Part 2 of our Surigao adventure was supposed to be Siargao - Sohoton trip in Surigao del Norte but unfortunately for us, we were stuck in Surigao city because all ferries are cancelled because of Typhoon Ruby. So I'll just tell you how we killed time and made Surigao City fun (for us).
If you read about my Surigao del Sur trip, we came from Hinatuan bus terminal. There's no direct bus going to Surigao city so we have to go back to Butuan. The ride was again 5 hours from Hinatuan then we rode a bus in Butuan's bus terminal headed for Surigao City. Travel time was around 3 hours.
When we arrived Surigao at 7pm, we hired a habal habal driver to take us to a good hotel near the port. We were still very hopeful during that time that the weather will get better and we will be allowed to cross to Siargao. We stayed at E.Y Suites and it was so-so. It was okay for a night but if you're staying longer at Surigao city, I do not recommend this hotel. We slept early that night because we were too tired from the 8 hour travel we did.
The next day, we woke up early (5:30am) to check on the port's situation. We arrived the port and we saw that trips are cancelled but we were still very hopeful so we stayed there for a few hours. We made friends with the stranded people there and most of them are stuck there for 2 days already. We left at around 9:00 because we got hungry and we decided to just give up and try again the next day. After breakfast, we looked for a better place to stay for the night and we found the best hotel ever in the whole wide world. Char! We stayed at The Grande Suites in Surigao City. Okay. Here's the best thing about this hotel, for the price of 1380, we had free dinner and breakfast (which were both yummy, mind you!), free ride anywhere in Surigao (as long as Kuya Kent, the driver, is there), free wifi and super nice rooms. They even upgraded us from Standard to Deluxe for no particular reason. Plus, the staff are super friendly and funny :) It was one of the best staycation I had just because of the staff there.
The rest of the day was spent at our hotel because it's raining and the winds are really getting stronger. We just watched the news the whole day and updated ourselves with the storm. We really felt unfortunate that we are stuck in Surigao but also fortunate that we found a good hotel with the most friendly staff.
The next day, we tried going to the port again but still no trips for us. We gave up on our Siargao dream but we promised to be back.
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| The faces of people that will be back! |
We just decided to hear mass at their cathedral even if it's in Bisaya.
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| The closest to Siargao that we can get |