So, instead of lugging a surfboard, what I brought were my tripod and cameras as I went off and embraced the crashing waves of the Blue Lagoon.